Children's Commissioner for Jersey

About the Commissioner

The Children’s Commissioner for Jersey is Deborah McMillan.

Her job is to promote and protect children and young people’s rights. To do this the Commissioner will tell people about children and young people’s rights and why they are so important. She has a team of people who work with her to make this happen.

Together they look at how the decisions made by certain organisations in Jersey, including the Government of Jersey, affect children and young people’s rights. They also provide advice to those organisations about how they can better respect the rights of children and young people in their work.

The Children’s Commissioner works for every child and young person in Jersey who is:

• Under the age of 18
• Under the age of 25 if they have a disability, have been care experienced or have been involved with the youth justice system
• Placed off-island for their care or treatment

What are the Children’s Commissioner’s powers?

In 2019 a new law was created that established the role of the Children’s Commissioner. This law is called the Commissioner for Children and Young People (Jersey) Law 2019.

It sets out the powers and actions the Commissioner can take, these include:

• Providing children and young people with information about their rights.
  
  
• Supporting children and young people to complain.
  
  
• Working with people and organisations who provide services to help them to solve any problems or complaints at the earliest opportunity.
  
  
• Asking for information from people providing services to children and young people.
  
  
• Visiting places where children and young people are cared for, accommodated or receive services and speak to them.
  
  
• Investigating cases where the rights of children and young people have not been respected and suggest how things could be improved.
  
  
• Going to court for children and young people in certain circumstances.
  
  

The Law also restricts what we can do. For example:

• We can’t give you legal advice.
  
  
• We can’t enter people’s private homes, unless they request us to.
  
  
• We can’t investigate anything relating to the decision-making of a court or tribunal.
  
  
• We can’t investigate anything currently before a court or tribunal.