Bairns' Hoose Pathfinder Phase – Research Report

8. Empowering children and young people

This chapter summarises progress towards empowerment of children and young people (CYP) which is a cross-cutting aim of the Bairns’ Hoose Standards, involving a range of different elements, including:

• Ensuring CYP and families are informed of everything they need to be as part of their journey through Bairns’ Hoose;
• Supporting CYP to make choices; and
• Supporting CYP to have a voice/say in how Bairns’ Hoose works.

It then discusses challenges encountered in empowering CYP and their families, before considering factors that have helped to facilitate this.

Progress

Ensuring CYP and families are informed of everything they need to be as part of their journey through Bairns’ Hoose

Progress had been made across the partnerships in ensuring that CYP and families were informed about what was involved in being supported through Bairns’ Hoose. Information leaflets covering aspects like the SCIM interview, medical examinations and assessments were widely being developed or used. These leaflets highlighted information on privacy, rights and equipment used (e.g. recording devices). Additional tools being used included explanatory videos on Bairns’ Hoose procedures, as well as verbal demonstrations and explanations of equipment before use. Partnerships were also actively working on improving the accessibility of the information they provided. For example, two partnerships had created easy-read leaflets in coordination with speech and language therapists.

“[The leaflet is] written really well and that was only through Speech and Language Therapy that we managed to create it. We've got ones for younger children and older children.”

In one partnership, a speech and language therapist was also soon to be commencing in post and would consider CYP’s wider communication needs.

Partnerships were also working on creating leaflets in different languages (see Chapter 7 for more detail on accessibility). In one partnership area, leaflets about joint investigative interviews and recovery had been produced in several languages, though they had not yet been created for health and justice. Another partnership noted that they may produce some information for families in Gaelic.

Supporting CYP to make choices

Fully informing CYP, as discussed, is an important aspect of supporting them to make choices and consent to different aspects of the child protection process.

Provision of advocacy for CYP was a key area in which several partnerships reported progress. For example, one partnership reported that the Scottish Independent Advocacy Alliance offered pre-interview support to CYP to make sure they understood the upcoming process and advocated for CYP in planning meetings. In two partnerships, three Advocacy Rights and Recovery Workers were in post to support representation of CYP’s views and ensure their rights to choice were upheld. Speech and language therapists were carrying out a test of change in one partnership area around children’s rights to choose not to engage with recovery services and follow up from the Bairns’ Hoose coordinator. In one partnership, several partners were involved in supporting advocacy for CYP throughout the court process, including recovery workers, Independent Advocacy, and a third sector organisation.

Several partnerships noted that CYP were given the choice of having a Trusted Person to support them through their journey and make sure their rights were upheld. Furthermore, two partnerships highlighted that CYP could choose the gender of their interviewers where possible.

Supporting CYP to have a say in how Bairns’ Hoose works

All partnerships reported progress in supporting CYP to have a say in how Bairns’ Hoose works in their local area, through a range of mechanisms. One of these was continuous engagement with specific groups of CYP who had been selected to inform the design of Bairns’ Hoose. In some areas, this was led by the third sector partner Children First who engaged with their “Changemakers” group. This group brings together young people aged 13 to 19 who have experience of care, protection and justice systems. Funded by the Scottish Government, the group was originally established to support the design of the North Strathclyde Bairns’ Hoose. During this period the group was invited to work with Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS) to consider the development of the Bairns’ Hoose Standards. The group continues to support participation and engagement activities across the programme and continue to be consulted by key agencies, such as the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) and other partnerships. The group’s main aim is to inform the design and ongoing development of Bairns’ Hoose, ensuring the model reflects the lived experience, views and priorities of CYP.

Alongside this, several other partnerships created, or were in the process of creating, their own participation and engagement groups. For example, one partnership established a group of CYP to specifically consider the design of their building, while another was commissioning a partner organisation to lead on a long-term participation group which would involve young people from across multiple organisations. According to a partner interviewed, the aim was to establish a group that can be engaged in the long-term, to ensure CYP’s safe and meaningful engagement.

“It's such a sensitive subject that we need to make sure that [feedback collection] is done in a really, safe, future focused way. And I think the best way for that to happen is for an organisation to develop real relationships with children and young people and for it to be meaningful, and not just consultation.”

Partnerships had also consulted CYP through other means. For example, one partnership had tested the vision statement for their Bairns’ Hoose with a group of young people at secondary school, and another had commissioned a third sector organisation to carry out a consultation with young people to better understand what they needed from a ‘safe space’. Other partnerships had consulted specifically with groups of care- and/or justice- experienced CYP, for example through creative workshops.

In some partnerships, specific processes and staff roles had been implemented to embed CYP’s participation in Bairns’ Hoose. For example, one partnership reported that they had developed a participation and engagement framework. Other partnerships reported having improved their systems for gathering feedback from CYP. Some had added prompt questions to the interagency referral discussion templates, for staff to check that CYP and families’ views had been sought. A “voice” subgroup had been created with the purpose of embedding participation across two partnerships; and staff with the remit of advocating on behalf of CYP (e.g. staff from third sector organisations, Bairns’ Hoose coordinators, or those recruited specifically to advocacy roles) were also represented in key oversight groups such as working groups, implementation groups, or strategic groups. In one partnership, CYP’s testimony was a standing item on the agenda at strategic group meetings, and a temporary Participation Worker role had been filled.

Topics or decisions on which CYP had a say across partnerships included:

• Influencing recruitment decisions. In two areas, CYP had been involved in the recruitment of Bairns’ Hoose support workers, and Advocacy, Rights, and Recovery workers.
• Testing the vision statement for a partnership’s Bairns’ Hoose.
• Informing the design/renovation of Bairns’ Hoose buildings e.g. inputting on the design of physical spaces within Bairns’ Hoose such as interview rooms.
• Informing Bairns’ Hoose service provision. A partnership had gathered CYP’s views on whether they would prefer to attend a Bairns’ Hoose court suite instead of court itself.
• Helping to decorate a Bairns’ Hoose building. In one partnership, CYP had been crocheting soft toys and soft furnishings e.g. blankets and cushion covers for the Bairns’ Hoose. Care experienced young people had also been working with a local art centre to design a mural which will be installed in the Bairns’ Hoose.
• Informing the system-level approach to supporting CYP through consultation with young people.

Collecting and actioning feedback from CYP about their experiences of Bairns’ Hoose is also a key way in which CYP can have a say. A range of processes for gathering feedback from CYP were being used or developed by the partnerships. For example, two partnerships were developing a feedback tool to systematically seek CYP’s views (in partnership with the University of Edinburgh, Children First and the Voice subgroup), which was planned to be developed and tested by March 2026. Several partnerships were working with third sector partners, such as Action for Children, Children First and Includem, to gather feedback from CYP who have been through child protection processes. In one partnership, a Learning Review and Impact Group was focusing on incorporating feedback from CYP and families.

Partnerships were also collecting feedback on specific aspects of CYP’s experiences. For example, one partnership reported that it had processes in place for collecting feedback during and after joint investigative interviews and therapeutic recovery, though they still needed to develop mechanisms for feedback on CYP’s medical and justice experiences. Another partnership reported having a feedback form in place following medical examinations, while other partnerships were still exploring options as to how they would gather feedback on CYP’s health journeys. One partnership was testing a 72-hr follow-up phone call by school nurses, for collecting feedback. Partnerships had also made progress towards ensuring that additional support was provided to CYP who needed it in order to share their views. For example, speech and language therapists had been providing additional support to some CYP, using ‘Talking Mats’ to help them express themselves.

Challenges – Gathering feedback

Challenges identified by the partnerships were generally related to gathering CYP’s feedback about Bairns’ Hoose.

One challenge was managing how feedback was captured and collated - particularly coordinating between multiple partners seeking feedback. Partners from one area discussed that it was difficult to work out how to collect feedback in a sensitive way without overwhelming CYP and families with lots of questions about their experience - particularly when the goal should be for CYP’s lives to return to normal as soon as possible after their involvement with Bairns’ Hoose has come to an end. The partnership planned to discuss internally how to achieve a balanced approach.

“I think one of the challenges is that there's so much of Bairns’ Hoose, from that first point of entry, to when they leave that process. At all different stages we're all looking for feedback… so I don't know how we do that in a really contained, sensitive way without overwhelming the family with all these questions.”

Partners from another area discussed similar challenges and identified issues with information sharing between agencies as a specific barrier, leading to CYP being asked the same feedback questions multiple times by different agencies.

There was also a view that there was still some work to do in terms of creating a mechanism through which feedback would be put into practice. Making sure that feedback captured is objective was also identified as a challenge. One participant explained that feedback on what went well and less well in a child protection case was exchanged between partners in their partnership. However, feedback on procedural outcomes may have been influenced by each organisation's institutional perspective. The partner suggested that they may need to implement a more standardised set of questions to capture CYP’s experiences more objectively.

Facilitators

Implementation of the Scottish Child Interview Model (SCIM) was identified as having embedded the collection of feedback from CYP. For example, one partnership reported that adopting SCIM had resulted in them collating data on CYP’s experiences, as well as on why some chose not to participate in interviews.

A common theme apparent across the partnerships was that third sector partners played a key role in empowering CYP by ensuring they were provided with accessible information about Bairns’ Hoose and the child protection process; advocating on their behalf and making sure their rights to choice were upheld; and carrying out consultation and engagement with CYP to facilitate them having an influence on decision making and service design. For example, a partner from one area highlighted that having a third sector organisation to advocate for CYP was important in making sure that CYP’s perspectives were being listened to.

“Probably also what worked well is having a third sector organisation as the voice of the child and just constantly reminding us what children were telling us, because you can't argue with that. You know, the systems have been set up because they work for adults. But when you hear what children say about it, it's very difficult to say, well, I'm not changing my system, I want it this way for adults. When you actually have children saying, your system's traumatising me.”

Another partnership also identified the Bairns’ Hoose coordinator role as a facilitator in empowering CYP, in that they act as a single point of contact for families and improve information sharing with them.