Bairns' Hoose - project plan: progress report and pathfinder delivery plan 2023 to 2025

What we achieved in 2022 – 2023

We appointed an independent chair and established a National Bairns' Hoose Governance Group.

In February 2022, to drive forward and support delivery on the Programme for Government commitment, Val de Souza, former Director of Health and Social Care at South Lanarkshire Health and Social Care Partnership, was appointed by Ministers as the independent chair of the National Bairns' Hoose Governance Group (NBHGG). Its inaugural meeting was held in October 2022, alongside four Collaborative Intelligence workshops; which were aimed at supporting Governance Group members to grow into a cohesive team, with a shared vision of how they will work together, to oversee the effective implementation of the Bairns' Hoose model across Scotland.

The remit of the Group, along with the connections to related groups, are outlined in the Group's Terms of Reference.

We carried out extensive stakeholder engagement across all key sectors to inform our plans for Bairns' Hoose.

We have carried out extensive engagement with partners from across children's services, health, justice, and the third sector. This has included Chief Officers' Public Protection Groups (COGs), who will play a key role in the delivery of Bairns' Hoose.

The design and delivery of Bairns' Hoose will be between partners at a local level and through local structures. It is anticipated that COGs will collaborate regionally, according to their needs and proximity to local resources, to identify the likely scope of demand for Bairns' Hoose in their area.

Healthcare Improvement Scotland and the Care Inspectorate published Scotland's Bairns' Hoose Standards, which were commissioned by Scottish Government.

These Scotland-specific Standards are based on the European PROMISE Quality Standards for Barnahus, which reflect best practice from the Nordic countries. The Standards set out what Bairns' Hoose will mean in reality for children and young people and their families, as well as for the professionals who will work to support them, throughout their journey to justice and recovery. Based on the requirements of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), the Standards were written in consultation with children who have lived experience of child protection and justice systems, and through comprehensive stakeholder engagement.

The Bairns' Hoose Standards, published 31 May 2023, will provide a blueprint for delivery to support consistent national implementation of Bairns' Hoose.

We have established an approach for the participation of children and young people in the Bairns' Hoose governance framework.

Applying the principles of the European Barnahus Quality Standards provided a framework for engaging with children and young people in the development of the Standards. It ensured continuity between the aims of the Standards and the approach. It also provided clarity on expectation and enabled a clear accountability framework to be developed.

This was achieved through the application of a "link worker model", where Participation and rights workers from six organisations supported children to play an active role throughout the standards development period. Through creative sessions, play, videos, group work and one-on-one sessions, children inputted their ideas into the draft Standards and fed back on their experiences to the Standards Development Group at every meeting. Each organisation nominated a 'link worker' (usually a rights or participation worker) to act as the go-between between the children and the Standards Development Group.

The link workers were able to build trust and meaningful relationships with the children and young people, while effectively sharing information and experiences between them and the Standards Development Group. Given the topic, it was important that link workers could be responsive to the experiences and emotions that the children and young people shared, and could support them appropriately.

The link worker model requires appropriate support and resources to enable it to be sustainable, flexible and meaningful. In developing the Bairn's Hoose Standards, it has been an effective, well-supported and well-evaluated approach.

Due to the success of the model, we are looking to continue this work as we move from the Standards development phase towards implementation, by engaging link workers to contribute to the design and preparation of the Pathfinder phase and to connect with the National Bairns' Hoose Governance Group. This is detailed in our Bairns' Hoose: Children and Young People Participation and Engagement Plan.

We published a participation and engagement plan for children and young people with lived experience.

Children and young people have a right to be heard and to be involved in decisions that affect them. We are committed to recognising, respecting and promoting children's rights, as set out in the UNCRC, and to ensuring that the voices of children and young people play a central role in shaping our approach to the implementation of a Scottish Bairns' Hoose Model.

We published our Bairns' Hoose Children and Young People Participation and Engagement Plan on 1 June 2023. This sets out our approach to participation and engagement and the actions we will take to ensure this is embedded within the development and implementation of Bairns' Hoose. Through this, we will make sure that children who access Bairns' Hoose will experience a service that best reflects the views of those with lived experience.

We funded the National Joint Investigative Interviewing Team to progress the introduction of the Scottish Child Interview Model (SCIM) in all areas by 2024.

Bairns' Hoose will build on the Scottish Child Interview Model for Joint Investigative Interviewing, which is being introduced nationally between 2021 and 2024 and is considered to be a precondition for national Bairns' Hoose implementation; given the trauma-informed approach embedded within the model and the improvements to the quality of joint investigative interviews it seeks to achieve.

We have continued to fund the National Joint Investigative Interviewing Team for £2.2m over a three-year period, to assist COSLA, Social Work Scotland and Police Scotland to provide specialist training and tailored implementation support to local multi-agency partnerships, in order to integrate the Scottish Child Interview Model into local child protection systems. This new approach supports improved experiences and outcomes for child victims and witnesses.

Twenty-two local authorities, 10 policing divisions and 10 health boards are now live in practice with the Scottish Child Interview Model, with several areas collaborating in cross-authority partnerships. All remaining local authorities and police divisions are undertaking the necessary preparatory work to create the local conditions to implement the new model of practice.

We carried out an online survey with multi-agency partnerships, followed by structured interviews, to gather learning about existing and planned services and shared our findings with key stakeholders.

The online survey focused on understanding how multi-agency partnerships currently operate and/or how they plan to operate in the future. It captured learning from partnerships in various locations and at differing stages of development in their multi-agency working, providing insight into challenges and opportunities for establishing a Bairns' Hoose. Key findings from the survey included details around the practical requirements for a Bairns' Hoose building, off-site services, co-location and the use of different interview models.

The follow-up interviews allowed for deeper exploration of the themes that arose from the survey. Discussion revolved around some of the major challenges facing partnerships and how the Scottish Government might best provide support going forwards.

The report will be shared internally and with key external stakeholders to inform the approach of the Pathfinder phase and subsequent Bairns' Hoose implementation.

We carried out a data review on children and young people who have been victims and/or witnesses of abuse across Scotland.

This data review maps the key available data sources and indicators relating to children and young people who are victims or witnesses of abuse; as well as those whose behaviour may have caused harm and who are under the age of criminal responsibility, to inform the development and planning of the Bairns' Hoose approach.

The paper presents information on the number of children and young people currently known to be affected by abuse or known to cause harm. The information comes from the following data sources: Police Recorded Crimes; Scottish Children's Reporter Administration (SCRA); Children's Social Work Statistics; Criminal Proceedings; and the Scottish Crime and Justice Survey (SCJS). The paper, which was shared internally and with members of the National Bairns' Hoose Governance Group, also highlights data limitations and gaps to inform any future data development.

The Scottish Government joined the European PROMISE Barnahus network as an associate member.

We are keen to learn from international best practice and benefit from the knowledge, experience and expertise of other countries which have contended with, and overcome, many of the challenges to implementation that we face in Scotland.

The network comprises membership from over 20 member states and works to harmonise and consolidate good Barnahus practice across Europe and an established peer-to-peer network.

A harmonisation of Barnahus practice across Europe serves to ensure quality Barnahus services, to boost the legitimacy of the approach, and ensure that all children in Europe have the same access to their rights to protection from violence, to support, and to be heard.

As associate members, Scottish Government participated in an international European Barnahus Forum in Stockholm in December 2022. We have continued to engage with policy officials and Barnahus practitioners in a number of countries and regions including Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Germany, Norway, and Catalonia; as well as The Lighthouse (London) and the UK Government.

We have engaged with existing Barnahus and multi-agency sites in Scotland and abroad.

This included a visit to the Barnahus in Linkoping in Sweden, providing a rich learning experience about the services provided and the experiences of children who access the site. A key reflection from the visit was seeing how the Barnahus was designed for children and with input from children, as well as the supportive environment for the staff. This brought to life how beneficial the model is for supporting child victims and witnesses' recovery.

In Scotland, through visiting multi-agency sites at the Sycamore Centre in Edinburgh, Seymour House in Dundee and The Meadows in Larbert, the Scottish Government's Bairns' Hoose Policy Unit developed a deeper appreciation of the ways that agencies can be collocated and work together to improve experiences for children in different ways.

This has built on previous knowledge gained from the former First Minister's visit to the Barnahus in Reykjavik, Iceland in 2021, where she met Bragi Guðbrandsson, Member of the United Nation´s Committee on the Rights of the Child and founder of the very first Barnahus. The former Minister for Children and Young People also had the opportunity to visit the two sites of the North Strathclyde Bairns' Hoose at an early stage in their development.

We have launched a Bairns' Hoose website - bairnshoosescotland.com - for interested stakeholders and practitioners.

The website will include: an overview of what Bairns' Hoose is; news and updates; links to relevant published documents; information on our phased approach to implementation and information for children and young people. This will be a continual process and we will work with children and young people to develop this.

We will build on the content of this site as a key way of communicating our progress, and as a means of supporting the sharing of learning with Pathfinders.