Children’s Hearings Scotland is proud to launch its first set of Participation Standards. The 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.

Children’s Hearings Scotland’s Head of Learning, Christine Mullen said, “A huge amount of research and work has gone into developing our Participation Standards. These standards link closely to our Children’s Rights and Inclusion Strategy which launched earlier this year.

“The group has been instrumental in developing a set of standards that can really push us to demonstrate best practice in consultation, engagement, participation, co-design and co-production across Children’s Hearings Scotland. My thanks goes out to everyone involved for their time and commitment.”

Beth Logan, Board Member at Children’s Hearings Scotland adds, “The Children’s Rights and Inclusion Strategy was a real building block enabling the creation of these standards which puts children and young people firmly at the heart of what Children’s Hearings Scotland does. A massive thank you to everyone involved in developing the standards.”

As our organisation looks to 2022 and beyond, our Children’s Rights and Inclusion Co-ordinator will 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 look at opportunities to embed the Participation Standards in everything we do – from improving experiences in children’s hearings, to training, recruitment and practice.

You can find more information on our Participation Standards here.