Supporting Preschoolers to have a voice too!
Autumn Edition, Connected Caregiving (Page 17) April 2023

Due to the success of her Student Postcards initiative for primary school children, and at the request of many Early Year’s teachers and educators, the Commissioner for Children and Young People has decided to extend her state-wide postcards engagement initiative to include pre-schoolers.

If you are an Early Year’s teacher in SA, you can expect to receive an email at the start of school Term 2, inviting you to support the initiative. It will include a link to a downloadable copy of the postcard artwork and will come with a request to support pre-school children to complete the task, scanning their finished responses and emailing them back to the Commissioner at 251 Morphett Street, Adelaide, 5000.

We look forward to receiving your completed Early Learner Postcards at any time.

Download the artwork and instructions here.

Read the full article here.

Schoolchildren stay posted on issues that matter to them most
By Rebecca Baker, The Advertiser, 19 July, 2021

‘Don’t be fooled by their ages. These youngsters have plenty to say – and the state’s leading child advocate is ready to listen. The Commissioner for Children and Young People, Helen Connolly, wants to know what matters most to schoolchildren. She is sending specially created postcards to pupils at every primary and combined school across the state, asking the youngsters to share thoughts and priorities. 

Listening to Tween Dreams
By Rebecca Baker, The Advertiser, 1 November 2020

THE responses of almost 8500 thousand South Aussie kids are at the heart of a first of its kind report, to be publicly released today by the Commissioner for Children and Young People. Last year, Helen Connolly asked the state’s “tweens”, aged between eight to 12, a series of open-ended questions on postcards, inset, to find out what matters most to them. The 8429 responses, including what they would do if they were “the boss of South Australia”, came from students at 239 schools across the state.

Tell Helen Postcard Project 2020
10 November 2020

The Commissioner launched her Message to the Commissioner (‘Tell Helen’) Postcard initiative in 2019, receiving 8,429 postcard responses from all over the state. The responses came from South Australian children aged 8-12 years attending Catholic, Independent, Government, Special, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and Behavioural Schools and represented 239 schools. Their answers to the Commissioner’s questions have been subsequently shaped into a report titled “The Things That Matter” launched in National Children’s Week 24 October to 1 November, 2020.

Commissioner’s Postcard Project launched
9 October 2019

Commissioner for Children and Young People launched her Message to the Commissioner (‘Tell Helen’) Postcard project today. It is aimed at encouraging South Australian children aged 8 – 12 years to let the Commissioner know what is important to them. They are invited to do this by completing the ‘Tell Helen’ postcard, which lists four questions the Commissioner asks children aged 8 – 12 years to respond to, including what they would do if they were the boss of South Australia?