Anne Hollonds National Children's Commissioner Australian Human Rights Commission Foreword The needs and rights of children and young people are frequently ‘side-lined’ while policy tends to be dominated by the concerns of adults. This was seen during the COVID-19 pandemic which disrupted our lives in unparalleled ways, exacerbating inequalities and amplifying systemic failures in the policies and service systems that are meant to help children and young people, especially those living with poverty, disadvantage and complex needs. COVID government regulations impacted on a broad range of children’s rights, including their rights to health, education, and safety, with long term implications now evident, such as increased serious mental health disorders at younger ages and widespread school attendance anxiety. In early 2020, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child recognised the devastating short, medium, and long-term consequences of the pandemic on children across the globe. It called on nations to ensure children’s rights were a priority in decision-making, and to develop alternative mechanisms to safeguard their health, development, learning, and wellbeing. However, responses to the pandemic were largely developed for adults without robust consideration of the rights and wellbeing of children. Australian children and young people under the age of 19 represent 24% of the population, but their voices and needs were absent from the ‘top’ decisionmaking tables during the pandemic. Australia’s first national Child Rights Impact Assessment (CRIA) tool – Safeguarding Children – provides one mechanism for strengthening the voices of children and prioritising their needs. It provides an opportunity for decision-makers, across all jurisdictions, to assess and monitor the impacts of policy and legislation on children’s rights and wellbeing, not only in crises and emergency situations, but in all government decisions that affect children and their families every day. Australia needs to make child wellbeing a national priority in order to ensure that the needs and voices of children and young people are heard. We will all benefit because childhood experiences have long-term implications and costs for the whole community. I recommend building Child Rights Impact Assessments into all policy development and monitoring mechanisms in order to strengthen protective factors for child health, development, learning and wellbeing. Children and their families need to be heard on the design and implementation of policies that are meant to help them. It is my hope that Safeguarding Children – Australia’s Child Rights Impact Assessment tool is widely applied and continually improved as we learn how to build good policy, legislation and service systems with child wellbeing as our national priority. Anne Hollonds National Children’s Commissioner Safeguarding Children: Using a child rights impact assessment to improve our laws and policies | 7