UNCRC Strategic Implementation Board minutes: April 2025 - Summary

Attendees and apologies

Members of the board

• Lucinda Rivers, UNICEF UK
• Juliet Harris, Together Scotland
• Amy Woodhouse, Parenting Across Scotland
• Jennifer Davidson, Institute for Inspiring Children’s Futures
• Laura Pasternak, Coalition of Care and Support Providers Scotland
• Craig Morris, Care Inspectorate
• Eleanor Deeming, Scottish Human Rights Commission
• Emma Hunter, Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland (CYCPS) – deputising for Gina Wilson
• Laura Caven, COSLA

Scottish Government officials

 

• Liz Levy, Unit Head, Children’s Rights Unit (Chair – Deputising for Deputy Director for Children’s Rights, Protection and Justice)
• Andrew Preston, UNCRC Programme Assistant, Children’s Rights Unit (secretariat)
• Lyndsey Saki, Embedding Children’s Rights in Public Services Programme Lead, Children’s Rights Unit
• Paul Gorman, Empowering Children and Young People Programme Lead
• Luiza Leite, Embedding Children’s Rights in Public Services Team (minutes)
• Ezhilarasi Mahadevan, Embedding Children’s Rights in Public Services Team (minutes)

Guests

• Elaine Park, Embedding Children’s Rights in Public Services Programme (for item 4)
• Allan Lindsay, Toni Andrews, and Sara Daniels, Young Scot (for item 5)

Apologies

 

• Kay Tisdall, The Observatory of Children’s Human Rights in Scotland
• Joe Smith, Right Reporting and Monitoring Programme Lead, Children’s Rights Unit

Items and actions

What is the Strategic Implementation Board?

The Strategic Implementation Board (or SIB, for short) is a group of people that meet every three months. They support the Government to help make sure that children and young people experience their human rights under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

They put in place support for organisations, children and young people, and their families to help ensure that children’s rights are made real. They discuss if the work is on track and help to fix any problems in trying to make this happen.

There are people on the SIB from children’s rights organisations and the Scottish Government.

What was discussed at this meeting?

Programme update

• SIB looked at a report that showed progress and plans for the next steps in the Scottish Government’s work on children’s rights. This included an update on progress in preparing guidance for children, young people, and their representatives to help them understand how to raise a concern about their rights. we refer to this as the ‘Pathways Resource’ and work on this is progressing well

• The group is thinking about how to review the children’s rights reports that will have to be submitted by some public authorities from April 2026. there were some questions about how this would happen but thinking on this is still at an early stage

• Member of SIB said they were keen to hear about how successful the Scottish Government funding of the Rights Respecting School Award had been. this will be discussed at the next meeting in June

Skills and knowledge framework

• SIB was given a presentation about a new framework that was launched recently to help public authority workers learn about children’s rights. this is called the Children’s Rights Skills and Knowledge Framework. it has three learning levels to be used depending on the level of understanding needed in a role and is based on five key principles that have been agreed as important in embedding children’s rights into the way people work

Feedback from children and young people on the children’s rights scheme

• The Scottish Government has been working on a ‘Children’s Rights Scheme’ which will explain how it will make it easier for children and young people to access their rights. Young Scot (an organisation that helps young people to access information and support) carried out a survey and discussion sessions with children and young people aged 9-18 about what the Scottish Government plans to include in the draft Children’s Rights Scheme. most children liked the plans but were unsure if schools would fully follow them. they said vulnerable children need special attention and adults should communicate clearly. children preferred to be referred to “children and young people” in the Scheme. the Scottish Government will respond to this feedback in a child-friendly version of the Scheme that will be published in the summer

The next meeting of the SIB will be held on Tuesday 24 June 2025 from 15:30 to 17:00