A/HRC/27/25 had been integrated at a national level. Initiatives included ombudspersons; help lines; free legal assistance; “web constables” who could be contacted via social media or e-mail for advice and for report information to police; child-friendly rooms in social work centres; complaints boxes in schools; the use of videolinks and closed-circuit television for evidence in judicial hearings; separate tribunals for child offenders with specialized judges; and the provision of alternative non-custodial mechanisms in juvenile justice, including mediation, probation and rehabilitation within the family. States recognized, however, that many national systems needed strengthening, which required an international effort. D. Concluding remarks 19. Ms. Poirier pointed out that the right to access to justice for children in the United Nations had also been addressed in the Rule of Law Coordination and Resource Group. In 2008, the Secretary-General had issued a guidance note requesting all agencies to integrate a common approach to this issue into their work. The participation of child rights activists, and of children themselves, was vital in this development. There was still a long way to go to guarantee access to justice to all children, but it was encouraging to see that many States supported protection of children in their criminal, civil and administrative processes. 20. Ms. Poirier recommended that information on access to justice be in child-friendly languages, and could be disseminated in schools where it could be part of wider educational package on rights. For children out of school, actors that were most in contact with vulnerable children, for example workers in social assistance centres, should be involved. She stressed the importance of the role of the family, where children went for trusted information, so information directed at children should be accompanied also by suitable information for the parents. 21. Ms. Winter stated that the impact of the third Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child would be in the medium and long terms, rather than immediate. To make a complaint under the Protocol, children would not have to fill in a form, but could write, draw, send a video message or use other media as appropriate. Apart from this mechanism, the Committee on the Rights of the Child did not have many possibilities for redressing violations of rights, but could write recommendations concerning the violations of States, and publish them electronically, which could be a very powerful tool. She suggested that access to justice would be strengthened by public information campaigns based on inclusion in school curricula and regular visits to schools by police and judges. To ensure that children were always heard in judicial proceedings, laws could be adopted that made any decision void if the child had not participated. She also proposed the use of nonjudicial mechanisms for violence in families, and cited hotlines, ombudspersons, teachers of trust and school psychologists as examples. She emphasized that laws granting rights to children should be devised, and mechanisms to protect these rights should be established; but steps also had to be taken to ensure that they were implemented and enforced. 22. Mr. Beah concluded that, in order to ensure access to justice, children had to have advocates that could speak on their behalf when they or their parents could not. In response to a question on ensuring that legal procedures were implemented, he recommended the involvement of legal professionals in the development of tools, as they would be more likely to use tools they had been involved in creating. He recognized the challenges faced by children in their access to justice, and stated that no matter how many rights children had, they had no meaning if no access to effective redress was available. 23. Ms. Ortiz referred to the concern mentioned by some participants about the extent to which society backed the reform that had been the outcome of the Convention and its protocols. It was clear that change had not yet been enough, and there was still much to do; 7