Children’s Advocacy in the Children Hearings System minutes: November 2022

Attendees and apologies

Chair, Scottish Government (SG), Louise Piaskowski
CAPS Independent Advocacy (CAPS), Jane Crawford
Children’s Hearings Scotland (CHS), Edward McKim 
Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration (SCRA), Maryanne McIntyre
Scottish Government (SG) Pam Semple
Scottish Independent Advocacy Alliance (SIAA), Suzanne Swinton

Apologies

Partners in Advocacy (PiA), Pauline Cavanagh
Social Work Scotland (SWS), Charles Rocks

Items and actions

This note provides an overview of the discussion and action points from the meeting of the communications and engagement Sub-Group of the children hearings advocacy expert reference group (ERG).

The purpose of the meeting was to support on-going strategic work recognising the importance of local discussions and engagement, as well as looking to national communications, which remains high on our agenda of the expert reference group (ERG) meetings. An action was set at the 28 July ERG meeting to convene a meeting of the communications and engagement sub-group as soon as we are able, to identify what more can be progressed.

This group came together for a fast-flowing ideas session to provide input on:

• What is or has worked well in terms of local and national resources and practices?
• What are the key things we need to focus on locally and nationally to make further progress?

A range of activities were identified by the group to further enhance our communications and engagement strategy. Pauline provided feedback in writing in advance of the meeting on what PiA have found successful around their own comms, this is also captured in these points:

• Continue to promote the www.hearings-advocacy.com website in all social media channels
• Representation in national and groups such as children’s hearings improvement partnership (CHIP) and The Promise. This has helped organisations to meet the main stakeholders involved in the hearings system and primary and alternate provider to work together too. Organisations have delivered in-person presentations, which have been well received.
• Animations – promote them through YouTube on all social media channels, Facebook, Instagram, twitter etc. PiA shared examples, developed and posted on their website and promoted via social media that have seen a high level of engagement: https://youtu.be/1fk1qiEZ6WE and https://youtu.be/_4u-7lD-H28 
• Use of pre-hearing packs (3,000 issued already and orgs requesting more)
• Our hearings, our voice (OHOV) - voice magazine for children and young people, the 1st edition has been published and can be shared via the website – the 2nd edition is due soon.
• Interview an advocacy worker for the voice magazine, or for a podcast (with written transcript available to issue too). If not possible to work with OHOV, could develop the idea for the www.hearings-advocacy.com website.
• Case studies
• Frequently asked questions
• Scenarios / feedback from panel members – soundbites, wee snippets/ quotes about the difference it made to them hearing the voice of the child
• Professional Social Work magazine/newsletter – such as Scottish Association of Social Work
• SIAA member’s spotlight could feature a piece from an advocacy worker
• Wider promotion and engagement with children and families in the community and school settings across the country to allow more children and young people to hear about advocacy and can access the services. 
• Get more involved in education arena including:
• Review the info on education Scotland’s national hub 
• Update to association of directors of education Scotland (ADES)
• Link in with Amy at OHOV (ex-teacher)
• Children’s hearings advocacy national provider network input to the education reform programme currently running 
• Webinar from January 2022 – go back to the feedback provided to see what comms and engagement suggestions we can highlight and take forward.
• Locally based webinars – like the drugs and alcohol one CAPS delivered. 
• Communicate the expansion of the provision brothers and sisters and dols - leaflets, animations, any other means of getting information to young people
• Set up an email comms group for all providers to allow sharing of content across all social media
• Propose a dedicated comms contact within National Provider Network so we can co-ordinate comms activity.

Conclusion and actions

Actions

• Maryanne will speak to OHOV about possibility of working together on ideas to spotlight/promote the role of advocacy for children and young people within Hearings.
• Edward will send us contact details for the Scottish Association of Social Work.
• Scottish government will arrange to speak with Charles Rocks with regards to how and what we can do to support promotion of the provision and resources with and for Social Workers.
• Scottish government to collate all suggestions and develop these into a paper of good practice and action plan. Any time imperative ideas will be progressed as necessary.

Next meeting

• Scottish government to arrange a follow-on meeting in January 2023 where the good practice paper and action plan for review and to consider approval to present it to the ERG for endorsement.