Scottish Children's Hearings System Research Articles

Care and protection in Scottish child welfare: evidence of double jeopardy?

Since the inception of the Scottish children's hearings system, an increasing concentration of child care and protection referrals has emerged. Data on 225 children referred on care and protection grounds are examined. Children faced a double jeopardy of personal adversity against a background of social and economic disadvantage. A smaller group of children were also victims of an offence by an adult. A significant proportion of children had multiple referrals suggesting a recycling of some children. Social adversity in the backgrounds of children has been found in other child welfare studies. The significance accorded to this by social work agencies and the links between neglect and poverty may be overlooked. The importance of policy that provides comprehensive public assistance and services, as found in other European countries, is an inescapable conclusion.

Children's Confidentiality at the Crossroad: Challenges for the Scottish Children's Hearing System

This article analyses the role played by panel members in the Scottish Children's Hearings System. In particular, the article focuses on the ways in which panel members attempts to involve children in the decision‐making process by seeking their views. Section 46 of Part II of the Children (Scotland) Act 1995 comes in for particular attention in this regard as it empowers panel members to clear the room in order to speak privately with the child. Based on interviews with 40 panel members, the article considers the use of discretion in relation to confidentiality and the general level of confidence in current policy given that the section, as currently drafted, requires disclosure to excluded parties of the substance of what has been said in their absence. The authors outline various ways in which panel members negotiate the interpretation of ‘substance’ and reveal significant areas of discomfort relating to their current practice and examine the Scottish Executive's proposals for reform.

Family support and the Scottish children's hearings system

ABSTRACT Evidence from a study of 1155 children referred to the children's hearings system in Scotland in 1995 found many of the children could be characterized as ‘children in need’. As found in other child care research, limited voluntary help was available to them, the majority received ‘no action’ and a substantial group a compulsory supervision requirement. The critical need for the strategic development of family support services in child welfare policy in Scotland for children referred to the hearings system is argued. The potential misuse of compulsory measures of supervision as a key to accessing resources is examined.

Ahead of the game or behind the times? The Scottish children's hearings system in international context

The Scottish Children's Hearing System, established in 1971, has survived largely unchanged for almost thirty years. Despite wide-ranging reform of child welfare in the Children (Scotland) Act, 1995, the key features of the Children's Hearings System were preserved largely intact. This stability and continuity contrasts sharply with major changes in systems of juvenile justice and child welfare across the world in recent decades. This article reviews the main contours of these developments, including the shifting balance between justice and welfare; the separation of children and people in need of care and protection from young offenders; diversion, restructuring and neo-conservative crime control strategies and considers their significance for the Scottish Children's Hearings System. It draws on two recently published studies, Deciding in Children's Interests (Hallett and Murray et al., 1998) and The International Context: Trends in Juvenile Justice and Child Welfare (Hallett and Hazel, 1998).

Young People's Participation in Decisions Affecting Their Welfare

This article focuses on young people and participation, drawing on a study of the Scottish Children's Hearings system, titled Deciding in Children's Interests, which was conducted at the University of Stirling between 1994 and 1997. It notes the surprising paucity of recent research on the hearings system, given that it was one of the earliest examples of young people systematically participating in decisions affecting them in a child welfare context. The authors consider several dimensions of participation in relation to the hearings system and other decision-making arenas. They suggest that participation rights may have become a reality more for young people involved in welfare systems than for other young people in the UK.

Young people who sexually abuse: the Scottish context

This paper describes the policy and legal context in Scotland in respect of alleged young sexual abusers and considers the challenges encountered by decision-makers, particularly reporters operating in the Scottish children's hearings system. These include the nature of the problem, resources, child witnesses and corroboration. It is argued that reporters, in considering whether or not to refer an alleged young sexual abuser to a children's hearing or to take no action, encounter influences in both directions, but on balance there appear to be more obstacles in the way of a referral to a hearing.

Children's rights and the Scottish Children's Hearings system

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Rights and the Children's Hearings System: The perceptions of five participant groups

SUMMARY: This article arises out of research conducted between 1990 and 1993 into the Scottish children's hearings system. The research was undertaken over a three‐year period in three regions of Scotland and involved five groups associated with hearings system operations: panel members, reporters, social workers, secondary teachers and police officers. Two research techniques were employed‐a questionnaire which was distributed to 620 respondents and follow‐up semi‐structured interviews with 45 of those respondents. This article provides a brief outline of the features of the Scottish children's hearings system, and considers the rights held by children and parents within the system and some possible developments of those rights.

Interests and Advocacy: Identifying the Role of Safeguarders in the Scottish Children's Hearings System

SUMMARY. ‘Safeguarders’ within the Scottish Children's Hearings have until recently been a neglected resource. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Orkney Inquiry have served to raise their profile, such that the development of their role now has a place on the agenda for change in Scotland. Some difficulties in identifying their current role in courts and hearings are discussed, and some changes are proposed. It is argued that safeguarders must be advocates of children's views as well as representatives of their interests. In certain cases they may fill a gap which avoids the need to bring legal agents into hearings, which would undermine the system.

The end of the road: residential disposals in the Scottish children's hearings system

In a study of a representative sample of 301 "children's hearings", particular attention was given to 27 cases in which the child was committed to a List D school. Because the Scottish juvenile justice system has an explicit commitment to promoting the welfare of the children with whom it deals, the decisions were examined with special reference to the objectives that the hearing members hoped to achieve. These decisions could be divided into: (1) those which reflected only a sense that all alternatives had been exhausted; (2) those which aimed to ensure that the child received formal education or was placed in an environment which would help resolve his personal difficulties; (3) those designed to protect the child from family stresses or to achieve some other specific purpose. Since decisions under (1) are incompatible with the formal philosophy of the system, most of those under (2) entail no knowledge of the effectiveness of List D schools for the purposes in question, and some of those under (3) were wholly misconceived, it is concluded that there are some significant inconsistencies between the system's ideology and the actual practice of its members.