Justice
Vision statement eight: “Scotland must stop locking up children who have often experienced the failures of the state in the provision of their care.
Organisational Progress
What is happening
In the materials reviewed, organisational learning in relation to justice focuses on how responses to care experienced children and young people can either reduce harm or deepen it. The evidence describes efforts to shift away from crisis-driven and punitive responses towards approaches grounded in relationships, understanding and early support. There is a strong emphasis on preventing escalation into justice involvement, ensuring children and young people feel safe and informed, and upholding their rights throughout any interaction with justice processes. At the same time, the accounts highlight ongoing inconsistency in practice, gaps in early help and pressures on services, which continue to shape when and how justice responses are experienced.
Click on the take me to navigation pane and jump to different sections here, including sources. To see what changes Scotland is making and still has to make for the promise to be kept, click on the justice route map in Plan 24-30. See more about the work of change across Scotland here.
Work is underway to develop relational, trauma-aware approaches that respond to each child or young person as an individual. Adults who know a young person well, such as those in education, care or community settings, were described as better able to respond in attuned and person-centred ways that prevent distress from escalating.
There is growing attention to understanding how restrictive or punitive responses affect children and young people, both immediately and over time. The materials describe how situations can escalate when distress is met with control rather than understanding, sometimes resulting in police involvement or the use of force that could have been avoided. The importance of de-escalation, clear communication and practice that reduces fear is repeatedly highlighted.
Support is also being shaped to help children and young people understand their emotions, recognise triggers, build confidence and develop coping strategies. Some approaches draw on mentoring and peer support, including support from adults with lived experience, to help build trust and reduce stigma.
Training for adults across education, care and justice settings plays a significant role. This includes deepening understanding of trauma, neurodiversity and the impact of instability on behaviour, so that responses are inclusive, proportionate and supportive rather than punitive. Collaborative work across some schools, community services and justice settings aims to ensure that restrictive practices are avoided wherever possible and never used as a default response.
The materials describe partnership work across education, care, health, community services and justice settings to provide earlier, more joined-up support. These approaches focus on recognising difficulties before they escalate and responding in ways that reflect the realities of children and young people’s lives, including instability at home, experiences of loss or challenges in education.
Whole family approaches are described as particularly important. Supporting parents and carers, reducing stress at home and improving stability are seen as central to preventing situations from escalating into conflict with the law. Alongside this, the accounts also show that many children and young people still encounter support only once they reach crisis point, when options are more limited and responses more likely to involve the justice system.
Accounts also highlight variation in how early help is accessed and coordinated. Where services work together and share responsibility, support is described as more timely and effective. Where this does not happen, families can experience gaps, duplication or delays, increasing the likelihood that difficulties escalate rather than being resolved earlier.
Work to promote rights-based practice to ensure that young people’s voices are respected and acted on includes involving care experienced young people in shaping services.
Materials highlighted that rights-based practice depends on young people feeling safe, not judged, and supported to share their views. Positive, trusting relationships were described as essential. When adults in settings such as custody suites, residential homes, schools and community services take time to build relationships and understand each child, young people are more confident expressing their views.
Work to ensure young people receive clear and accessible information about their rights, and about legal processes that affect them, is helping reduce anxiety and allows meaningful participation in decision making.
What is being learned about change
This section draws together learning from the materials reviewed about how change is being understood and shaped in practice. It reflects what is emerging across accounts of work underway, rather than evaluating effectiveness or setting direction. The focus is on identifying patterns in how approaches are being adapted, what appears to make a difference to experience, and where learning continues to develop.
Across the accounts, learning shows that responses grounded in relationships and understanding are far more effective at reducing harm than reactive or punitive approaches. Where adults recognise distress early and respond calmly, situations are less likely to escalate into police involvement or the use of force. Consistency and predictability help children and young people feel safer and more able to engage.
Key elements of success
- Sustained, trusting relationships.
- Responses shaped by understanding rather than control.
- Early recognition of distress.
- Consistency and predictability in adult responses.
Examples
- A young person becoming upset in a school or care environment being supported by an adult who already knows them well, who notices changes in tone or behaviour and takes them to a quieter space before things escalate.
- Police officers spending time in schools or community activities, so young people recognise them as familiar faces rather than only encountering them during crises.
- When police involvement cannot be avoided, officers explaining clearly what is happening, slowing the pace of the interaction, and checking understanding, focusing on care and de-escalation.
- A mentor with lived experience helping a young person talk through what led to a situation, focusing on what would help next time rather than assigning blame.
What to stop and what to change
- Escalating situations through rushed or reactive responses that overlook trauma and its impact.
- Using restraint or force on children and young people, particularly where distress could have been de-escalated.
- Making assumptions based on care experience or previous behaviour.
- Treating care experienced young people differently because of those assumptions.
- Responding to distress without explanation, reassurance or support.
- Failing to explain processes or rights clearly during police involvement.
- Inconsistent or unpredictable responses that undermine trust.
Across the accounts, learning shows that early, coordinated support reduces the likelihood of justice involvement. When services respond together around the child and family, difficulties are more likely to be addressed before reaching crisis. Conversely, when support is delayed or fragmented, responses become more reactive and options narrow.
Key elements of success
- Early and preventative support.
- Coordinated responses across services.
- Whole family approaches.
- Focus on diversion rather than punishment.
Examples
- Community-based activities giving young people fun and meaningful ways to spend time, build skills and feel connected.
- Families experiencing pressure being offered practical and emotional help early, such as support with routines, housing or finances.
- Workers spending time with young people outside of crisis moments, getting to know what helps them feel calm, what they enjoy, and where they feel safe.
- Early help being put in place when young people are struggling to fully participate in school or community activities, offering alternatives and support that keep them connected.
What to stop and what to change
- Waiting until difficulties escalate before offering help.
- Fragmented or siloed responses across services.
- Reliance on crisis-driven or punitive approaches.
- Treating justice involvement as inevitable rather than preventable.
Across the accounts, learning shows that young people are more likely to engage positively with justice processes when they feel informed, respected and supported to express their views. Being heard is closely linked to feeling safe and not judged. Clear, accessible information reduces fear and confusion, while trusted adults play a crucial role in helping young people understand what is happening and why. Rights-based practice works best when it is grounded in relationships, not just information.
Key elements of success
- Environments where young people feel safe to speak.
- Clear, accessible explanations of rights and processes.
- Trusted adults supporting understanding and participation.
- Genuine opportunities to influence decisions.
Examples
- Young people being talked through what is happening step by step during police involvement, with time taken to check understanding rather than rushing interactions.
- A trusted adult staying alongside a young person during interviews or legal processes, helping them ask questions, understand their rights and feel less alone.
- Information about rights and processes being shared in ways that make sense to young people, such as short videos, visual prompts or plain-language explanations.
- Young people being invited to share their views about what would help them feel safer or calmer, with adults responding respectfully rather than dismissing concerns.
- Care experienced young people taking part in shaping training, guidance or approaches used by services, using their lived experience to influence how others are treated.
What to stop and what to change
- Excluding young people from decisions that affect them.
- Sharing information in ways that are rushed, unclear or inaccessible.
- Relying on formal rights without relational support.
- Dismissing or minimising young people’s views.
- Creating environments where fear or judgement prevents participation.
Sources Referenced
The purpose of the below citations and summaries is to ensure that sources used are clear and accessible. Web links to the sources are provided, where possible.
Document summaries are provided for any document where analysis produced more than ten ‘coded segments’. ‘Coded segments’ refer to portions of a document that analysts identified and labelled as relevant to the key themes for each Vision Statement.
All documents that have informed the development of the Vision Statement, even if they had fewer than 10 coded segments, are cited in the ‘Additional Sources’ box below.
This report was published by the Centre for Youth & Criminal Justice (CYCJ) in March 2023. It was created to help discussions about how Scotland cares for children who have lost their freedom, especially as the country plans to stop holding children under 18 in Young Offender Institutions (YOIs) by 2024. The report aims to inform future plans for secure care and support the goals of the promise.
The study compares children in secure care with those in YOIs, finding that both groups have faced many difficult experiences like poverty, family problems, and violence. The report uses new information from secure care surveys and existing prison data to show that the needs and behaviours of children in both settings are very similar. It highlights that secure care is better set up to provide therapeutic, trauma-informed support with higher staff-to-child ratios, unlike YOIs which are not designed for this.
The authors suggest that secure care centres are already managing children who have committed serious offences, and that the focus should be on providing consistent, child-centred care that respects children's rights, regardless of why they are there. The report also points out differences in how these places are regulated and how children can see their families, with secure care offering a more supportive environment. It concludes by calling for better data sharing and a rethink of secure care services to ensure all children receive the best possible support.
Whitelaw, Dr Ruby, and Ross Gibson. Preparing to Keep The promise: A Comparative Study of Secure Care and Young Offender Institutions in Scotland. Children and Young People’s Centre for Justice (CYCJ), 2023. https://www.cycj.org.uk/resource/preparing-to-keep-the-promise-a-comparitive-study-of-secure-care-and-young-offender-instituions-in-scotland/.
This report was written by the Children and Young People’s Centre for Justice (CYCJ) and commissioned by the Scottish Government. Its purpose is to create a new vision for secure care in Scotland, aiming to reduce the number of children deprived of their liberty and remove children from Young Offender Institutions (YOIs) by 2024, aligning with the Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Act 2024 and the UNCRC. The report builds on previous recommendations that no child should be in secure care, advocating for community-based support.
The vision, codesigned with children, young people, families, and professionals, proposes three core components: Community-Based Hubs, Multi-Disciplinary Teams (MDTs), and Flex Secure. Community Hubs are flexible local spaces offering tailored support, including temporary accommodation during crises. MDTs provide specialised, holistic, 24/7 support, ensuring continuity and integration across services, with a key person maintaining a consistent relationship with the child and family. Flex Secure offers intensive 24/7 care for children in home-like environments within communities, with adaptable security and a focus on family involvement and education.
These components are guided by principles such as child and family inclusion, whole family support, balanced empowerment of rights and liberty, education as a foundation, public protection, trauma-transformative practice, and a trained workforce. The report highlights the need for collective agreement, resource realignment, and public engagement to achieve this vision, which aims to keep children close to their families and communities while ensuring their safety and wellbeing.
Reimagining Secure Care - Final Report: A Vision for the Reimagined/Future World. Children and Young People’s Centre for Justice (CYCJ), 2024. https://www.cycj.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Reimagining-Secure-Care-Final-Report.pdf.
This article summarises a 30-month study on Section 25 of the Children (Scotland) Act 1995. The study aimed to understand how these non-compulsory care arrangements are used, understood, and experienced in Scotland. It was written to highlight key issues for social work practice and propose ways to improve policy and experiences related to Section 25 arrangements.
The research, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, involved analysing a 12-year dataset and conducting interviews and focus groups with 101 people, including parents, social workers, and legal professionals. Key findings revealed that Section 25 arrangements are used more often than previously thought, often as the first step in care, and show significant variation across local authorities. The study also found that children who only experienced Section 25 arrangements were more likely to return home.
Qualitative findings highlighted concerns about parents' understanding of these arrangements, the ethical challenges social workers face in explaining them, and the misleading nature of the term "voluntary." The authors suggest avoiding the term "voluntary," creating a new shared vision for Section 25 use, and providing better guidance and information for social workers, parents, and children to ensure clearer understanding and better outcomes.
Dennell, Brandi Lee Lough, Robert B Porter, and Micky Anderson. “Non-Compulsory Care for Children and Young People: Learning from Research on Section 25 Arrangements. What is next for Scotland?” Scottish Journal of Residential Child Care 23, no. 2 (2024). https://www.celcis.org/section25.
This Phase One report on the North Strathclyde Bairns Hoose Evaluation was published in March 2023. The report aims to understand the current experiences of children and families in North Strathclyde after abuse or mistreatment, and to evaluate the development process of the Bairns Hoose—Scotland's first adaptation of the European Barnahus model.
The evaluation identifies areas where current systems can be challenging for children and families, including delays in accessing therapeutic support, lengthy justice processes, communication difficulties, and aspects of court proceedings that can be experienced as distressing. The report recognises that these experiences are shaped by wider system factors such as unclear professional roles, short-term funding arrangements, and services working across different structures.
Alongside these challenges, the Bairns Hoose project has made progress, supported by a national push for change and Children First’s leadership. Its development has been helped by a national commitment to change, the leadership and advocacy of Children First, and opportunities to learn from established Barnahus models, including in Iceland. The report also reflects on areas requiring continued attention, such as infrastructure timelines, long-term sustainability, and strengthening relationships across agencies. It concludes that openly acknowledging these complexities and fostering shared ownership will be key to enabling the Bairns Hoose to grow, respond to children’s needs, and contribute to learning for wider national implementation.
Mitchell, Mary, Camille Warrington, John Devaney, Peter Yates, and Jennifer Lavoie. North Strathclyde Bairns Hoose Evaluation: Phase One Report. 2023. https://researchonline.gcu.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/92593848/92438102.pdf.
This report was published by the Scottish Youth Parliament (SYP) in November 2024. The report's purpose is to gather the views of care experienced young people to help shape Police Scotland's Corporate Parenting Plan for 2024-2027. It aims to ensure that the lived experiences of these young people directly influence how Police Scotland interacts with and supports them. A survey was undertaken with 286 people, 115 of whom were care experienced. Five care experienced young people took part in three small focus groups in a secure care setting.
The project involved a Scotland-wide survey and focus groups with Care Experienced Young People. Key findings revealed that 31% felt they were treated like criminals by police, and many perceived police as a threat. Over half of those with justice system experience felt uninformed about their rights in custody. The term Corporate Parent was largely misunderstood, with one young person suggesting the term “Assisted Parenting” could be a more suitable and accessible alternative.
Recommendations focus on improving police perceptions and training, including updating courses to address stigma and promoting trauma-informed responses. The report also suggests wider engagement opportunities for young people to meet officers in non-stressful settings. To address rights, it recommends creating educational materials, continuing efforts to prevent over-criminalisation, and providing signposting to support services. Finally, it advises Police Scotland to use social media to communicate its Corporate Parenting Plan and explain the term in accessible ways.
Engagement with Care Experienced Young People: Results and Recommendations to Inform Police Scotland’s 2024-27 Corporate Parenting Plan. Scottish Youth Parliament, 2024. https://syp.org.uk/project/engagement-with-care experienced-young-people/.
Who Cares? Scotland—a national independent membership organisation for care experienced people, dedicated to supporting, empowering and amplifying the voices of Scotland’s care community—provided targeted analysis of their existing evidence for The Promise Story of Progress, sharing material that mapped to the relevant vision statements and contributed insight into how their internal data, participation activity, and qualitative evidence could inform the experiential strand of the Promise Story of Progress.
Their reports reflected advocacy work carried out between 1st January 2020 and 30th June 2025, during which time Who Cares? Scotland advocacy workers supported around 4,800 individuals. Although the report findings do not represent the experience of every care experienced individual in Scotland, they highlight issues that need continued attention as Scotland works to understand what is changing and what still needs to be addressed.
An anonymised and abridged collation of these reports is available at: Who Cares? Scotland. The Promise Story of Progress: Vision Statement advocacy reports by Who Cares? Scotland (abridged). The Promise Scotland, 2025. https://www.plan2430.scot/media/5hnlt5ye/wcs-vision-statement-advocacy-reports-abridged.pdf
Care Inspectorate. “Children’s Rights, Care Experience and Corporate Parenting.” https://www.careinspectorate.com/index.php/corporate-parenting.
Cusworth, Linda, Linda Hooper, Gillian Henderson, Helen Whincup, and Karen Broadhurst. Born into Care in Scotland: Circumstances, Recurrence and Pathways. Scottish Government, 2022. https://www.gov.scot/binaries/content/documents/govscot/publications/research-and-analysis/2022/04/born-care-scotland-circumstances-recurrence-pathways/documents/born-care-scotland-circumstances-recurrence-pathways/born-care-scotland-circumstances-recurrence-pathways/govscot%3Adocument/born-care-scotland-circumstances-recurrence-pathways.pdf.
Guinchard, Sydney. Why Not? Trust Response to ‘Promise Story of Progress: Data Information Form (Care Community). The Why Not? Trust, 2025.
Impact Evaluation Phase 5 (2020 to 2023) CashBack For Communities Final Report. CashBack for Communities, 2023. https://cashbackforcommunities.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/CashBack-Phase-5-Final-Evaluation.pdf.
Joint Inspections of Services for Children and Young People at Risk of Harm: Review of Findings from the Joint Inspection Programme 2021-2025. Care Inspectorate, 2025. https://www.careinspectorate.scot/resources-data/publications-and-statistics/library/restrictive-practice-2024.
McTier, Dr Alex, Mihaela Manole, Jane Scott, et al. Children’s Services Reform Research: Scotland’s Children’s Services Landscape: The Views and Experiences of the Children’s Services Workforce. CELCIS, 2023. https://www.celcis.org/knowledge-bank/search-bank/childrens-services-reform-research-scotlands-childrens-services-landscape-views-and-experiences-childrens-services-workforce.
McTier, Dr Alex. Are Disabled Children Visible in Scotland’s Children’s Statistics. CELCIS, 2024. https://www.celcis.org/knowledge-bank/search-bank/new-analysis-shows-disparity-statistics-collected-about-disabled-children-scotland?utm_medium=email\&utm_campaign=CELCIS%20Connects%20May%202024\&utm_content=CELCIS%20Connects%20May%202024+CID_70517f7319e6b67a92e6ef34256c1bb4\&utm_source=Email%20marketing%20software\&utm_term=Read%20the%20report.
Ottaway, Heather, Alexander McTier, Mihaela Manole, et al. Children’s Services Reform Research: Learning and Implications for Scotland. CELCIS, 2023. https://www.celcis.org/knowledge-bank/search-bank/childrens-services-reform-research-concluding-report.
Physical Intervention in Schools Guidance Consultation Response by the Scottish Physical Restraint Action Group (SPRAG). Scottish Physical Restraint Action Group (SPRAG), 2022.
https://www.celcis.org/application/files/5217/0972/1557/Physical_Intervention_in_Schools_guidance_consultation_response_SPRAG_response.pdf
Restrictive Practice 2024. Care Inspectorate, 2025. https://www.careinspectorate.scot/news-and-media/restrictive-practice-2024-statistical.
Scottish Physical Restraint Action Group (SPRAG) Care & Justice Bill Consultation Response. Scottish Physical Restraint Action Group (SPRAG), n.d. https://consult.gov.scot/children-and-families/childrens-care-and-justice-reforms/consultation/view_respondent?uuId=287690777.
Scottish Police Authority Corporate Parenting Plan 2024-2027. Scottish Police Authority, 2025. https://www.spa.police.uk/publication-library/corporate-parenting-plan-2024-27/.
Secure Care Pathway Review. Care Inspectorate, 2023.
https://www.careinspectorate.scot/strategic-scrutiny/library/strategic-reports/secure-pathway-review-2022-2023.
Update on Progress: #KeepingThePromise PHS Contribution February 2024. Public Health Scotland, 2024.
Update on Progress: Correspondence to Fiona Duncan- The promise. Police Scotland, 2024.
Update on Progress: Email Response from the Scottish Police Authority. The Scottish Police Authority, 2024.
Update on Progress: Update on the promise Plan. The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service, 2024.
Whyte, Dr Emily, and Dr Lisa Craig. CYCJ Reimagining Youth Justice: A Learning Account. Corra Foundation, n.d.
Whyte, Dr Emily, and Dr Lisa Craig. Cyrenians Youth Justice and Rights and a Supportive Workforce: Two Learning Accounts. Corra Foundation, n.d.
Whyte, Dr Emily, and Dr Lisa Craig. Why Not? Trust Thinking Space: A Learning Account. Corra Foundation, n.d.