The rapid development of a virtual Children’s Hearings System in Scotland: A realist-inspired synthesis assessing the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the participation and rights of children

Abstract

Scotland’s Children’s Hearings System is a unique statutory system that makes decisions about the need for compulsory professional involvement in the lives of children who are maltreated, in conflict with the law or displaying alarming behaviours. It was designed to facilitate in-person, child-centred discussions about the measures needed to ensure the care and protection of children. The Covid-19 pandemic challenged the ability of the Hearings System to fulfil this role due to the physical closure of Hearings Centres and the need to rapidly develop a virtual system. In this paper we present a realist-influenced synthesis exploring how contextual factors such as public health guidelines, emergency legislation, technological challenges and wider structural inequalities interacted with the delivery of virtual hearings to affect the participation and rights of children during the pandemic. We also describe how learning from the experiences of the participants of hearings was critical to understanding how virtual technologies could be adapted to provide a more rights-respecting approach to participation. We conclude by arguing that there is a need to ensure that the voices of children, which are largely absent from discussions around the use of virtual technologies, are incorporated into decisions made about their continued use within Children’s Hearings.

Plain Language Summary

The Children’s Hearings System is a legal system in Scotland that makes decisions about the care and protection of children and young people who are: being abused or neglected; in trouble with the police; or regularly truanting from school. At a Children’s Hearing, specially trained members of the public decide whether to place the child or young person onto a Compulsory Supervision Order (CSO). This is a legal document that specifies what support should be provided to the child or young person, where they should live and who they can have contact with. Before the Covid-19 pandemic all hearings were held in person at specially designed Hearings Centres. All of these centres were closed at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, resulting in a virtual Children’s Hearings System having to be set up quickly. In this paper we describe the challenges of using video-conferencing software to run Children’s Hearings. We explore how rules enacted by the UK and Scottish Governments affected how hearings could be delivered, before moving on to discuss how technical difficulties, lack of access to appropriate technologies and other inequalities such as digital poverty affected how children and young people could participate in their hearings. The paper finishes by describing changes made to virtual hearings in order to try and ensure that children and young people were able to participate in their hearings. In doing so, we highlight the importance of involving children and young people in discussions around how their voices can be heard, even in the context of a global pandemic.