"Prevent is a part of CONTEST the UK Government's counter-terrorism strategy. It is led by the Home Office and supported by the Scottish Government...
"
"This Guidance suggests that Health Boards review existing arrangements for protecting vulnerable adults and children as a starting point, and consider adapting them to deliver Prevent objectives so that Prevent is mainstreamedinto frontline healthcare services." [And education, of course, since it is all joined up.]
The Ferret reported on Prevent at the end of last year in relation to a Glasgow City Council training programme:
"Using Freedom of Information legislation, The Ferret obtained details of an internal Glasgow City Council (GCC)course entitled Protect Against Terrorism, which was produced to advise the council’s 20,000 employees on potential terrorist threats."
"In a section entitled What is Terrorism? GCC cited `animal rights`, `environmental` and `anti-nuclear` under a sub-heading Who Are Our Current Threats?...."
"Richard Haley, of Scotland Against Criminalising Communities(SACC), said: `Animal rights, environmental and anti-nuclear campaigns have somehow found their way onto slides used by Glasgow City Council for online staff training on PREVENT, where they are identified as current terrorist threats`."
"`These are of course legitimate issues for people to campaign about, and Glasgow City Council will no doubt have staff members who are involved in such campaigns. Their inclusion as terrorist threats is alarming and misleading. Regrettably, it is part of a wider pattern`."
It is part of a much wider pattern as Mel Kelly has pointed out. Child protection, the children`s hearing system, governance of schools, are all being transformed in Scotland at the moment to accommodate Prevent into GIRFEC and the Named Person scheme. Everything they are doing is about managing the itsy bitsy detail of personal life. They intend to run a very tight ship.
"A child welfare expert accused of falsely claiming to be a doctor is facing a disciplinary hearing." "Susan Stewart ran Scotland's Child and Family Assessment Centre and gave evidence before the Scottish Parliament's Finance Committee." "She is accused of falsely claiming to have a PhD in psychology from Stirling University and presenting herself as a doctor between 1995 and 2012."
(Susan Stewart, the Scottish Parliament Committee in 2010)*
"A Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) hearing began on Tuesday."
"The charge against her states that she submitted a CV for a Stirling University teaching assistant post, a job she started in 2012, which claimed she had a PhD from the institution awarded in 1995." "She is also accused of submitting an application form to Aberlour Child Care Trust, stating she had the same qualification, for the position of service manager of Scotland's Child and Family Assessment Centre, a job she took up in 2010." "Ms Stewart, 46, is also said to have used the false credential on a website advertising a child and family consultancy run by her." "The SSSC charge also says she prepared 59 child and family assessment reports between 2003 and 2011 holding herself out to be a doctor in the knowledge they would potentially be relied on by sheriff courts and children's hearings." "She is also alleged to have falsely used the title `doctor` when promoting the launch of Aberlour's Child and Family Assessment Centre, while running a session at the National Early Years Conference in 2010 and while giving evidence at the Scottish Parliament's Finance Committee in November 2010." "The four-day hearing is taking place in Dundee." http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-37022187
"In April 2004 the Scottish Executive published a consultation pack entitled `Getting it right for every child` as part of the first phase of the review of the Children's Hearings system."
Child Protection Improvement Programme "On 25 February 2016 the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning, Angela Constance, made a statement to Parliament announcing a programme of action on child protection." This would include consideration of the "impact of changes of legislation and practice in the Children’s Hearings System." As part of her statement she said:
"We have also modernised our unique children’s hearings system through legislation that was passed in 2011, and we have invested in professional development for social workers and all those who work with vulnerable children and families."
Later in the year it was announced that as part of the Child Protection Improvement Programme: "an independent child protection review chaired by former Crown agent Catherine Dyer is to be commissioned in Scotland." "This followed the conviction of a mother and her partner for the murder of her two-year-old son, Liam Fee." "National outcry erupted over why the social work department allowed his case to slip through the system and failed to act upon concerns for the safety and welfare of the boy." "Deputy First Minister John Swinney announced the appointment of Ms Dyer at a summit held in Perth." "Mr Swinney said: `An essential part of the child protection improvement programme is a review of policy, practice, services and structures so that we can identify strengths, achievements and priorities for change`." "`We will look at child protection committees, initial case reviews, significant case reviews and the child protection register to ensure that they work together to create a holistic, coherent and responsive child protection system that optimises outcomes for children`." http://www.scottishlegal.com/2016/06/08/catherine-dyer-to-chair-child-protection-review/
Given what we know about Alan Small`s involvement in GIRFEC`s implementation, i.e. named persons, and his later appointment to Fife`s child protection committee, how much of a coherent and holistic response to a child protection review should we really be looking for ?
Perhaps a less joined up, less coherent approach, would be more reassuring.
Susan McVie is Professor of Quantitative Criminology at the School of Law in the University of Edinburgh. She has published work on a variety of topics, although mainly in the areas of youth crime and justice, criminal careers, and crime trends and patterns. Here she is speaking at the Barrow Cadbury Trust conference. (The Barrow Cadbury Trust is an independent, charitable foundation, committed to bringing about socially just change.)
McVie begins her talk by producing a graph.
She explains that this is a typical age-crime curve - "taken from Scotland but you could find similar curves elsewhere. This distinctive curve has been around since the 1830s and ever since data has been collected about crime and offending behaviour it has tended to show this distinctive curve in the data. So we have a large upsurge in terms of offending somewhere during the adolescent years which peaks in this case somewhere around eighteen and then starts to decline slowly. So there`s the long tail on the right hand side of the graph there, the desistance tail. It`s the pattern by which people desist from offending over a period of time and is one of the most ubiquitous findings in criminology. It`s also one of the least contested issues ... Perhaps more contested though is the reasons behind it. Why does it increase so sharply in adolescent years and then why does it start to tail off? "
"Most UK research on desistance has focused on captive populations (very small known populations of offenders). There has been little experimental research to compare the outcomes of those who receive some form of intervention with those who don`t..."
"The Edinburgh Study of Youth Transitions and Crime aims to understand why some young people become heavily involved in crime and why most stop..."
"Early identification of at-risk children is not a water-tight process and may be iatrogenic. There has been a lot in the press for a number of years about early identification of at-risk children and early intervention - while that is not something I necessarily want to disagree with - it is not a watertight process . If your idea of identifying at-risk children early is to try to predict whether they are going to be the offenders of the future then I`m afraid you`re barking up the wrong tree and also more concerning is that they can be iatrogenic; they can be damaging to children to label them and target them in that sort of way."
"The vast majority of young people have a low probability of being convicted. The biggest group are the later-onset; you might actually call them the normal conviction group. Most people are not convicted until they get into their late teens and early twenties but the thing that the age-crime curve does conceal is two early onset groups. So one percent of our sample were early onset chronic and another were early onset desisters. You have two very small groups of young people who start to get convicted at a very early age and they will reach a point round about age 13 where their trajectories start to diverge . What happens that one group goes on to have a very prolific conviction trajectory and one group tails off and is not convicted very much beyond 15? How do the groups differ at age 12 ?"
"Comparing the early onset groups: there were no significant differences on measures of deprivation, family problems, delinquent peers, risky leisure activities, school problems, personality dimensions or moral attitudes to crime..."
"When we looked at the early onset groups we could find only four key things that changed. They did not get worse in terms of their offending behaviour and they did not get worse in terms of their family backgrounds. The chronic group got worse in terms of school truancy, school exclusion, police intervention and statutory youth justice intervention. They were getting worse because they were coming to the attention of the agencies and that is what explains their distinct trajectory in terms of convictions. "
"Exploring patterns of police contact showed that young people with `previous form` were significantly more likely to be charged by police and processed by the youth justice system than those with no prior contact. The `usual suspects` were mostly boys from socially deprived areas living in single parent households."
"Working cultures of formal agencies appear to constantly recycle categories of young people whilst other equally serious/vulnerable offenders escape tutelage of agencies altogether."
"Those who received `diversionary` measures - police charges and then no further action and young people who were referred to the Reporter and then had no further action - were significantly less likely to be involved in serious offending one year later.
However, those who went full on into the hearing system and were subject to compulsory measures of care inhibited the normal process of desistance from serious offending."
"Many of our young people who come out of our youth justice system go on to serve a life sentence by instalments."
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"The Edinburgh Study of Youth Transitions and Crime (ESYTC) has generated new understanding about youth offending and the impact of interventions. The study has led directly to reform in youth justice policy and practice in Scotland and has had international influence."
Looked after children are children looked after by their local authority. They may be living with foster parents, at home under a supervision order, in a residential home or secure unit.
Many children in the care system are moved frequently between these various living arrangements and so in recent times there has been an effort to prevent children drifting in local authority care. Toward this end, CELCIS, the Centre for Excellence for Looked After Children in Scotland, has made "achieving permanence one of the central planks of its philosophy". Achieving permanence for a looked after child could mean a `permanence order`, adoption, the end of a supervision order or a return home. At that point the local authority is free to walk away. It is as well to remember that.
The Scottish Government commissioned CELCIS to deliver a "transformational permanence improvement programme". Not all children can be adopted so really there was a drive to achieve other types of permanent placements. According to CELCIS the main cause of delay in achieving permanence for looked after children was the formal systems and decision-making processes. There were consultations with social care, local authority legal advisors and legal professionals in Hearings and Courts in order to improve communication and understanding about the importance of permanence.
"In addition, PaCT, together with partners in Scottish Government and BAAF [British Association of Adoption and Fostering], reviewed legal issues related to permanence and discussed with the Government whether changes to court rules and processes could speed up permanence."
"Similarly, written and oral evidence was given to the Scottish Parliament Education and Culture Committee to inform the Inquiry into decision-making on taking children into care."
At one time removing children permanently from their parents was considered to be a last resort. The ethos of the Children`s Hearing system was to support children so that they could remain safely within their families. The transformation that the Scottish Government asked for turns that idea on its head.
One of the theories which can be used to justify breaking the bonds between children and their parents, in order to pursue a permanent arrangement in another placement, is attachment theory. This theory, which is not uncontested, suggests that for some children there never was a strong attachment in the first place.
To bring forward the transformation in permanency provision, learning and development sessions about attachment were delivered to local authority staff, NHS staff, Children’s Hearings Scotland, voluntary agencies, legal professionals and policy makers. This included current learning on child development, brain development and issues around contact.
It should be noted that if attachment theory is flawed - which I believe it is - then every decision made with that as its premise will be a flawed decision.
But according to CELCIS: "The impact of this work has been to change practice, improve children`s experiences and increase knowledge and confidence, as well as raising awareness and changing attitudes." This work certainly has all parts of the system collaborating to change their practice and attitudes but whether that actually improves children`s experiences is another matter. For one thing, children`s contact with their parents can be seen as getting in the way of permanence. The drive is to reduce contact or cut it out altogether so that children are forced to attach to their new carers. As a senior manager reflects:
The Panel made direct reference to the [CELCIS attachment] training. The Social worker thought that she might have a job to convince Panel Members, but they set contact themselves. The parents saw Panel Members and Social Workers thinking in the same way, which reinforced for the parents that it was the right decision.
I do not believe that for one moment. Parents are more likely to perceive the system as being loaded against them, which it is, and it has just got worse.
...the Locality Reporter Manager came back and said that they made a decision to stop contact because they’d thought about that question [put forward in the learning and development session], ‘why are we having contact? Where is the, you know, in what way is this contact supporting the child’s emotional welfare, development and self-esteem?’ And they couldn’t answer that it was. So they terminated the contact (PaCT consultant).
Notice, it is not the child or the family who decides to terminate contact. It is the establishment who has grown in confidence due to attachment training.
CELCIS adopted the Plan/Do/Study/Act model for service improvement which actually produces a `one size fits all` strategy to speed up permanence for all children going through the care system. For that reason alone, it will fail many children.
The few cases that I know about have never produced anything other than trauma for children. I am sure there are success stories but I not aware of them.
Two families had their children removed and placed in alternative care. At each hearing social workers produced glowing reports that the children were `thriving` in their placement and it would be disruptive for the children to have them return home. Panel members who make the decisions find it difficult to question the authority of social workers but the reports were false.
This all came out after more than three years when it was no longer possible to hide the fact that each placement was failing the children. At that point the children were returned home where they always wanted to be. The children, who have been changed by their experiences, are beginning the journey to recovery with their parents.
When permanency is processed more speedily so that it takes place in 6 months, say, situations like those above could remain hidden forever because permanency takes away parental rights. Parents will then have no more contact or knowledge about their children and no means to contest decisions at a hearing. (Similar to adoption)
Although it was an uphill struggle, fortunately for those families who regained their children they were dealing with the system before it transformed itself.
The Deming cycle is also described as Plan/Do/Study/Act and is being used in Scotland on a grand scale.
For instance: "The Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration (SCRA) published the Care and Permanence Planning for Looked after Children in Scotland report in March 2011. This report considered the pathways and decision-making processes through the care and court systems in Scotland for 100 looked after children from the point they were first identified as at risk, to the point of adoption or permanence. The report highlighted the following key areas for improvement:" "Decision making and implementation" "Practice of the Children’s Hearing system" "Improvements to court processes"
"The Scottish Government responded to the SCRA report in June 2011 outlining clear expectations for improvement across permanence practice in Scotland. The Centre for Excellence for Looked after Children in Scotland (CELCIS) was commissioned to recruit a Permanence and Care Team (PaCT), charged with the development and delivery of a transformational permanence improvement programme." http://www.celcis.org/our-work/key-areas/permanence/our-permanence-work/
What they mean by the development and delivery of a transformational permanence improvement programme is one that pushes children more speedily through the system towards permanence. For children, that could mean adoption, kinship care or a return to their parents, although the latter is the least likely outcome. I noticed that the Permanence and Care Team (PaCT) used a Plan/Do/Study/Act cycle to achieve speedier outcomes.
Lesley Scott, TYMES Trust representative, had a lot to say about the Deming model in her recent talk given to the Scottish Liberty Forum.
"These plan/do/study/act cycles actually replicate a process that was developed in the 1950s by W. Deming, the American statistician, educator and consultant. Deming pioneered his plan/do/study/act cycles within the manufacturing industry in the hope of improving quality control based on a systematic tallying of product defects which includes the identification and analysis of their causes. Once the causes of defects are corrected, the outcomes are tracked to measure the effects of these corrections and subsequent product quality. Therefore management gains more and better knowledge about the processes and products."
"The Scottish Government has engaged an American company called the Institute of Healthcare Improvement or IHI to educate practitioners throughout all relevant public, private, and voluntary community bodies on this model for improvement."
"And then we have the family sector being subject to the same quality control methods as are used by the manufacturing sector; with the Government identifying what they consider to be defects and forcing corrective measures .... with, if necessary, threats of compulsion through GIRFEC and the Named Person legislation in order to ensure that children and families meet the state approved outcomes...."
"Children, therefore, if we are to apply the Deming management and improvement method principle as the Early Years Collaborative promotes, are viewed in the role of product and consequently families and the state must be a system working together on the production. However, if the family and the state are a system why is it only the state component that involves the setting of aims in the plan/do/study/act cycles? Why is it only the state which carries out the assessment of the knowledge and data collected and only the state which decides if any change was a success?"
"Parents and families it would seem are, in fact, being used as the problems or barriers that are built right into the system. The GIRFEC list of risk indicators reflects such an argument giving as it does a checklist of defects, errors or mistakes that require rework by the state in order to improve product quality. "
Dehumanising is the word that comes to mind.
Of course, all of this has already been set in a much broader context as explained in The 3-Step Improvement Framework for Scotland’s Public Services which was discussed by UK Column at about 33.20 minutes. The plan/do/study/act model is being used throughout one massive joined-up Scottish Government body.
It looks like the blueprint for a totalitarian state and we need to start worrying about what they have in mind for our children. The document can be found below.
The Scottish Tribunals & Administrative Justice Advisory Committee (STAJAC ) was established in November 2013 by the then Minister for Community Safety and Legal Affairs, Roseanna Cunningham MSP.
"It was established as an interim committee with a lifespan of two years, ending in November 2015. The Committee is non-statutory in nature. It was established to play a vital role in championing the needs of users across the administrative justice and tribunals system in Scotland, to provide external scrutiny of the system in devolved areas, and to highlight any issues to Scottish Ministers." "As part of its remit, one of the functions of the STAJAC is "to recommend how the functions of the Committee should be carried out in the longer term." "The consultation on the future arrangements for carrying out the functions of the STAJAC ran for six weeks from the 8th May until the 17th June 2015." "It was a targeted consultation and sent to over 400 stakeholders with an interest in the administrative justice system. One of the questions was:"
Do you agree that there is a need for a committee such as STAJAC?;
There were 17 responses and 14 out of 17 agreed that there was a need for such a committee. The children`s hearing system neither agreed nor disagreed and did not address the questions.
We do not have comment to make on the specific questions asked as part of the consultation. However, we would welcome clarification about whether the children’s hearings system is included within the proposed remit of the future committee. A children’s hearing is a Scottish tribunal but we would not consider the children’s hearings system to be "administrative justice".
This is an extraordinary statement given that the children`s hearing system has the power to remove children from their families. What about children`s rights? If ever a system needed external scrutiny, this is it.
The Children`s Hearing system has been operating in Scotland for over forty years and follows the recommendations of the Kilbradon report. (1964)
It is founded on 3 principles:
that children who `were wronged` could be accommodated in the same system as children who `did wrong`.
that both groups of children should receive interventions, where appropriate, based on `treatment` rather than punishment since the child who does `wrong` is often the child who has been `wronged.`
that courts may be appropriate places when facts are disputed, but decisions affecting the lives of children are best made by a panel of lay persons.
It is a system that has been viewed positively worldwide but is now under threat.
The Named Person scheme The Highland Council was a pilot for the scheme where 8,000 youngsters were placed on a Child`s Plan and singled out for targeted interventions. Before the trial began only 64 children were on the Child Protection register which is a decision made by the children`s panel. The scheme was pronounced a success by its supporters because the number of children appearing at Children`s Hearings had fallen. Really, what had happened was that the Named Person scheme had circumvented the Children`s Hearing system and more families and children than ever before had been subjected to state interference - but without the customary safeguards.
At a Children`s Hearing a family appears in front of three voluntary lay persons acting like a mini-jury in some respects who are independent of the Local Authority. The reporter is there to ensure that the meeting is conducted according to the legal guidelines. Children and families have a right to be listened to, and a right to dispute the Local Authority`s reports. By no means a perfect system, it does offer these safeguards. A family who can persuade the three panel members that the social worker sitting round the table has got it wrong, has a fighting chance.
On the other hand, the power of Named Persons to gather and share data about children with their collaborators in a multi-agency team, behind the backs of the family, is greater than that exercised by the Children`s Hearing system. It is a collusive system; there are no safeguards against its decisions; and its power and influence extends to young people aged 18 whereas the Children`s Hearing system deals only with children up to 16 years.
Including professionals in the panel As if the loss of checks and balances was not bad enough for children and families, Mr Gaw, president of Social Work Scotland, has suggested that the children`s panel system could be improved by introducing professionals, especially those from a social work background, into the system.
If that were to happen, the independence of lay persons who make decisions at a hearing would be compromised.
Regardless, Jackie Brock, chief executive of Children in Scotland thinks it is a good idea. She is concerned by the "increasingly adversarial nature of complex child protection cases heard by the children`s panel ..."
The reason for the increase in adversarial cases is that more children are being forcibly removed from their families. Faced with that, Jackie Brock and others would wish to disarm children and families totally.
"A VICTIM of horrifying sex attacks at the hands of a Children’s Panel boss today opens his heart to the Record in a bid to expose Scotland’s secret shame of institutional child abuse." "Dad-of-four John Stewart, 42, has waved his anonymity after winning a 14-year fight to see ... Daniel Ross - the very man who should have been protecting him as a vulnerable youngster in the 1980s - finally brought to justice."
"Ross, 62, who was also a special police constable, is facing jail after being found guilty of abusing his position as a Chairman of Glasgow’s Children’s Panel to groom youngsters for sickening sex attacks...." "And John - who had his appendix removed as a 14-year-old after being sodomised by Ross and passed around his paedophile ring of friends - believes the case is the tip of a gruesome iceberg that goes to the heart of Scotland’s establishment." "Ross was supposed to be protecting young people like me, but instead he was using his position to get his claws into vulnerable children."...He was found guilty of six sexual abuse charges at the High Court in Glasgow on Friday. Sentence was deferred and he was remanded in custody...." "It is incredible how powerful people can protect themselves and how things can be covered up for years until someone is brave enough to stand up to them...." "Survivors of historical child abuse have expressed concerns about the future of a long-awaited public inquiry after the Scottish Government postponed a key announcement on its chairperson earlier this month." "Education secretary Angela Constance had been expected to name the chair and outline the remit of the inquiry in a statement to parliament last week. But the announcement has now been put off until after the general election, raising fears among campaigners that the scope of the inquiry is to be reduced." http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/childrens-panel-beast-abused-badly-5631775
"MSPs are currently taking evidence on the proposed Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Scotland) Bill, which is making its way through the Scottish Parliament." "A submission from child protection figures including Dr Paul Rigby, of Stirling University, notes that there have been 60 child referrals to the National Crime Agency’s UK Human Trafficking Centre and the Home Office since 2012. " "Since 2012 there have been 60 child referrals to the Competent Authorities from Scotland, as recorded by the National Referral Mechanism official statistics," it states. "Children referred to the NRM have been victims of various types of exploitation and abuse including sexual abuse, commercial sexual exploitation, domestic servitude, forced marriage, physical abuse, criminality, benefits fraud and female genital mutilation. Research in Glasgow has indicated that for nearly half of the children identified as trafficked there is evidence of multiple exploitative situations."... "The submission to today’s justice committee meeting says children were viewed as "mini adults" by the NRM process, meaning they did not always receive the care and attention needed." "It also noted that young people over the age of 16, who are defined as adults in Scottish law, find it difficult to receive supervision under the Children’s Hearing legislation." "Last month, the Faculty of Advocates called for victims of trafficking to be given more protection from prosecution in law." http://www.scotsman.com/news/scotland/top-stories/scots-kids-forced-into-slavery-and-prostitution-1-3714129
The Children’s Hearings System is Scotland’s unique care and justice system for children and young people. It aims to ensure the safety and wellbeing of vulnerable children and young people through a decision making lay tribunal called the Children’s Panel.
Children and young people who face serious problems in their lives may be asked to go to a meeting called a children’s hearing. The Children’s Panel makes decisions at a hearing about the help and guidance necessary to support the child or young person. Decisions are made in the best interests of the child or young person to help and protect them.
A number of different agencies work together within the Children’s Hearings System to deliver care, protection and support services to the children and young people involved. These include social work, police, education, the Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration (SCRA) and Children’s Hearings Scotland (CHS).
One of the fundamental principles of the Children’s Hearings System is that children and young people who commit offences, and children and young people who need care and protection, are dealt with in the same system – as they are often the same children and young people.
There has been a decrease in referrals to the Reporter in the last six years but it is difficult to make sense of the trend. Have budget cuts had something to do with this? And why are more babies being taken into care? From the SCRA website:
In 2012/13 there was a decrease in the number of children and young people referred to the Reporter.
"Although there was a slight reduction this year, we continue to see considerable numbers of young children with Child Protection Orders – 743 in 2012/13, with more continuing to be granted for very young children, especially newborn babies, than any other age. Out of the 743 children and young people with CPOs, 160 were aged under 20 days and 344 were aged under two years.
These statistics can be compared with children on supervision orders as reported in the Daily Record: These show more state interference in family life, not less.
In 1987, just over 10 out of every 1000 children required support in their own homes or with other family members, foster carers or in residential homes.
But that number has risen steadily to just under 16 per 1000 in Scottish Government statistics from 2011/12.
In 2000, there were 2050 kids on the child protection register. By 2012, that number had risen to 2706 under-16s.
"Two Edinburgh social workers have been found in contempt of court for restricting a mother’s access to her children, against conditions set by the court in April 2012."
"The social workers, known as CM and GL, defied sheriff Katherine Mackie’s original ruling that the children should have contact with their mother a minimum of twice a week."
"They complied at first, but, according to the Edinburgh branch of Unison, became "increasingly concerned" about the emotional effect on the children."
"Due to concerns about placement breakdown, a contact was suspended pending a children’s hearing. Hearings were then continued without addressing the contact and contact did not take place for several weeks," said branch chair John Stevenson."
"Unison emphasised that all decisions were taken in accordance with Edinburgh council’s normal processes and procedures."
"However, Mackie held this to be an intentional breaching of her access order and made the social workers subject to contempt proceedings, which she presided over."
Scotland has had a unique system of care and justice for children and young people over the last forty years. Its underlying principle has stood the test of time: namely, that any child or young person who comes before the children’s panel, for whatever reason – be it offending behaviour or that they are in need of care and protection – is a child in need.
Throughout all those years, specially selected and trained lay people, with a passion and commitment to make things better for vulnerable children and young people have sat on children’s panels. In doing so, they have engaged in discussion with the child or young person before them, as well as their family or carers and professionals, to make a sound, reasoned decision in order to improve their individual situation. I was one of them myself for nine years. It was an experience that I will always remember and value for the knowledge and understanding it gave me about the situations in which our vulnerable children and young people are growing up in, and for the skills I gained which I have put to good use in my working life. It’s an experience that I would thoroughly recommend.
She goes on to explain glowingly some of the recent changes, but not all. An article in the Scottish Review points out that journalists, although restricted in what they could report, used to have a right to attend children`s hearings; Worryingly that is now no longer the case.
See `Suffer the little children in Scotland, for they suffer in silence.` Scottish Review
