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The Children's Commissioner was invited to give a keynote speech at the ACPO annual conference on 10 June. A summary of her address is below.

The role and remit of the Children's Commissioner for England rests on the notion that children and young people need advocacy. They need a national champion to speak on their behalf and champion their interests.

My post and the office which supports it were created under the 2004 Children Act. It is matched by similar but not replica posts in the UK's devolved administrations, most European nations, and many countries across the world; however, each Children's Commissioner's remit differs slightly.

The Children Act states that we have duty to promote awareness of the views and interests of all children in England, in particular those whose voices are least likely to be heard, to the people who make decisions about their lives. We also have a duty to speak on behalf of all children in the UK on non-devolved issues.

One of my key functions is encouraging organisations that provide services for children always to operate from the child's perspective.  In carrying out my work, I must have regard for the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

We comment on issues where children's voices indicate it is needed - we call for change in policy on safeguarding, health, education, youth justice, asylum, active citizenship, and economic wellbeing. As Commissioner I work on behalf of all 11.8 million children in England, with particular regard for the most vulnerable and marginalised, including those who offend.

Our vision is probably much like yours, or the Children's Trusts on which many of your staff will sit in England's children's services authorities. Our planning starts with what children tell me they wish for, dream of and need, not what adults in even the best services think should happen. We press for a routine in all policymaking: that if a policy is about them, children's and young people's views are automatically asked for, listened to and acted on, so their outcomes improve over time. 

I was delighted when ACPO decided to set up a Business Area for the Association dedicated to children and young people's issues, reflecting the continued importance ACPO places on the 0 to 19 age group. I have read a late draft version of the ACPO children and young people's strategy. It is strongly flavoured by your recognition that unless we work in partnership, we will achieve far less than we ever set out to do. I commend ACPO for creating and publishing it and hope it is used well in every locality in the country.

By way of illustration, I want briefly to share an anecdotal example from existing good practice in the field your strategy covers. As Director of Children's Services in Gateshead my department worked closely with police in the Northumbria Force. Our partnerships with a succession of borough commanders and their officers were active at many levels: there were strong, productive, professional links between the Public Protection Unit and our social care staff, and equally between our youth offending team and the borough's police team.

But it went further than that: police officers in Northumbria's Total Policing environment saw themselves as part of multi-agency services in our localities. Officers were regular visitors to, and became familiar presences in, schools and children's centres and other young people's settings across the borough, places where they did as much preventative "caps off" as official "caps on" work with children, families, teachers and others. Their presence helped demystify what policing is about for those who didn't or would rather not understand it, and created genuinely trusting relationships in some tough, and some not so tough, communities. 

Police were successful too with more challenging young people: a team in one locality worked with a group who had built a den on Forestry Commission woodland.  And no, they didn't get it taken down and just move them all on - they worked with the youngsters to make a den that was sturdier, safer, less of a hazard and less likely to attract the fringe element determined on wrongdoing. They helped the group to create a set of binding rules of conduct for the site, to which other youngsters were then held not by adults, but by their peers. The consequence of it all going wrong?  Police and fire services would come and take it all down - and yes, it was a success.

Your new Strategy acknowledges how hard it is for some of our most marginal youngsters to engage with the police. Most children and young people see you as a trusted, necessary, reassuring presence, yet there are those who don't. Some among that small group who will end up as first time entrants to the justice system, and then all too frequently as subsequent re-entrants as they grow into adulthood. 

The United Nations Human Rights Committee consistently criticises the UK's approach to the ways in which we label, report, try, punish, rehabilitate, change and treat youngsters who offend. Let me be clear that I do know we are making progress, and that numbers in contact with or held in the system have started to fall; they have further to go. We must be prepared to have the debate we need, so we continue to make progress, which is why this Strategy from you is such a milestone on the journey.

Most children and young people in England are well brought up, schooled, parented and have their time well occupied. Most are ready to face the obstacles life will present. Some of course are needier, and from very early on it's clear they are challenged or challenging, likely to be troubled or in trouble. A tiny minority are massively damaged. These are the ones most likely to do themselves or others serious harm, unless together we can turn them around. 

I urge that you work together with the partners in every English locality to explore, and to decide what you will do about, the issues both you and your children and young people face. I'm challenging all concerned to stick with the dialogue, even when resources are scarce. And I'm asking you to believe in and help build the future for our children and young people, especially those whose voices would otherwise go unheard.

For more information about the Office of the Children's Commissioner's work in the area of youth justice, contact Ross Hendry, Director of Policy.