In 2022, the National Children’s Commissioner, in collaboration with UNICEF Australia, commenced a project to develop a Child Rights Impact Assessment (CRIA) tool for policy-makers and legislators to use when assessing the potential impacts of policies and legislation on the rights and wellbeing of children.

Applying the tool to assess policy decisions that had already taken place provided an opportunity to explore how children’s rights and wellbeing can be considered in a systematic way, and what type of information might be available to policy-makers in Australia to do so. The intent was not to evaluate the decisions that were made by various jurisdictions to close early childhood and care (ECEC) and schools.

This report outlines the reasons for using CRIAs in policy and legislative development, the process undertaken to develop the CRIA, including applying the tool to the issue of ECEC and school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic. It also describes how to use the tool. The CRIA tool template is included in Appendix 1.

The report concludes with some observations about the value of the tool and its application across policy and legislation in Australia.