James McDougall

James McDougall is a consultant who works in policy development; management and governance; and building community partnerships.

James is also one of Australia’s leading child rights advocates. He has broad experience as an advocate, manager and consultant in policy development, governance and management for the community and public sectors.

He has held senior executive management roles in Australia and has also worked in China and the Asia Pacific. He was the Executive Director of the National Association of Community Legal Centres in 2000 to 2002; Director of the National Children’s & Youth Law Centre from 2005 to 2010 and from 2011 to 2012 he was Director of Advocacy at Save the Children Australia.

His consultancy work has focused on policy development in child rights and services including child protection, youth justice and policy frameworks that intersect across professional and social policy sectors. He has recently worked at the Commission for Children & Young People (Victoria) and the Institute of Child Protection Studies (Australian Catholic University) as a policy expert.

He is currently Co-Convenor of the Australian Child Rights Taskforce.

Recent projects include:

• Developing or reviewing frameworks to address child safety including the implementation of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (Australian Government; Australian Catholic Bishops Conference; Care Link; Commission for Children & Young People Tasmania)
• Developing or reviewing frameworks to address child safety and family violence (Domestic Violence Services Management NSW) and for children with disability (Sexual Health & Family Violence ACT; Includovate)
• Reframing refugee and asylum seeker issues (Refugee Council)
• Supporting policy contributions for Aboriginal-controlled communities in childcare, child protection and addressing family violence (SNAICC); and
• connecting youth engagement with government policy development (Office for Youth – Victoria; Western Sydney University).