Children and Young People Affected by a Family Member in Prison or Secure Care: Final Report of Short-Life Group

Annex 1: Terms of Reference for the Short-Life Group

The Children and Families Collective Leadership Group (CLG) formally agreed at its meeting on 12 May 2022 to establish a Short-Life Group to consider the impact on children with a family member in custody; understand the experience of having a family member in prison on the child’s outcomes and identify the main factors could improve this experience; consider what support or other interventions could have created different, better outcomes; and recommend improvements to policy and practice to the relevant groups and organisations to achieve this. The report of the previous sub-group on under-18s in custody is linked below.

It is important that this Group’s work supports rather than duplicates the work of existing groups and organisations. The preparatory evidence gathering has shown the breadth of good work already taking place that could be built upon in the Short-Life Group’s work. This includes the work of the Scottish Prisons Service and third sector partners in relation to prison visitor centres and other means of helping children to maintain contacts with parents and carers through, for example, facilitating the use of video calls. There are also improvements in helping to develop the parental skills of parents and carers in prison.

The Group’s work is time-limited and will help to inform the implementation of Trauma Informed Practice; will help to consider priority areas for GIRFEC refresh implementation; will help to proactively support children across Scotland vulnerable through families in custody, will help to inform key elements of the new Justice Strategy and the requirements in The Promise Plan 21-24^[21] that:

• the disproportionate criminalisation of care experienced children and young people will end;
• 16- and 17-year-olds will no longer be placed in Young Offenders Institutes for sentence or on remand;
• there will be sufficient community-based alternatives so that detention is a last resort;
• children who do need to have their liberty restricted will be cared for in small, secure, safe, trauma-informed environments that uphold their rights.

Understanding the correlation between children with a family member in custody and the risks to them becoming offenders themselves is important, and the Short-Life Group will build on the previous work in relation to under-18s in custody. The key principles and actions in the recommendations from this work can be amended and extended to support children impacted by parents/carers in prison. These include:

• undertaking a trauma informed review of the child or child or young person’s situation and better recognising and helping to alleviate the effects of stigma, isolation, and loneliness;
• recognising the needs and rights of the child or child or young person and support their understanding of the court processes involving their family;
• assessing and reviewing key policies through the lens of UNCRC and other human rights treaties.

This Group’s work will help to meet the commitment in the Programme for Government to a preventative and proactive way that “we'll safeguard young people within the youth justice system, supporting a presumption against under 18s in the Criminal Justice System, keeping them out of young offenders' institutes where possible and appropriate, while ensuring that victims receive the support they need.”^[22]

The Short-Life Group will focus on the following tasks:

• Where a family member is in custody identifying the opportunities throughout that process to support the child and promote continued relationships with the family member in custody;
• Develop a preventative mechanism showing the key decision points and opportunities that exist to provide additional support and guidance on alternatives to custody for parents balancing risk to society with impact on a child of a family members remanded in custody;
• Consider what improvements can be made to professional practices at key decision points for children and young people, including through the GIRFEC National Practice Model, to maximise prevention, early intervention and other support and help ensure that detention is a last resort.

The Group will deliver a report and recommendations to CLG and relevant groups and organisations to help meet the ambition of The Promise Plan 21-24 and our ambition for all children in Scotland to grow up loved, safe and respected so that they realise their full potential #KeepThePromise.

Meetings of this Short-Life Group will take place in August, September and November 2022, January, February, and April 2023.

The Group’s membership is noted below.

Joanna MacDonald : Chair and Deputy Chief Social Work Advisor, Scottish Government

Alison Brown: OCSWA Business Manager

Sheila Gordon: Crossreach, representing CCPS

Tracey Thompson: Early Years Scotland

Laura Scofield: Scottish Prison Service, Families and Parenting Policy Manager

Scott McLellan: SPS Head of Social Justice

Vivien Thomson: Social Work Scotland

Alan Small: Chair of Child Protection Committees Scotland and Fife & Falkirk CPC

Louise Whitelock: The Promise Scotland

Carole Anne Walker: Care Inspectorate, Early Learning and Child Care

Gill Robinson: Scottish Prison Service, Professional Advisor on Young People (now retired)

Fiona Dyer: Director, Children and Young People’s Centre for Justice (CYCJ)

Lorraine McDonald: Scottish Government, Prison Policy

Claire Scott: Scottish Government, Trauma, Adverse Childhood Experiences and Resilience Unit

Debbie Nolan: Scottish Government, Children’s Care & Justice Bill Team (secondment from CYCJ)

Melissa Hunt: Scottish Children’s Reporters Administration (SCRA)

Kirsty Deacon: Scottish Children’s Reporters Administration (SCRA)

David Thomson: Scottish Government, Professional Social Work Adviser, Community Justice

Angela Latta: Scottish Government, Professional Social Work Adviser, Children and Families

Diane Dobbie: South Lanarkshire Council

Janine McCulloch: Education Scotland

Kirsty Pate: Scottish Government, Office of the Chief Social Work Adviser

June Peebles: Police Scotland

Martin Maclean: Police Scotland

Karen Ralston: Strathclyde University

Sherina Peek: Association of Local Authority Chief Housing Officers

Toni Groundwater: Families Outside

Claire Scott: Scottish Government, Health & Social Care

Additional Information

Family Framework – supporting families affected by the justice system

• Families Outside report on a framework for the support of families affected by the justice system and supporting information to the framework

Paying the Price – Research report

Families Outside into the cost to families of imprisonment and release