Don College students were extremely lucky to have Tasmanian Commissioner for Children and Young People Leanne McLean visit the college this week where students were able to raise issues that are important to them in their everyday lives.

After beginning a career in science with the view to become a botanist, Leanne realised that her passion was in helping people, through social work. She became a government adviser before taking on the role of commissioner.

She described her position as advocating for the rights of young people. She said she is most passionate about the right for young people to have a say and described it as the gateway to all the other rights young people have.

“Lots of people think that the best way to measure our success in the community is through (with an election coming up) economic growth and jobs, but the real measure is how well we look after the next generation.”

Leanne said that without being heard and without having the forum to express issues relevant to young people, the adults in society that have the responsibility for making decisions for young people are unable to plan around those issues that are important.

In the session, students raised concerns about:

• Access to mental health services and the current wait times (6-24 months to access services)
• The gap in services for young people aged 16-18 years of age.
• Lack of emergency youth housing.
• Lack of affordable housing.
• Insufficient public transport on the North-West Coast.
• The need for more programs that support young people getting their hours up for the P-plates and more affordable tests.
• Access to better support and learning around life skills such as rental applications, work rights and pay grades, and superannuation. This was raised as suggestion to incorporate into CLP classes at Don.
• Cost of living such as rent and food.
• Domestic violence and lack of support services.

Leanne assured the group she would take these suggestions with her and work on them.

The commissioner's role is also to advocate for youth justice and to represent each person currently in detention at the Ashley Youth facility. She has advocated for the criminal age of responsibility to be raised from the age of 10 years to 14 years, which will come into effect in 2029.

A concern that was raised was that often, young people don’t know who to ask for help or who to ask to advocate for change. Leanne is currently working on the development of the YEP (Your Engagement Place) app which notifies young people of upcoming forums and feedback opportunities to service providers about issues concerning their age group. This will be released later this year.