We have been greatly saddened by the news that John Kemmis, a life-long champion for children’s rights has passed away.
NYAS has a long association with John who, during a career in social work that spanned more than 50 years, was committed to driving change for children and young people in care and played an instrumental role in shaping the future of children’s advocacy.
We had the pleasure of working with John and his colleagues from the Voice for the Child in Care charity (now Coram Voice) in founding the National Children’s Advocacy Consortium (NCAC), an organisation that brings together the country’s leading advocacy providers and has become an important lobbying group for our sector.
NYAS is also closely involved with Article 39’s national campaign to strengthen children’s independent advocacy, which was John’s brainchild. Thanks to John’s drive to progress the goals of this campaign, the Children’s Commissioner’s new Advocacy Working Group has been established from the campaign group Advocacy4U (bought together by children & young people from Article 39) which will report in early 2019.
John’s passion and determination to push through change that would help to give a voice to vulnerable children and young people was obvious to all who came into contact with him. His contribution to developing the field of children’s advocacy and promoting the rights of young people in care was invaluable. At NYAS, we are honoured to have worked alongside him and are certain that his influence will continue to have a positive impact for many years to come.
To learn more about John and his career, in his own words, please click here
