Conference supported by Together (Scottish Alliance for Children's Rights)
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) is now incorporated into Scots law and the new Act takes effect from 16th July 2024. This means that all public authorities in Scotland must now act compatibly with the UNCRC requirements or face legal remedy. What do Scottish public bodies – and those acting on their behalf such as third sector organisations – need to know and do in order to stay within the law and to more proactively promote wider cultural change in children's rights?
"The bill will deliver a revolution in children’s rights, requiring that children’s rights must be respected, protected and fulfilled. It will drive a culture of everyday accountability for children’s rights and will require public authorities to act consistently to uphold those rights." This is how the now First Minister, John Swinney MSP, described the legislation in the Scottish Parliament. Its intended impact is therefore deep and wide, with huge implications for all decisions taken affecting children. It directly challenges Scotland's public bodies and others acting on their behalf on the decisions they take, how they take those decisions and the involvement of children in the decision making processes.
This conference explores the legal and service delivery implications for all Scottish public authorities of the incorporation of the UNCRC into Scottish law. It will examine how public sector bodies – and anyone undertaking functions or providing services for children with public money – can meet the challenge of acting compatibly with the requirements of the Act, in their day to day running, culture, practices and policy making.
The UN articles require public authorities to make the best interests of children a primary consideration in their decision making and service delivery, with the obligation to protect children from violence, injury or abuse. Those bodies will have to recognise the rights of all children including, for example, children with disabilities to enjoy a full and decent life and to uphold children’s rights to an adequate standard of living. Complying with legislation is one thing, actively and successfully promoting children’s rights is another. So how do organisations get it right?
How will a proactive culture of everyday accountability for children’s rights across public services in Scotland be promoted? What will public bodies having to uphold the rights of all children in Scotland mean for the experiences of children, young people and their families? What are the implications of giving children, young people and their representatives the right to go to court to enforce their rights? How should public authorities and others covered by these UNCRC rights respond to their implementation? What will rights and accountability mean for demand-led service delivery?
The conference examines these challenges in three sessions:
Topics to be discussed
Who should attend
This conference will be relevant for anyone involved in the planning and delivery of children's services in Scotland and anyone working more broadly with children and young people in Scotland. This includes those in public authorities but also third sector and other partners delivering services with or on behalf of public authorities. Those involved in the planning, funding, commissioning and delivery of services as well as those in legal, policy-making and service transformation roles.
The conference is for those working in health, education, social care, housing, transport, academic and third sectors. It is also intended for all those working in child related services, health services, child protection and welfare, teachers and fellow professionals and staff at all school levels, social care professionals delivering child services and associated issues including family and relationship breakdown, poverty, nutrition, bullying, substance misuse, abuse and bereavement, third sector organisations providing child and family mental health and other support services and policy makers and service leaders in national and local government and related services and bodies.
Speaker, Trainer and Consultant in children's rights, former Children and Young People’s Commissioner (Scotland)
Director
Together (Scottish Alliance for Children’s Rights)
Chief Executive
Aberlour
Head of Legal Policy
Clan Childlaw
Chief Executive
CHAS
Director for Scotland
Place2Be
UNCRC Implementation Project Manager
Improvement Service
Tam Baillie
Speaker, Trainer and Consultant in children's rights, former Children and Young People’s Commissioner (Scotland)
Tam has over 35 years experience working on children and young people’s issues.
In the initial stages of his career, Tam spent more than 20 years as a practitioner working with our most vulnerable children and young people. This practice provides a solid base for all of his future influencing work. Later, he influenced service delivery through the development of good practice and the re-provisioning of services. For the past 15 years he has been operating in positions where he is able to influence national and local policy, with progressively increased opportunities to engage in international activities. As a consequence, he has been involved in influencing activities through UN structures reporting on the UNCRC and has had the opportunity to influence children’s rights policies at European level through the European Commission and the Council of Europe.
He has been a manager and leader of staff and budgets for over 30 years, including raising necessary finances for developing services in various settings. He is experienced in dealing with national and local politicians and senior civil servants. He has extensive experience of public speaking and engaging with the press, radio and television media.
Tam was the Children and Young People’s Commissioner (Scotland) between May 2009 and May 2017.
With his role as the Children and Young People’s Commissioner, Tam had a duty to promote and safeguard the rights of children and young people in Scotland under the age of 18, or those under 21 if they have ever been in the care of a local authority.
The Commissioner had duties of:
Tam’s current activities include:
Tam also works a speaker, trainer and consultant in the field of children’s rights.
Juliet Harris
Director
Together (Scottish Alliance for Children’s Rights)
Juliet is Director of Together (Scottish Alliance for Children’s Rights).Over the past decade, Juliet has led work to progress the human rights of children across legislation, policy and practice.
She is Vice Chair of the Children’s Parliament, a Trustee of the Environmental Rights Centre Scotland and is a founder member of the Observatory of Children’s Human Rights Scotland. She sits on numerous Scottish Government Advisory Groups, including the UNCRC Strategic Implementation Board and the Human Rights Bill Advisory Board. She is former chair of the Rights of the Child UK Coalition and has played an active role of a number of UN Taskforces, including UN Committee’s Day of General Discussion on Children as Human Rights Defenders.
Juliet is a guest lecturer at the University of Edinburgh and her work on children’s rights has been published widely. When not working, Juliet spends as much time as possible exploring the outdoors, climbing, biking, running or skiing to the most remote places she can find.
SallyAnn Kelly
Chief Executive
Aberlour
SallyAnn has over 30 years of experience working in Children’s Services, having qualified as a social worker in 1990. She was promoted to her first management post in 1996 and has worked in several Scottish local authorities in middle and senior management positions until 2008.
Prior to joining Aberlour as CEO in 2014, SallyAnn worked for Barnardo’s Scotland, first as Head of Operations, then as Acting Director of Barnardo’s Scotland.
SallyAnn has a keen interest in strengthening and improving practice with an emphasis on taking rights based approaches. She has a particular interest in improving the experiences of children and young people who have experience of the wider care system in Scotland. She has enabled Aberlour to put in place ambitious plans for improvement in how the organisation works alongside children and families – not being afraid to be led by the views of children and young people and their families.
She is a member of the Scottish Government Leadership Group on Child Protection and the Perinatal Programme Board.
SallyAnn has a commitment to challenging and reducing poverty and inequality and she has worked with colleagues within Aberlour and across Scotland over a number of years to ensure that reducing child poverty is at the heart of the political agenda.
SallyAnn has supported colleagues in Aberlour to focus on digital transformation and the organisation is currently involved in a number of initiatives to take change forward.
SallyAnn is currently the Chair of STAF (Scottish Throughcare and Aftercare Forum).
Katy Nisbet
Head of Legal Policy
Clan Childlaw
Katy joined Clan Childlaw in January 2022. As Legal Policy Manager her job is to influence legal and policy change in Government and across local authority areas. She does this with the aim of improving the rights of children and young people in Scotland.
Before coming to work at Clan Childlaw, Katy was a court lawyer working on behalf of public bodies across Scotland. When not at work Katy enjoys running her Brownie group, pilates and watching movies with her family.
Rami Okasha
Chief Executive
CHAS
Rami Okasha was appointed Chief Executive of CHAS in September 2019 and formally took up the role February 2020. As Chief Executive Rami is responsible for providing strategic leadership of the organisation, and for ensuring that CHAS meets its statutory and service obligations. In his role as Chief Executive, Rami places a particular emphasis on the continued delivery of high-quality specialist palliative care, service transformation and developing a positive workplace culture.
Throughout the pandemic, Rami has been committed to leading CHAS to build effective and enduring relationships with partners and support staff and volunteers to be resilient in the face of uncertainty.
Prior to taking up the role of Chief Executive, Rami was Director of Transformation and Innovation at CHAS. In this role, Rami successfully led the development of CHAS's new strategy Reaching Every Family 2020-2023 which includes ambitious plans to continue CHAS's mission to reach every family in Scotland through developing its people, growing the organisation and influencing its partners.
Prior to joining CHAS, Rami was Executive Director of Strategy and Improvement at the Care Inspectorate, Scotland's largest scrutiny and improvement body. There, he was responsible for leading the Care Inspectorate's improvement support activities across the care sector, and directed approaches to scrutiny methodology, intelligence, organisational development, corporate reporting, involving people who experience care in decisions, communications and policy development. He co-led the development of Scotland's Health and Social Care Standards, working with people who use and provide care to ensure these are outcomes-focused, based on human rights and wellbeing, and person-led.
Rami is also a member of the Equality and Human Rights Commission's Scotland Committee and is responsible for advising the Commission on its work in Scotland.
Fiona McFarlane
Director for Scotland
Place2Be
Fiona is Director of Place 2 Be in Scotland.
Having practiced as a Barrister representing children in London, she went on to work with the Care Review in Scotland and then as Head of Public Affairs for The Promise Scotland. There she led on the policy and communications work of the organisation, working to support organisations across Scotland to embed and keep the promise to Scotland's children and families.
She is passionate about place-based working, bringing services to where people are and smoothing the paths to early help and support.
Rebecca Spillane
UNCRC Implementation Project Manager
Improvement Service
Rebecca is the UNCRC implementation Project Manager at the Improvement Service, the 'go-to' organisation for local government improvement in Scotland. In this role Rebecca supports local authorities to prepare for, and progress, their approach to meeting the requirements of the new UNCRC legislation in Scotland. The project’s work programme has been built in response to the needs of local government, identified through engagement with all Scottish local authorities, and has developed practical resources to allow councils to develop a proactive approach to children’s rights alongside spaces for peer support and knowledge exchange. Rebecca places real value in working collaboratively with a wide range of organisations to share learning and insight into children’s rights.
With over 20 years’ experience working in local government in Scotland, Rebecca is a firm believer in the importance of high-quality public services in reducing poverty and inequality. She sits on the UNCRC Embedding Children’s Rights in Public Services Working Group and the Human Rights Bill Implementation Working Group.
When not working Rebecca is kept busy with her three children and their new puppy, walking on the beach and baking.
Supported by: Together (Scottish Alliance for Children's Rights)
Together is an alliance of Scottish children's charities that works to improve the awareness, understanding and implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC).
We do this by:
Our growing membership is made up of a range of children's charities, from small local playgroups through to large international charities, alongside individuals, academics and professionals with an interest in children's rights.
Membership of Together shows your commitment to children's rights in Scotland and gives you the opportunity to share your views and experiences on a local, national, and international level. We'll also make sure we keep you updated with the latest developments, news and events. Find out more and become a member here!
