Bairns Hoose Parliamentary Event

On Tuesday 21^st November we shared our work with partners to open Scotland’s first Bairns Hoose at the Scottish Parliament. This fantastic event brought together leading figures from Scotland’s justice, police, social work and NHS, as well as the Scottish Government and third sector partners, with a common focus on the needs of the children and young people we serve. Rather than facing a care, protection and justice experience that can cause children further trauma, Bairns Hoose offers hope, healing and recovery.

Presenting at the event Children 1st CEO, Mary Glasgow said, “The voices of children have been ringing in our ears for decades. Without their willingness to share difficult experiences for the benefit of others, Bairns Hoose would not be possible. We can’t always stop bad things happening to children and young people but, we can do everything in our power to help them to recover.”

Now we need to keep that collective effort, and a shared commitment to real change to realise Bairns Hoose for every child that needs it in Scotland.

Here we share Mary Glasgow’s rousing speech:

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Thank you, Rona MacKay MSP, for your warm welcome and for sponsoring this event, and most of all, thank you for being such a strong and constant advocate for Children in need of care, protection and justice over many years, for listening so carefully to our concerns and for supporting our campaign to bring Bairns Hoose to Scotland.

Thank you to everyone, all our partners, funders and colleagues, and of course MSP’s who have made the time to join us here this evening to celebrate the opening of Scotland’s first Bairns Hoose. This evening isn’t just a celebration though, it is an opportunity to reflect on the next steps needed to make sure that no child in Scotland ever again tells us that their experience of navigating through the systems built to keep them safe and uphold their rights to justice and recovery was worse than the abuse they suffered.

I must extend a particular welcome to very special guests, Lord Carloway, whose Evidence and Procedure Review in 2015 called for change and identified Barnahus as the solution to a problem we had been concerned about for many years and of course to Lady Dorrian, whom we have the pleasure of hearing from later. Both played a crucial role in the progress we have made to date, and we owe both a huge debt of gratitude.

Of course, we are only here tonight thanks to the many, many courageous children and young people who have been calling for change alongside us for decades.  At Children 1st, our work always begins with listening to what children and young people are telling us. I'd like to introduce you to one of those young people, Lydia, who has shared her poem “Things need to change”. 

Voices like Lydia’s have been ringing in the ears of Children 1st and our partners and colleagues across agencies for decades and their willingness to share deeply painful and traumatic experiences for the benefit of others, leave us humbled, full of admiration and determined to make sure that things really will change. Thank you for listening and thank you for working to make sure that Lydia is heard and for committing to making the change she and many other children call for.

I know we all take that responsibility seriously. It’s why we are all here and it’s why we have already made the considerable progress we have. Bairns Hoose is the UNCRC and the Promise, delivered for children and young people who require a co-ordinated journey through care, protection, justice and recovery.

Transforming complex and siloed systems built over years to be more compassionate, co-ordinated, child centred, and trauma informed is of course incredibly challenging. Learning from the Scandinavian Barnahus model offers us an ambitious but clear and simple model of care and protection, justice, and recovery under one child friendly and trauma sensitive roof. Testing and developing a Scottish Bairns Hoose allows us to learn how that approach can transform the experiences and the lives of all child victims and witnesses here in Scotland by bringing a co-ordinated, less traumatic and recovery focussed journey to justice – a key area that children and young people have called for.

What underpins Bairns Hoose is the need for collaboration and partnership between Government departments, agencies and organisations to develop a shared understanding of what needs improved and a determined and ambitious vision to implement those changes informed by children, young people and their families.

In North Strathclyde, we each came to the partnership with specific areas of expertise and knowledge, with clear roles, responsibilities and purpose. Most importantly we kept a relentless focus on the voices, the needs and the rights of the children we aimed to serve – building on the introduction of the high quality evidence based Scottish Child Interview model, with highly trained and attuned child interviewers, we created a shared vision to develop a Barnahus and we set ourselves an ambition that we thought might be beyond us and yet in doing so have achieved a great deal. We, of course, still have a way to go toward delivering a fully co-ordinated and trauma free journey for children but the opening of our Bairns Hoose is a milestone worthy of real celebration.

And so, as we celebrate the opening of our Bairns Hoose, I know this will mark a genuine turning point in the way that children and young people experience child protection and justice in Scotland. It is a milestone on what has been an incredibly long and complicated road, involving huge challenges that often felt insurmountable – but with incredible support from funders like players of People’s Postcode Lottery, and our partners Victim Support Scotland, the University of Edinburgh, Children England, and all colleagues across Social work, Police, Health and Justice in the ground breaking North Strathclyde partnership, we are on our way toward real change.

But I am sure that you are all keen to see the Bairns Hoose for yourselves and so here it is, introduced by the young changemakers who helped design it.

The house has been open since the end of August, and we have already had powerful feedback from children who tell us how safe, warm and comfortable the space is, how the temperature is just right, how much safer it feels than police stations, or other spaces where interviews normally take place.

We have had many visitors to the Bairns Hoose, from across all parts of the system and from as far away as Sweden, Iceland, Switzerland and Australia. All have congratulated Scotland on how focused we are on the needs of children and young people and how it manifests the potential to transform a whole system within a deliberately designed space.

Of course, taking the model to scale across the country in a consistent way will be the next challenge. The evidence is clear, and we must follow it. A permissive, overly flexible or watered down version will simply not deliver the transformation required and will only serve to deepen the risks that children’s experiences will depend on the standard of local resources available. With Scottish Government Pathfinders now in the pipeline, I hope that we see a roll out in line with the Bairns Hoose standards with no gap between the policy aspiration and practice reality. 

We have to be confident that the voices of children and young people, and their families, will act as a guiding light to us all.

As our colleague, Margaret Mills, who has been supporting children for over 50 years in our borders trauma recovery service said when she visited.

“This house gives the hope of a trauma free justice experience. This is what young people have told me over many years, what they should have. My impression is that this homely, calming environment creates a place of safety for children and young people of all ages”.

Unfortunately, the Minister for Children and Young People and Keeping the Promise Natalie Don is unwell today and so can’t be here, but I’m delighted to introduce you the Minister for Social Care, Mental Wellbeing and Sport, Maree Todd who will say a few words on her behalf and who, of course formerly held the post of Minister for Children and Young People. 

Earlier we heard from Lydia and now we are going to hear from her mum. When something horrific happens to your child you expect the system to care for and protect them, to put their need for safety above all else but despite the best of intentions we know that doesn’t always happen.

We know whole families are impacted when children are harmed and that all members of the family may needs support to recover.  Lydia's Mum was devastated by her experience and like Lydia was keen to contribute to changing it for other children. She told us she wants people in positions of power to hear about, Lydia's experience and her perspective as a parent. 

The Evidence and Procedure Review in 2015, and the pre-recorded evidence workstream in 2017 clearly stated that Scotland needed to find ways to ensure that children and witnesses who give evidence were not further harmed by that process. The Barnahus model was identified as a solution to this challenge.

As many of you know, Lady Dorrian led the review into Improving the Management of Sexual Offence Cases. As the Review says, Lady Dorrian set out to take an “entirely fresh look at the way in which sexual offences are dealt with”, and adopted a “clean sheet” approach, to help unpick challenges and ways of working that are entrenched old habits as opposed to anything that we would consciously choose if we were to create a system from scratch today.

Review after review shows that if we had really thought about giving children the best possible opportunity to give their evidence, we would never have designed what we have now, and I am so grateful to Lady Dorrian, our Lord Justice Clerk for making time today to share her reflections this evening.

I know that everyone here today understands and appreciates the problem that we are trying to fix here – the way that our child protection and justice systems can sometimes do more harm than good. Bairns Hoose offers something that seems rare – it’s a clear solution to a problem.

But it is worth reminding ourselves of how urgent it is that we act collectively to realise the Bairns Hoose ambitions and to honour the needs and rights of the children and young people we all serve. 

The scale of harm children and young people continue to experience in Scotland is difficult to comprehend. That’s not just because our data is poor – we don’t know vital information, like the number of children and young people who are asked to give evidence in court. Children are often invisible in a system designed around adults and working to the needs of the systems rather than the people who need it. 

We know that everyone involved wants to support children, protect their rights and promote their safety. But too often, the spaces and processes that people are working in just don’t allow this.

Exhausting delays in cases mean that fear and anticipation surrounding going to court lasts years, and repeated adjournments mean that anxiety and stress build repeatedly up to a court date. Children and families tell us that court buildings feel unsafe and untrustworthy, and giving evidence in court can be brutal. This all has a long-term impact on children’s lives, and can lead to a lack of sleep, worry, fear, flashbacks, and missing school. As a professional quoted in the University of Edinburgh evaluation published earlier this year said, children and families are often left “suspended in a state of anxiety”,

The problem isn’t just that our system creates new trauma and makes harm that has already happened worse – it’s is also incredibly inefficient. We’re constantly duplicating and replicating work between systems, and often losing sight of the child in the process.

Delays to court trials mean that in-person testimony is taken long after the events in question. Memories are less clear, and testimony can become confused. It increases feeling of self-blame and worries about getting questions “wrong”. Pre-recording evidence for trial can mean that testimony is taken closer to the time of relevant events and is not eroded by the impact of time.

Having clear, robust evidence that professionals are confident in should also make it easier for those who are getting cases ready for trial. That was a point made by Lady Dorrian in the Review on Improving the Management of Sexual Offence Cases and is something that we hope to soon in practice in North Strathclyde. The quality of interview is the lynchpin in this process, and we have had feedback that the conditions created in the Bairns Hoose allow for excellent evidence to be taken.

Children 1st will continue to argue that children should not be required to attend court, unless absolutely and unavoidably necessary. We are a long way from there, but we continue to work with hope and the determination that it can happen.

We were honoured to welcome Olivia Lind Haldorsson to Scotland when we opened the Bairns Hoose in August. As a leader in the European PROMISE Network, she has been so generous with her experience and expertise, having helped make the Barnahus model a reality right across Europe. Alongside Bragi Guðbrandsson, who was the founder Barnahus and now Vice Chair of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, we have benefitted greatly from their time, generosity and expertise.

They tell us that the rest of Europe are watching Scotland progress with interest.

Olivia also told us that “While it might feel hard to believe, trust me, we have not seen anything from Scotland that makes us believe that it is impossible, very different or even more complicated than other countries that have embarked on this journey.”

I recently read a book called ‘A Manifesto for Hope’, by Steve Chalke. It sets out ten principles for transforming the lives of children, young people and their families. Principle four is that ‘You go faster alone, but you can go further together’. That really resonates here, because the hope, vision and aspiration around the Bairns Hoose will go nowhere unless we have a collective effort, and a shared commitment to real change.

Finally in true Children 1st style we’re starting and ending with the children and young people whose voices led us to Bairns Hoose.

Sophie is someone who has been supported by Children 1st and with thanks to People’s Postcode Lottery, created this song along with two other young people, as a way to help make sense of her experience. She agreed her song could be recorded and shared to help us understand what it can be like to go through our child protection and justice systems.

The song speaks about being brave and strong, which feels like a fitting note to end on. As Lydia says, that needs to change. Because we can’t always stop bad things happening to children and young people – that is a devastating and unsettling truth. But we can do everything in our power to help them to recover.

Thank you so much for your time and attention today.

The song speaks about being brave and strong, which feels like a fitting note to end on. As Lydia says, that needs to change. Because we can’t always stop bad things happening to children and young people – that is a devastating and unsettling truth. But we can do everything in our power to help them to recover.