Exploring qualitative outcomes to support progress towards keeping the promise

5. Sources of qualitative data

A wide range of qualitative data would be required to evidence the outcomes listed above. There would be substantial ethical considerations and risk of participant burden in conducting primary qualitative research to collect such data. For that reason, full use of existing data sources (for example administrative data and records that describe experiences, or ongoing studies that are unpublished) is a priority.

Children’s and carers’ recorded accounts of decisions on where they live and experience care will be a key source. These accounts may be routinely gathered through the administrative processes of the care, education, health or justice systems, including feedback mechanisms; and data held by one organisation may inform outcomes beyond that organisation’s direct remit. For instance, if relevant and available, qualitative data to evidence outcomes under the Justice statement could come from: social work records (on referrals to and contact with social workers); children’s hearings records (on referrals to the Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration & attendance at Children’s Hearings); police records (on contact with juvenile liaison officers); and criminal history records (nature of criminal convictions). Routine documentation including case reviews, planning documents or other professional work records could also be used to examine outcomes at a service level.

Independent qualitative research carrying out interviews or focus groups with children experiencing care or carers, or gathering open text responses from them, will also be a key resource. This could include research focusing on different arenas of children’s lives (school, health services, police involvement or social networks) and could encompass research specifically focused on the care community or on wider groups of children but including some who are experiencing care. Sampling and approaches to safeguarding employed in such research will be particularly important to consider, particularly in relation to how children and young people have consented to their words and accounts being used. There may be scope for secondary analysis of academic research data (e.g. longitudinal studies such as the Edinburgh Study of Youth Transitions and Crime), through links with academic research collaborations such as the Children and Young People’s Centre for Justice and the Scottish Centre for Crime & Justice Research.

Some relevant information could also be accessible through the engagement activities of stakeholder organisations, or existing children and young people’s engagement groups. Established groups and forums could be approached, such as ‘Youth Justice Voices’, a joint collaboration between the Children’s and Young People’s Centre for Justice (CYCJ) and the Scottish Throughcare and Aftercare Forum (Staf). Set up in April 2019 to amplify the voices of young people aged 16-25 with experience of the care and justice systems, this youth justice advisory group is using creative ways to enable young people to be heard in the justice system, and explore and share their experiences with policymakers, managers, corporate parents and the Scottish Government.

In making use of administrative data in particular, the potential of context to shape the accounts that are accessed should be recognised. For instance, if seeking to access children’s descriptions of their experience from records created by professionals, it cannot be assumed that children will have felt empowered to voice any negative views to someone from that service. While those data will be of value, ideally they should be triangulated with views expressed in other contexts. Qualitative information gathered via those supporting children and young people is also not always recorded in such a way that allows the systematic generation of insights. Those stories may be presented in an unstructured way as selected anonymised quotes in reports or other administrative outputs, limiting their usefulness; selective quotes also risk stigmatisation, raising further challenges.^[2] This is aligned to the ongoing work of the Promise Story of Progress.

Finally, it was emphasised by analysts that the voice of babies and infants, who represent a substantial proportion of care experienced children, may not have the capacity or maturity to describe their experiences but should be considered in relation to all the Vision Statements. As with other groups of children experiencing care whose voices require tailored approaches to listening and understanding, any work to identify evidence sources for the outcomes we have identified should take account of whether and how the voice of those groups can best be heard.