The inquiry panel will be holding public hearings later this month as part of a review into the safety of the Island’s children after its damning report highlighted decades of abuse and failings within the care system.
Within its report, the panel made eight core recommendations which then-Chief Minister Ian Gorst immediately committed to implementing.
Panel member Sandy Cameron has invited Islanders to give their views on whether there have been improvements since the initial report.
He said: ‘This is us coming back as per one of the recommendations we made that we should return after two years to review progress. That is what we are now doing to make sure there is progress being made.
‘We are coming back to hear about what has happened since the report was published. We will be asking people if they think things have improved, whether children are safer and are there visible signs that change is happening?’
An online survey has been launched to allow Islanders to submit their feedback while the panel has set up a new website – ijcipanel.org – for the latest phase of its report.
The panel is due to return on Monday 13 May when members will meet frontline staff and people with experience of the care system before a week of public hearings ending on Friday 24 May.
Mr Cameron added: ‘We will do this very quickly. After we have concluded the hearings we will prepare a public report. We will set out what we have found in terms of progress being made.
‘Just as we were during the inquiry hearings it is vital we are seen as independent. Our independence is crucial for people who have been affected by negative experiences in the past. They need to know the panel is independent as we were during the review.
‘I think some were suspicious at the start but I think when we published our report a bit of that dissipated. We will say it as we see it and we are not going to be put under any pressure to portray the situation in a certain way.’
Meanwhile, more than half of the public documents from the initial inquiry review are now available online after the panel recommended that key documents should be preserved.
Jersey Archive is in the process of cataloguing the millions of pages of documents, which include witness statements, daily records from care homes and social-services reports. Identifying information from those who wish to remain anonymous will be redacted by archivists.
The archiving project is due to be completed by the end of this year.
Linda Romeril, Jersey Heritage’s director of archives and collections, said: ‘The work to catalogue the documents submitted to the inquiry and then transferred to Jersey Archive is a significant project.
‘Staff are working through the files with sensitivity and care, sorting, cataloguing and indexing the material to do justice to the important, and often harrowing, aspects of Jersey’s history that they contain.
‘They are very conscious of the personal and distressing nature of the accounts of abuse provided by anonymous witnesses and want to ensure that these documents are treated appropriately.’
She added that through the course of the detailed cataloguing process, staff had identified some inconsistencies in the redaction of files and had been working to ensure that all material released online had been carefully read and any inconsistencies remedied before the documents were published.
The inquiry documents can be viewed and downloaded from Jersey Heritage’s online catalogue at catalogue.jerseyheritage.org. The survey can be found at jerseysurvey.online.
