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Deaths of children in need

12 December 2024

This report contains new findings on the deaths of children in need. ‘Child in need’ is an umbrella term including looked after children, children on a child protection plan, and children on a child in need plan. This report examines the characteristics of children and young people who die having had social care involvement, and […]

Report

Hierarchy of needs for care experienced young people

10 December 2024

The Children’s Commissioner’s Care Experienced Advisory Board have created a hierarchy of needs based on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. It is a visual guide to help professionals working with care experienced young people understand their needs and support them. The different levels of the pyramid consider the basic requirements that care experienced young people need […]

Report

Children with complex needs who are deprived of liberty: Interviews with children to understand their experiences of being deprived of their liberty

18 November 2024

Thousands of children in the United Kingdom are currently deprived of their liberty. They are confined in young offender institutions, mental health wards, or secure children’s homes, but a growing proportion are being deprived of their liberty outside a secure setting, through the use of High Court deprivation of liberty orders. These orders, which are […]

Report

Children’s voices on mathematics

15 November 2024

As Children’s Commissioner one of my main ambitions is that every child has access to a brilliant education: one that helps them to achieve their goals, no matter how ambitious.  To make this possible they need access to a broad range of subjects, with a particular focus on the core subjects of English, maths and […]

Report

The Big Conversation Podcast – Episode 2 – Melanie Dawes, Chief Executive, Ofcom

6 November 2024

The Big Conversation: In conversation with the Children’s Commissioner and her youth Ambassadors is my podcast series where I share the voices and views of England’s children.  The podcast draws on the themes in The Big Ambition and will focus on the most important issues that are impacting young people’s lives, with solutions developed with […]

Podcast

What is this plan for? The purpose and content of children in need plans

4 November 2024

There is a group of just over 400,000 children living in England who are defined as ’children in need’, because they have been identified as needing meaningful intervention from the state to support their development, prevent problems in their home lives from escalating or to help if they are disabled.   Around a quarter of these […]

Report

Supporting care experienced students: A handbook for professionals working in higher education

29 October 2024

As Children’s Commissioner, I have had the privilege to hear from many brilliant and inspiring care experienced young people about their lives now and hopes for the future. Care experienced young people are rightly ambitious for their futures and have told me what support they need to help them meet their own goals. To help […]

Report

“I’ve seen horrible things”: Children’s experiences of the online world

The online world has evolved significantly since I started as Children’s Commissioner in 2021. A technological revolution followed the COVID-19 pandemic – featuring the launch of new Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools into the public realm and the increasing presence of social media platforms in the lives of children. As we mark the first anniversary of […]

Report

Waiting times for assessment and support for autism, ADHD and other neurodevelopmental conditions 

15 October 2024

In 2024, we would never imagine that children in this country are being told they cannot access their education because there is no suitable school for them. We would not expect that some children are non-verbal and wearing nappies well into the primary school years, because they haven’t been able to get the help they […]

Report

The Big Conversation Podcast – Episode 1 – My Youth Ambassadors

19 September 2024

The Big Conversation: In conversation with the Children’s Commissioner and her youth Ambassadors is my podcast series where I share the voices and views of England’s children.  The podcast draws on the themes in The Big Ambition and will focus on the most important issues that are impacting young people’s lives, with solutions developed with […]

Podcast

Children Missing Education: The Unrolled Story

10 September 2024

Every child has a fundamental right to an education, yet more than 100,000 children each year are being denied this basic right. These children, many of whom have slipped through the cracks of our education system, are not just numbers—they are young lives at risk of being forgotten. I am deeply concerned about this situation, […]

Report

Strip searching of children in England and Wales: First complete dataset for 2018–2023, including new data July 2022-June 2023

19 August 2024

In light of the shocking case of Child Q, a 15-year-old Black girl who was strip searched while at school in Hackney nearly four years ago, I wanted to use my statutory powers as Children’s Commissioner to investigate the practice of strip searching children by the police. Child Q’s case was so extreme that I […]

Report