Ms Julie Ahern:

I raised the issue of children telling me on the phone that they feel they have not been heard. This can happen in a variety of circumstances. It could be the case that they wanted to talk to the judge but that the judge did not want to talk to them or did not hear their voice directly. It could be the case that they feel what they have said has been misrepresented in some way. Judges and people working in the courts need to be more aware of what child-friendly justice is and of how they can listen to and hear the views of children and communicate back to them. Ms Brady raised the example of a judge doing a judgment in emojis and explaining to the children that he had heard what they said, the reasons why he did not agree with them, and what was going to happen. When I am talking to children and young people about any area, I find that if one explains to them that one has heard them and then explains why one has come to a particular decision, they are more likely to accept it and it is likely to be easier for parents. On the other side of it, I get calls from mothers and fathers who say their 12 year old or 15 year old is screaming and does not want to get into the car to go to access. If an effort is made by judges, in the first instance, to explain to children why they have come to a particular decision and the reasons for that decision in a way that will not damage or traumatise them further and that is child-friendly, it could have a really big impact.

The Senator is right. Support services are key. One of the big issues I find arising on the information line I run is that people are not aware of what is there in the community. There are actually an awful lot of supports in the community for children and young people. Some of them have longer waiting lists than others and can be difficult to access. That is another issue, but people are not actually aware. They do not know that they can contact different people and get different supports. Work on information is needed in that respect. People need to be linked to the right places at the right time.