Bairns' Hoose Pathfinder Phase – Research Report

Executive Summary

Policy context

The Bairns’ Hoose programme aims to provide access to trauma informed recovery, support and justice to all children victims and witnesses of abuse and children under the age of criminal responsibility whose behaviour may have caused, or risked causing, serious harm or abuse. Having launched in October 2023, Bairns’ Hoose is, at the time of writing, in a Pathfinder phase (January 2024 - March 2027), to be followed by a national incremental roll out. Bringing together partnerships from across Scotland, the Pathfinder phase is about testing the Bairns’ Hoose Standards in practice across diverse geographical and organisational contexts.

Bairns’ Hoose partnerships involve a collaboration across three statutory partners, namely health, social work and police, as well as links with wider partners, particularly those in the third sector and education. Eleven principles, known as the Bairns’ Hoose Standards, provide a common operational framework for the Bairns’ Hoose implementation. The aim of the Pathfinder phase is to test the Standards across diverse geographical and organisational contexts.

Report and Methods

This report shares key learning gathered as part of the Pathfinder phase. The research included:

• qualitative primary research with professionals in six Bairns’ Hoose partnerships (conducted between March and August 2025);
• analysis of Pathfinder self-assessment submissions at two time points;
• grant funding reports for the period 2024-2025; and
• local evaluation reports for Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire partnerships by the University of Edinburgh.

Chapters 3-14 are organised around the key themes that emerged from the research, which broadly correspond to the Bairns’ Hoose Standards.

Systems change

Partnerships reported notable progress in terms of setting up governance structures or adapting existing structures to implement Bairns’ Hoose. They also noted the substantial staff resource required for planning and setting up these structures and ensuring buy-in from all partners. However, they highlighted the importance of good governance as a pre-condition for delivery and knowledge sharing.

Pathfinders reported plans to integrate Bairns’ Hoose work with broader systems of monitoring and evaluation during their initial self-assessment. Ongoing activities reported included local evaluations, improvement plans and developing core datasets. However, there was limited progress in self-reported scores by September 2025, with staff capacity identified as a key barrier. Some research participants also described monitoring, evaluation and knowledge sharing as coming later in the process of implementing the Standards.

Multi-agency working

Overall, partnerships described a lot of progress in multi-agency working. Many challenges due to different priorities and legislative requirements of different organisations were overcome with time as relationships were built and strengthened. Successes included developing a shared vision and understanding of Bairns’ Hoose; co-location; the establishment of Bairns’ Hoose coordinator roles; and data sharing processes. Remaining challenges highlighted included engaging partners in health or those involved in the court process; data sharing across organisations or local authority borders; the administration of funding; and co-location not being practical in large rural areas.

Access to Bairns’ Hoose

At the time of fieldwork, six partnerships had opened a physical Bairns’ Hoose. The environment of these sites was child-friendly and trauma-informed, and set up in a way that allowed families to access services without encountering other families or staff not supporting them. Support for children and young people (CYP) with specialist needs requiring speech and language therapy or interpretation services were also available. The extent to which the sites included police, social work, justice, health and recovery services all under one roof varied.

Rural areas overcame challenges to access across their geography by using hub-and-spoke models, providing support for travel, and taking a soft borders approach to referrals. Learning was identified for how to ensure that those who accessed Bairns’ Hoose remained unidentified and to avoid community resistance in small communities.

Empowering children and young people

Progress was made across the partnerships in ensuring that CYP and families were informed about what was involved in being supported through Bairns’ Hoose. All partnerships reported progress in supporting CYP to have a say in how Bairns’ Hoose works, through a range of mechanisms such as participation groups. Some specific processes and staff roles had been implemented to embed CYP’s participation (e.g. those recruited specifically to advocacy roles).

Challenges identified by the partnerships were generally related to gathering CYP’s feedback, especially given the need to do this in a sensitive way without overwhelming CYP. Information sharing barriers could lead to duplication of feedback processes. Another challenge was ensuring objective feedback.

Scottish Child Interview Model (SCIM)

Interviews in the Bairns Hoose’ was the highest scoring Standard in terms of Pathfinders’ self-assessment. All participating partnerships had introduced SCIM and had an Age of Criminal Responsibility (ACR) protocol in place. In all Pathfinders where a Bairns’ Hoose site had been operational, it was standard practice for Joint Investigative Interviews and ACR interviews to take place in the Bairns’ Hoose or a spoke site, unless CYP requested otherwise.

Staffing and the resource required for SCIM training were highlighted as key challenges, particularly in contexts of regular staff turnover. To ease waiting times, partnerships promoted a ‘cross-border’ approach to interview referrals. Another challenge included making the cultural shift required to overcome perceptions that SCIM slowed down police processes. Among the factors that supported the implementation of SCIM was the dedication and commitment of the SCIM teams, and advice from the national Joint Investigative Interview team. To improve the use of recorded interviews in court, partnerships facilitated engagement with the Scottish Children's Reporter Administration (SCRA) and Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS).

Justice

‘Support through the court and legal process’ had the lowest self-assessment score of all the Standards. Challenges highlighted related particularly to the setting up of live court links, with varied progress across partnerships and local challenges identified, e.g. suitable spaces to install court link equipment. Generally, partnerships felt that there could be more effective coordination across agencies to support families throughout the court process, and that national level coordination for changes to the justice system would be beneficial.

Areas of progress included plans to deliver training on justice processes, and support for families through the court process. There was some progress on information sharing between organisations supporting families and one partnership was progressing the relevant discussions and necessary arrangements for embedding a specialist Procurator Fiscal. There was evidence of partnership working, including with partners such as Scottish Courts and Tribunal Service (SCTS), COPFS, and SCRA, to overcome challenges.

Health

Partnerships reported progress in setting up health and wellbeing rooms in Bairns’ Hoose buildings. Most did not conduct clinical medical examinations or forensic medical examinations on-site, but had made progress in applying Bairns' Hoose standards in hospitals where clinical medical examinations took place. Partnerships also reported progress in linking additional health and wellbeing support with Bairns’ Hoose; developing resources to assess CYP health needs; and plans to recruit for health posts.

Several partnerships reported finding it particularly difficult to develop the health aspect of their Bairns’ Hoose. These included difficulties achieving buy-in from health partners, although collaboration with health had improved over time. Giving health partners time to experience and understand the purpose of Bairns’ Hoose was identified as a useful way of creating buy-in. In one partnership, health was the lead partner, and it was suggested that this may have helped health partners to take a more active role. Other challenges identified included legal requirements around forensics; resourcing issues (both funding and practicalities around where medical professionals can work); and information sharing (relating to the use of medical terminology as well as lack of integration of information management systems).

Recovery

All partnerships bar one had commissioned third sector recovery support through the Bairns’ Hoose in some form and partnerships had also made progress towards developing clear referral pathways to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS). However, gaps remained in the type and scope of recovery support available across partnerships. Coordination of recovery support was facilitated in various ways, including by Bairns’ Hoose coordinators; creating a recovery subgroup; co-locating recovery support workers at the Bairns’ Hoose; providing a single point of contact for families to access recovery support and advocacy; or creating a booking system with scheduled follow-up.

Capacity to deliver recovery services was a key challenge. This was linked to limited funding; limited scope of third sector organisations; procurement timescales; and travel requirements in rural areas. Concerns were also raised about the risk of re-traumatisation from delivering recovery support in the same place as interviews or forensic medical examinations.

Staff support and training

All partnerships reported delivering trauma-informed training to staff and almost all had supervision and wellbeing arrangements in place at the first self-assessment in February 2024. These were developed further by September 2025. Some partnerships had conducted training needs analyses to inform their training plans, while two had appointed learning and development staff to coordinate training across the Bairns’ Hoose.

Participants appreciated the opportunity to learn from other areas through national events, the self-assessment process and peer support. Those further on in their development felt that support available was perhaps more useful for partnerships who were less established.

Views on national guidance

The research asked partners about their views on the forthcoming national guidance. Opinions on the balance between flexibility and consistency varied across individuals although there was a consensus that some flexibility was required. Aspects of Bairns’ Hoose that partners felt should be consistent included the quality of court live links, compliance with SCIM, and CYP being at the heart of all decisions. There were mixed views on co-location of all services in a physical building.