Children and young people's voices matter: progress report - February 2019

Getting It Right for Every Child (GIRFEC)

6. We will reinforce the Getting it right for every child approach and ensure that it is meaningful for children and young people.

We are currently working with stakeholders to refresh the GIRFEC policy guidance. This will support those working in children and families services to make sure that the culture, systems and practice of organisations accurately reflects our GIRFEC policy. 

GIRFEC puts children and young people at the heart of the policies and decisions that affect them. We continue to work with partners to ensure that children, young people, families and the wider public understand GIRFEC and how it can support them. 

7. We will consider how the child-centred approach, promoted by Getting it right for every child, is working in practice for developing positive relationships for children with practitioners (such as teachers and social workers, as raised by children).

People working in the public sector (such as teachers and social workers) must make sure there is equality for children and young people and take positive steps to eliminate discrimination, increase equality of opportunity and foster good relations between different people when carrying out their activities.

a) Teachers

We are in close contact with Families Need Fathers about schools’ communication with parents to make sure that both parents receive information in a suitable format. 

Also, Learning Together, which looks at parent’s involvement and engagement with schools, includes a section on Equalities and Equity. It makes clear that everyone should have access to the right support and advice to help them to engage in learning. This requires teachers to adapt to the needs and wishes of families as well as building better links between school and home.

Children in Scotland gathered children and young people’s views on the Professional Teaching Standards for the General Teaching Council for Scotland. The report was completed in May 2018 and shows that children and young people have a clear idea of the values, qualities and skills they want from a good teacher. Their views will help to shape the refreshed professional standards. 

b) Social workers

Good relationships between social workers and children and young people is essential to improving outcomes. This means always listening and making sure children and young people are involved in important decisions about them. This is an important part of the GIRFEC values and principles and is strongly supported by the office of the Chief Social Work Adviser who will state this in all discussions it has with Social Workers and Social Work managers.

We discussed the removal of identity badges in schools at a number of meetings with Social Work Scotland and the Chief Social Work Officers Strategic group. We agreed, in principle, that identity badges could be taken off in school or ordinary visitor badges could be worn if the child or young person thought this would benefit them (as long as it was agreed with school management that this was alright for security purposes).