Voice of the child at the heart of service reform

We love to promote Scotland’s approach to participation and children’s rights, so we were excited to see the outcome of the Scottish Care Review, published last week and including a ten-year plan. The review was comprehensive, it involved co-production with 5,500 people and will be a cultural and practical change to services that children will receive in future in Scotland. We are firm believers that real change can only happen when we move from consultation to meaningful involvement and Scotland has done just that. The voice of the child is at the heart of service reform as well as putting early intervention and prevention at the forefront of frontline delivery.

Rights of the child

Scotland will be fully embracing the UNCRC (United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child) and placing it within their laws.

The reports call for ‘more care, less system’ and says Scotland must ‘parent, not process’ children. The human and economic cost of care is published for first time. Families must be kept together wherever it is safe to do so. Families must get the support that is right for them at the earliest opportunity and it must be flexible, consistent, patient and free from stigma. This will mean that more children can live a safe, happy life at home with their families.

Five foundations

The five foundations of the review are:

1. Voice – children must be listened to and meaningfully and appropriately involved in the decision-making about their care, with all those involved properly listening and responding to what children want and need. There must be a compassionate and caring decision-making culture focused on children and those they trust.

2. Family – where children are safe in their families and feel loved they must stay – and families must be given support to overcome difficulties

3. Care – where living with their family is not possible, children must stay with their brothers and sisters.

4. People – the children that Scotland cares for must be actively supported to develop relationships with people in the workforce and wider community.

5. Scaffolding – children, families and the workforce must be supported by a system that is there when it is needed.

An amazing step forward

The care review is an amazing step forward. We are delighted to see where elements of the review align with our apps, such as the use of high quality data for continuous improvement and the role of schools in helping to foster kind, supportive relationships. These are two feature areas we are currently developing and improving, so please do contact us if you want to know more.

Scotland took the brave step to recognise that care needed a wholesale review and service reform, adopting a co-production approach with care experienced young people, carers, families and professionals. In order to share this great practice we have invited Kevin Browne-MacLeod, Director of Care Experienced Membership at Who Cares? Scotland to speak at our next VoxCon on the 20 May 2020. If you haven’t yet secured your place don’t wait too long as they are going quickly. We are looking forward to Kevin’s views about ‘more care less system.’

A summary of the reports is given below, but it is really worth the time to fully read them all. You can access them here.