At Children’s Hearings Scotland we are committed to consultation, engagement, participation, co-design and co-production to ensure that we are improving the experiences of children, young people and families attending children’s hearings.
Children’s Rights and Inclusion Strategy
Our Children’s Rights and Inclusion Strategy is focused on ensuring children and young people feel able to speak openly and honestly in hearings, that their views are given real weight in the decision making process and that they feel empowered and have ownership of their rights.
The strategy went out to consultation in July 2020 and was published in November of the same year. It has been developed in collaboration with young people with lived experience of the children’s hearings system, representatives the from Children’s Hearings Scotland (CHS) community – both staff and volunteers – and experts in participation and engagement.
It is founded on six pillars of inclusion, which focus on views, choice, relationships, communication, action and space, and allow us to address many of the recommendations made by The Promise.
Children’s Rights and Inclusion Strategy
Participation Standards
Our Participation Standards were developed by a working group of people with lived experience and our Children’s Rights and Inclusion Co-ordinator. They are focused on embedding best practice in participation across everything we do and link closely to our Children’s Rights and Inclusion Strategy.
Our Children’s Rights and Inclusion Co-ordinator will continue to work with people with lived experience of the children’s hearings system, the team at Children’s Hearings Scotland and our local volunteer leaders to embed the Participation Standards in everything we do – from improving experiences in children’s hearings, to training, recruitment and practice.
We continue to place young people's voices at the heart of everything we do at Children’s Hearings Scotland. We need the expertise of people with lived experience of the children’s hearings system on a whole range of exciting projects. If you have personal experience of children’s hearings, and would like to be involved in any of our projects or just find out more, please get in touch at communications@chs.gov.scot. We would love to hear from you!