A year of social change

Bryn Estyn children's home featured in the report

By BBC Wales's Social Affairs Correspondent Gail Foley

The findings of the Waterhouse Report into abuse at children's homes in north Wales, made front page news across Britain.

Published in February, the report had taken nearly two years to produce.

From the outside, it was an inconspicuous document, but inside 'Lost in Care' detailed a depressing litany of physical and sexual abuse.

Children's Commissioner Peter Clarke

So have lessons been learned in the wake of the report? In the sense that childcare has evolved since then, yes.

But even Sir Ronald Waterhouse himself warned that we must listen to children and ensure proper safeguards are operating if the 3,000 children in the care of Welsh local authorities are to be safe in future.

There are no large children's homes anymore.

These days, children who cannot live with their natural parents are usually in foster care or smaller homes.

Throughout 2000, the BBC reported extensively on the lives of some of those children institutionalised a generation ago.

The message I have been hearing is that they did not have a voice in the past, and widespread abuse was the result.

Gold medallist Tanni Grey-Thompson

The National Assembly for Wales knew it had to put in place a whole raft of measures to ensure those children were listened to.

In December, it announced the appointment of the new Children's Commissioner for Wales - the key recommendation of the Waterhouse report.

He is 52-year-old Peter Clarke, currently director of Childline Cymru. Significantly, children were actually involved in selecting him for the job.

New legislation due to be passed by Parliament next year will extend his powers so that his influence will benefit all children in Wales.

The job of Children's Commissioner is a unique one in the UK. It is expected that the English version of the post - the children's rights director - will have lesser powers.

In March I went to Sweden to see how their equivalent - the Barn Ombudsman - operates.

Rural racism

While Louise Sylwander does not investigate individual cases, she has succeeded in raising the profile of children's issues in Sweden.

A network of organisations has been set up to allow children to air their views.

They use the internet to pose questions to a young person seconded to be a sort of teenage commissioner, and Louise is in close contact with these groups.

Children have dominated my agenda this year.... but not exclusively.

I have also reported on racism in the armed forces when a former Gurkha soldier now living in Wales, is fighting for equal pay and pension rights with soldiers recruited in the UK.

BBC Wales has also highlighted rural racism by reporting on the setting up of a race equality network for north Wales.

Issues highlighted include rural racism

We went to Holyhead to find out why an Asian shopkeeper there is the target of race abuse and vandalism.

The hidden problem of rural homelessness was aired when we visited young people living rough in Aberystwyth.

Then the increasingly-vocal disabled lobby got a boost with the establishment of the Disability Rights Commission.

Similarly, the triumphs of wheelchair athlete Tanni Grey-Thompson at the Sydney Olympics were another great awareness-raising exercise.

Oh and not forgetting, an investigation into the changing role of the Welsh man.

A new movement - set up by men - has said that it should be seen as "liberating" for men to cook, clean and wash up - something many Welsh women have been saying for years!