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Participation and engagement

Where is Scotland in 2024?

Participation and engagement is at the centre of all work required for Scotland to #KeepThePromise. Despite this, four and half years on from the conclusions of the Independent Care Review, there are still organisations that need to significantly develop their approaches to participation and engagement to be more purposeful and inclusive, both of people and families with regards to their support, as well as more generally, with regards to the organisation’s operations and service design.

There continues to be a commitment to meaningful participation and engagement. However, there are also several barriers preventing progress at pace. These include, but are not restricted to: the workforce reporting a lack of time to plan and carry out meaningful participation and engagement activities, and to build the trusting relationships required for these to be effective; too few dedicated participation and engagement toolkits that offer age and stage appropriate approaches, therefore a lack of skills, knowledge and confidence; and structural barriers that fragment conversations into siloes. Organisations report a need to improve and diversify the range of ways that children, young people, and families can participate and engage, to ensure they can redesign processes and services to improve ways of working.

23 Local Authorities have established Champs Boards. Existing Champions Boards, plus dedicated participation activity (supported through co-design activities), have been the principal mechanisms to ensure integration of ‘voice’ within policy and practice areas. This has included activities such as local Keeping the Promise conferences, held across a range of localities. In some areas, groups have been re-established; in other areas, they have had to renew their focus. The level of demand being placed upon Champions Boards has been noted by some of the Boards and their Local Authorities, who report that the return to meaningful activity post-pandemic has been inconsistent across Scotland.

There are concerns about the risk of participation fatigue, which can be assessed through effective participation and engagement, and partially mitigated if all activity reflects what matters to children, young people, families, and care experienced adults - as opposed to what matters to the 'system', or a service or policy area.

More attention is required to ensure meaningful participation and engagement of children and young people who have faced significant trauma in their life, of babies and infants, of children and young people with additional support needs or a disability, of those for whom English or Gaelic is not their first or preferred language, and of families experiencing poverty in remote, rural and island communities.

Better attention and consideration must be given to interrogating and integrating evidence around these groups' experiences within Scotland’s ‘care system'. To do so requires investment in specialist skills.

Participation and engagement

Where does Scotland need to be by 2030?

By 2030, at the very latest, every individual’s voice and collective experience will have been heard in all aspects of work to keep the promise and its evaluation - meaning all change will have been influenced by voice.

  • Meaningful participation and engagement will be routine. Learning will be central to all activity related to planning, delivery and evaluation of systems and services that impact on the lives of children, young people and families in and on the edges of the ‘care system’ and care experienced adults. This will include specialist skills to engage babies, infants and young children, as well as the important people in their lives.
  • Participation and engagement activities will be inclusive of children and young people who have faced significant trauma in their life, of babies and infants, of children and young people with additional support needs or a disability, and of those for whom English or Gaelic is not their first or preferred language.
  • Strengthened processes will be routine to make sure children of all ages, families, and care experienced adults are involved in all decision making about their care.
  • Scotland's listening practices will be inclusive of children and young people who have faced significant trauma in their life, of babies and infants, of children and young people with additional support needs or a disability, and of those for whom English or Gaelic is not their first or preferred language.
  • Care experienced children, young people and adults will have ownership over their own stories and personal information. They will be able to influence how their stories are shared.
  • Children will be supported to understand the narrative of their lives in ways that are appropriate and have meaning for them, and young people and adults accessing their care records will be properly supported through that process.
Where does Scotland need to be by 2030?

The route map to get there

Adhering to best practice in remunerating people with lived experience must underpin activity and not act as a deterrent. This needs to include:

  • Arranging activity for times suitable to the group to increase take up:
    • avoiding school hours
    • flexible around care activity and support
    • does not require very early starts / finishes
  • Recompense for travel and accommodation:
    • arranging purchase of tickets / accommodation so that participants are not out of pocket
  • Remuneration that reflects their time and expertise
  • Meeting facilities that are fully accessible
  • Provision of food and creche facilities where needed

In 2024, all those with a role and responsibility to keep the promise will embed clear participation and engagement processes into their work, making better use of resources and services provided by those who hold relationships with, and represent, the care community.

Attention will be paid to the difference in processes required for age groups and identities with time and capacity dedicated to explore and capture what matters to care experienced people, from their perspective, in meaningful, creative and collaborative ways that differ from tokenistic participation or one-off engagements.

In 2025, those processes will be extended to ensure they are in place for all organisations who have a role in decision-making in the lives of babies, children, young people, families and care experienced adults, and will be actively used to provide meaningful co-design opportunities.

In 2025, The Promise Scotland will support organisations to bring together their processes and develop collaborative commissioning models for participation and engagement, focused on fostering meaningful participation and engagement over longer terms to ensure appropriate reward and recognition for time spent and effort given.

In 2025, Scottish Government will undertake a national review of multiple ongoing child protection, care and support processes and meetings to identify where unnecessary duplication takes place, where drift and delay is introduced, and where information could and should be better shared collaboratively with the Panel or Reporter to better inform decision-making.

The actions outlined in the Voice foundation are fully embedded at every stage to progress actions on Participation and engagement.

Meaningful participation takes time, is longer term, and in depth. The need to demonstrate participation and engagement, or to show voice has been heard, should not be allowed to become tokenistic or be carried out as a tick box exercise. 

What is helping?

There has been significant work by voluntary sector organisations and local authorities to support care experienced individuals to understand their story through improved processes to access care records. This includes helping people to understand their right to access their records, and support to interpret what is contained within them. 

Co-design is becoming a more frequent part of Scotland's discourse. There are lots of examples of services being co-designed and children and families participating during consultation and development. Much more credence is paid to the Lundy Model, to upholding core rights-based principles of participation and to working alongside families compassionately. There is also increasing recognition of the need to ensure the voices and experiences of babies and infants are meaningfully heard, and the need to explore ways to do this.

Lifelong Links aims to ensure that a child in care has a positive support network around them to help them, including as they become adults. It is now being offered to children and young people in five Local Authorities in Scotland.

Who must act?

Here is what matters to children and families

I have ownership of my information; I can access and shape my records easily and I can decide who I want to share it with or not.

I have all the information I want about the things that impact me, I understand it, and I have chances to ask any questions and have them answered.

I am actively and meaningfully involved in decisions and plans that affect me.

Having an influence over the things that matter to me is a normal, easy part of my everyday life.

I am supported to understand what my rights and entitlements are.

Find out more about the what matters questions here.

Also connected to this theme

Mapping

This is how Plan 24-30 relates to other frameworks and plans

Independent Care Review conclusions  Plan 21-24 priority area
the promise pgs.114-116 What matters to children and families
  Listening
  Children's rights
  A good childhood
  Building capacity 

 

 

UNCRC GIRFEC
Articles 3; 12; 18; 20; 22; 40 Safe
Concluding observation 17b Healthy
  Nurtured
  Respected
  Responsible
  Included