The Young Advocates provide insight to press regulator on children, youth justice, and the media

The Young Advocates project is led by children and young people aged 14–20 who have lived experience of the youth justice system and want to be part of a movement to drive positive change, delivered in partnership between the AYJ and Leaders Unlocked.

In the recently published report Young Advocates for Youth Justice: A youth-led report from children and young people with experience of the system they presented guidelines for media reporting on children and young people in contact with the law. On the back of this work, the Young Advocates were recently invited to provide further insights to press regulator IMPRESS in a consultation workshop.

This was an opportunity to feed into IMPRESS’ consultation on their proposed changes to the IMPRESS Standards Code and Guidance, ensuring that, in the context of youth justice, the code works to avoid damaging and unjust press coverage of children. The Young Advocates emphasised the importance of appropriate media coverage and raised the particular concern that many young people do not understand their rights when it comes to engaging with the media until its too late. For example, many would not know how they can take action to change a published image of themselves by engaging with formal complaints procedures.

Below, we share some further key thoughts and recommendations raised by the Young Advocates in this insightful and crucial discussion:

IMPRESS were thrilled with the Young Advocate’s input and fed back their appreciation:

“We just want to say a big thank you for arranging today’s session, it was great to meet the young advocates, to get their views first-hand and we really appreciate them taking the time to contribute. Definitely lots of food for thought!”
- The IMPRESS Team

AYJ would like to extend its thanks to IMPRESS for taking on the views of the Young Advocates and also to Leaders Unlocked for facilitating the discussion!