Last week, more than 70 people gathered at Melbourne Law School for Accountable, Together — Australia's first national symposium dedicated to making children's rights real. Practitioners, researchers, policy makers, advocates and young people came into the same room with a shared question: what does it actually take to uphold the rights of every child in this country, and how do we do it together?
A few days on, the conversations are still settling. Not the speeches or the venue, but what the day asked of everyone in the room.
A day shaped by young people
The first voice everyone heard at the symposium was not a CEO or a professor. It was a Young Advisor. That was deliberate.
Throughout the day, young people held the centre. Sian from UNICEF Australia spoke about young people as champions of their own futures. Anna from CREATE Foundation pushed everyone to think harder about what authentic, accessible co-design really looks like. Jas from the Victorian Commission for Children and Young People closed the afternoon by asking what a trauma-informed, rights-centred system feels like when you're the young person inside it.
These weren't add-ons. Young Advisors helped shape the symposium from the start, and adult contributors built their sessions around what young people had already said. The message that kept coming back: adults need to listen without assumptions, share power rather than space, and follow through on what they promise.
What Scotland showed us
Juliet Harris, Director of Together (Scottish Alliance for Children's Rights), travelled from Scotland to share how her country embedded the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child into Scots law, and the years of coordinated civil society effort that made it possible.
The Scottish story isn't necessarily a template to copy. Conditions are different, politics are different. But it is proof that systemic change for children's rights is possible when people organise around it for long enough, and that incorporation is a tool that can unlock reform across many other areas at once. Professors Sharon Bessell (ANU) and Amanda Third (Western Sydney University) led a Q&A that drew the lessons out in practical terms.
Joel Matysek from SNAICC then brought the conversation back home, sharing how the SNAICC Youth Voice initiative is enabling Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people to exercise self-determination over the systems and decisions that shape their lives.
From listening to co-creation
The afternoon shifted gears. Accountable Futures Collective led the room through co-creation workshops focused on three questions: why aren't children's rights fully upheld in Australia today, what could we do together to change that, and how do we hold ourselves and each other accountable along the way.
Participants didn't just identify barriers. They started shaping a collective agenda, naming structural issues and committing to ways of working together that don't depend on any single organisation carrying the load.
Professor John Tobin closed the day with a reminder that there is a particular window right now to advance children's rights in Australia, and that the moment will only translate into change if the sector mobilises together.
What we heard
Three themes ran through the day and are still with us this week.
- Rights are practical, not abstract. Children's rights aren't a clause to cite. They're a framework for daily decisions in classrooms, services, courts, councils and policy rooms. When rights show up in everyday practice, children are believed when something feels wrong, their needs are taken seriously, and the systems around them are built for their dignity.
- No single organisation owns this work. Real change requires shared ownership across advocacy, research, service delivery and government. The room held people who don't always sit together, and that mix was the point.
- Listening is the start, not the finish. Young people in the room were generous with their insight and clear about what they expect in return: action, shared power, and accountability for promises made.
What happens next
The symposium wasn’t the destination – it was a catalyst. Over the coming months, 54 reasons and partners will be synthesising the day's insights into two outputs:
- A joint Accountability Pledge — a shared commitment to how organisations and individuals will uphold children's rights in their work.
- A child rights systems change roadmap — a practical guide for working differently across systems to make rights real at scale.
Both will be shaped with ongoing input from participants, partners, and young people, the same way the symposium itself was built.
If you were in the room, you'll be hearing more from us soon. If you weren't, there will be opportunities to take part as the pledge and roadmap come to life.
Making children's rights real is something every one of us has a role in. And it's something we'll keep doing, accountable, together.
Thank you
A national conversation of this kind needs many hands. We're grateful to our partners at the Melbourne Law School at the University of Melbourne, the Children's Policy Centre at ANU, the Young and Resilient Research Centre at Western Sydney University, SNAICC, UNICEF Australia, and Accountable Futures Collective. Thank you to Juliet Harris for travelling from Scotland. And thank you to Sian, Anna, Dante and Jas, to our Young Advisors, and to every young person whose voice shaped the day.
Listen now
