Welcome to the Education Committee. We are in public session, so I ask everyone to ensure that their mobile phones and pagers are switched off—I would ask you to do so even if we were not in public session.
Thank you for giving us the opportunity to talk to the committee. I will outline the three areas that we would like to discuss with the committee.
I was struck by the fact that in your written submission you place a lot of stress on
Not much research is going on in Britain. We carried out a small piece of research in one area of Glasgow. Valerie Corbett will tell you a little about that.
We carried out work with children and their families in which there was significant drug and alcohol use, to try to establish what it felt like for children to live in such families. Over a period of 12 to 18 months we did community development work that involved members of the community. We established that for children and young people over 12—it was difficult to talk to very young children—many of the problems that they experience as they grow up are compounded by the problem of having parents who use drugs and alcohol. For example, the parent might not be there for them in the way that a parent who did not use drugs and alcohol would be. Nevertheless, the parent is there for them some of the time and there is often a dilemma for young people about how to seek what they want when they need it without damaging their families. It was difficult for the young people to step aside from their experiences of intervention by social work agencies and social care agencies in general. They often felt that such agencies did not listen to them because the focus would shift back on to the parent when the agencies became involved.
That strikes me as being an interesting and innovative perspective on the matter. We often consider what is done to children rather than what children want.
As Romy Langeland said, we have been awarded youth crime prevention funding from the Scottish Executive for a four-year project, which will involve three years of direct work. The project is based in Edinburgh, but has a national remit.
That broad outline of the project is very helpful. It is clear that Aberlour Child Care Trust has throughout its existence gained considerable experience, in different areas, of the issues with which we are dealing.
The work that is in train is the important work. I refer to work on standards, the children's charter and the training of social workers. In our view, social workers need professional assessment and intervention skills to work with very vulnerable families. In five years, there will be a new input of social workers, which is important.
Thank you for your submission, which is very helpful and illustrates front-line experience of the issues that we have been considering. In particular, I want to explore your comments about children who have parents who misuse drugs and alcohol. From your submission, I detect that there is a concern that in many respects the policy, framework, standards and recommendations are top down—they are about how agencies assess risk and the steps that they need to take, rather than about what the intervention is. Can you develop that point?
Our experience of working with parental drug use is that once we address the drug problem we start to see the issues of child care and parenting. We cannot be clear at the beginning of the process that a person will become a good or effective parent. We need to spend a huge amount of time examining the complex issues with which the family is engaged. We must spend as much or more time considering issues of deprivation and lack of opportunity and we must examine the parenting that the parents experienced and place that alongside the child's experience of being parented in its environment and with extended family members, because there are intergenerational issues.
That is very helpful. You have separated risk from protection and intervention. Support must be more comprehensive than to cover just drug misuse.
Our starting point is to say that the existence and extent of the use of drugs and alcohol has to be assessed. However, all the other factors have to run alongside that. I would not start with drugs and alcohol; I would start with everything and consider each factor separately. I worry that if we shift the focus of workers towards assuming that drug and alcohol use is the risk factor, that is what they will work on. They might think that as long as they manage that, they are protecting the child. That narrows workers' focus.
Is there a danger that it is almost an insurance policy for social workers to say that if drugs and alcohol are involved, there is a full child protection case, but if there is a rationing of resources other children do not get the attention that they deserve?
That is what I am anxious about. It is my experience that children are placed on registers because the parents' drug and alcohol use is seen as being significant. Other children are at risk from significant harm from domestic abuse and poor housing or parenting, but drug and alcohol use gets the attention. In our experience, social work agencies try to deal with people whom they deem to be bad parents because they use drugs and alcohol, rather than try to deal with how to protect the children and keep them safe.
The inquiry on drugs misuse and deprived communities that was carried out by the Social Inclusion, Housing and Voluntary Sector Committee in the previous parliamentary session might be a useful cross-reference.
Valerie Corbett's evidence has been revealing. I want to pursue a couple of issues.
You must ask a question, Rosemary.
My question is whether we are getting the message across that drug and alcohol problems are just as important as domestic violence and other problems. I would be concerned if we were diminishing the importance of drug and alcohol problems so that we could concentrate on other issues.
The danger is that we put across a simplistic message that drugs and alcohol use is the problem that should be addressed and that other issues might be addressed only after that. What I am saying is that drugs and alcohol abuse are rarely the only symptom and, in the families that we work with, our experience is that drug and alcohol use is predominantly a symptom rather than a cause. The children may experience a lifestyle that is chaotic, but although there is a clear need to ensure that they are not exposed to unsafe situations, there are other issues on which we need to engage in our work with such families.
It is difficult for the committee to identify the key research that indicates the levels of risk to children. You have highlighted the need to consider the child's needs holistically. As we know, research was recently carried out in Glasgow about the risks when a child's parents have problems of alcohol and substance abuse. Can you cite any major recent research that backs up what you say about risks to children?
I cannot cite research that is specifically from the United Kingdom. A big issue is that we have insufficient research in the UK on what is effective in reducing risks when we work with parents who have drugs and alcohol problems.
I will ask about training later but I note at this point that what you are saying ties in with the need for training for people who are working with adults with drug abuse issues. Your response was useful and fascinating, but I asked my question because we have had a bit of difficulty in identifying the scale of the risk that is associated with drug and substance misuse. We want to be able to keep the issue in perspective and I note that you are telling us that many complex factors are involved in the situation along with the fact of drug and substance abuse. However, it would be useful to find out what research you can cite to back up what you are saying to us.
I have brought with me a copy of the Govan report, "Keeping it Quiet: Children and Families in Greater Govan Affected by Parental Drug Use", which I can leave with the committee. It talks about the impact on children of drug use in the family. It is not researched in an academic way, but it tells us about what is important for children and the ways in which they feel that they are at risk. As I said, I could also provide the committee with evidence from research in the United States.
We received papers from the Scottish Executive on some of those issues.
I will follow up on the same subject. Your comments chime with much of what the committee feels. We are all aware that funds are available for drug and alcohol services that are not available for children's services.
People listen more than they did a few years ago. Views are mixed. We cannot get away from our own professional value base and practice. Good evidence from drug and alcohol services supports the fact that an abstinence model can be effective. Good evidence supports the idea that a maintenance model can be effective. Good evidence also supports the idea that a reduction model can be effective. In implementation and in practice, we must become good at embracing all those models and fitting those interventions to meet families' needs and to address children's needs.
In my experience, local authorities also take the view that the challenge is to engage with such parents. We have not yet pulled together our research from the national parenting development project, but the results from the early days are that parents who misuse substances lap up the services that we give them. I am struck by the high degree of motivation of some of those parents. For them, the project is the first time that they have been offered structured support and education on parenting. On help with parenting, they feel that there are no universal services for them. When they are approached to take part in such activities, they feel targeted and stigmatised. It is very early days for us, but already I would say that we need to consider universal provision as the base on which to build any targeted provision.
I want to move on to discuss your comments on child protection committees and the general management of the system. In your submission, you say that the voluntary agencies that deal with the provision of support to children in need
Child protection committees are variable creatures. There are far more of them in Scotland than there were 10 years ago, because of reorganisation. That process was unhelpful, in that it led to splintering. For the sake of the police, the committees in the Strathclyde force area have come together to produce guidance to cover that whole area, but the situation is still splintered. The committees have faced the difficulty of trying to provide an integrated child protection service across non-coterminous authorities, such as health, the police and social work.
That is very practical.
Valerie Corbett has already touched on early intervention, but I ask her to outline the way in which the trust contributes to early intervention or preventive work.
Catriona Rioch can say more about our work on drugs and alcohol—I will be more general. Our outreach services were developed with early intervention in mind. We try to engage with families in which drugs and alcohol have an impact on the parenting and the child. We provide practical services and perhaps visit families more often than the statutory services do. We work on practical routines such as getting the child to school, making sure that there is food in the cupboard and checking what the child has eaten that day. We aim to develop skills as well as to address some of the underlying issues.
When you get in early enough and work through the problems, are there benefits? If so, will you outline them?
We have been considering what changes come about for children and parents as a result of one of our projects in Dundee. We have established that the change for the child is in the relationship with their parents—the child has more consistency and routine and he or she becomes a child again. The change for the parent is that they feel that they are a parent again and that they own the label. Parents can also address their housing issues. We have a new futures worker in our Edinburgh project, which has allowed parents to access learning or training and, in some cases, employment. That has had a significant impact for parents and children.
Do you have a view about the wider provision of early-intervention services? You touched on that, but perhaps you could expand on it a little. Early intervention is crucial, but you mentioned concerns that the focus is on emergency or dangerous situations.
As part of our project, we are trying to help local authorities to consider how they can develop a strategy on parenting work. Offering services from the preventive end right through to the targeted hard risk is a real challenge. The research on parenting work, in this country and particularly in the US, acknowledges that different risk factors are salient at different stages in children's development. Support not only needs to start early but, as Valerie Corbett touched on, has to be sustained as children grow older. To be truly effective, action that reduces risk and enhances protection in children's lives has to be reinforced over time and in different settings.
Do you think that we will meet that challenge? Is there enough awareness to make everyone feel that they should work towards that as part of the on-going review?
In the field of parenting, I do not think that there is enough awareness. The message that we are getting loud and clear from professionals is that we need advice, support, training and national co-ordination.
That has been very helpful.
On the concerns about unsuitable people working with children, we have had evidence from Disclosure Scotland that the timescale for getting the correct information through has shortened. However, we have heard other evidence to the effect that it is currently taking about 12 weeks to get the information through. What is your experience?
In my experience, the waiting time has increased. About 12 to 18 months ago, when I was looking to recruit, I would get disclosures back within two to three weeks, which was ideal. Now, that takes a minimum of 12 weeks.
It is taking 12 weeks?
It is at the moment. When we contacted Disclosure Scotland a couple of weeks ago asking about the average time, that is what it told us. The difficulty for us as an agency is that we can lose staff. When we seek to appoint somebody and they have to wait three months to take up the post, that means that we are carrying a vacancy and reducing our capacity to provide services over that period.
Could it mean that people are being taken on without being properly checked?
Not in our experience. Our experience is very clear—
That you lose people.
Yes. We have said—although only in exceptional circumstances—that people can work for us as long as they have no contact with children.
If you had to recommend an ideal timescale for being thorough, but without undue delay, what would you think appropriate?
It should be possible to do something within two to three weeks. The issue is about asking the right questions, the co-operation that is needed between areas and the speedy provision of information.
Would it be fair to say that it should certainly be done within three weeks?
I see no reason why not.
Disclosure Scotland has averred that it takes, on average, 16 days for an error-free application. Does that fit with your experience?
That is not our experience. I would say that that was our initial experience in the earliest days. I was overwhelmed by that and I thought that it was wonderful.
Is there any short-term action that you feel could be taken to alleviate the problems caused by a shortage of social workers?
How long is a piece of string? All sorts of routes are being taken and there are lots of ways of breaking down the task into manageable and supervisable parts. In fact, many of our project staff—and this will be true across the voluntary sector—are not qualified social workers. Increasingly, in the early-years and residential sectors, they are people who have a Scottish vocational qualification. We are all seeking to meet registration requirements in relation to that and it is a good baseline for a whole lot of things. It would be nice to achieve a position in which entrants had a higher national certificate or SVQ before they started, but that is not possible.
In the long term, would the situation be considerably helped if there were a full complement of social workers?
I am optimistic about the situation in five years' time. It looks as though the campaign has been successful in making people interested in being social workers. In the interim, all that we can do is provide good, solid in-service support and supervision.
You comment in your submission on the need for a review of the funding mechanism and on the suggestion that money coming from the local authorities to the voluntary sector is perhaps not the best way of funding that sector. You also indicate that you believe that further money for child protection training will be needed, possibly as a national resource. We have also heard evidence that specific funding from the Executive sometimes tends to focus on other areas, such as youth justice, to the detriment of initiatives such as early intervention. Do you agree with that view? Do you have further views on the resourcing of early-intervention work?
The funding for what would cover the area of child protection is diverse and it is not particularly helpful that, within social work services, there will be funding for criminal justice services, for community care and for children and family services. For example, a woman who is misusing drugs could be on a probation order and available for criminal justice funding, but she could also be experiencing all kinds of family difficulties and be in need of child support. However, the funding for drugs services comes from community care funding. The lack of integration between the three major funding streams is a big issue.
In your submission, you make various points about training, one of which is that you feel that your experience puts you in a good position to provide training. However, there is also an issue about finance. You believe that there should be a national, modular child protection training programme. I would be interested to hear about that. I understand that it will be compulsory for all social workers to undertake that programme. I would be interested to hear your views on whether it should be compulsory for teachers to do it, too. Will you expand on what you think the key training issues are?
I will pick up on the issue around compulsory training for social workers and whether that should be the case for others. The difficulty that we keep coming back to is interagency working—that is what inquiries tell us constantly. The issue is that agencies fail to work collectively and in the total interests of children. I applaud the decision to increase the available moneys for child protection training, but leaving that funding within a single agency, when we have talked about the fact that it is everybody's responsibility to ensure that children are safe, is something that I find difficult and rather contradictory.
There is a much broader need for training. An obvious example is that people who work with adults with a mental health difficulty might see children who are at risk. Currently, there is no requirement for pre-service or in-service training on child protection. People are likely to get training on child protection if they work with children and families, but the training is not being done broadly enough. There must be a requirement for at least a basic briefing for everybody who works with children.
Is there one route forward? You referred in your written submission to what happens in England and Wales. It seems that a comprehensive network of family centres in deprived areas has been established there, which is important because of the inequalities of provision in certain areas and the need to provide a platform for voluntary agencies to go about their business. Would such provision be part of a solution to the type of fragmentation that you are talking about in funding and the delivery of services? If so, could you please explain that to us?
You are absolutely right. We need to provide a platform of provision for children who might be vulnerable. If we could do that without stigmatising such children, that would be the best way ahead. The schools have a role to play. The good new community schools are doing a great job of nurturing as well as educating, but not all such schools are doing that. We must be much more systematic about ensuring that teachers and everybody else in the education system recognise need.
Would that sort of structure allow children, of their own volition, to use services? Your submission highlights the need for children to have their own route to services, without having to go with adults.
That would be the ideal, especially when there are drug and alcohol problems. At the moment, the parent must be identified as having drug or alcohol problems, rather than the child being identified as having difficulties in living in the family. In our Glasgow projects, we intend to do what our submission suggests. Such ideas have not been tried out yet, so there is no evidence base. However, we are revamping our services in Glasgow—which will take some time—and our aim is to access both the parent and the child, but to say to the parent, "If you don't want to get involved, we can still provide a service for your child." We will work with the child depending on their needs and on what they feel is important.
A brilliant model is the after-school club. Whether it is attached to the school, the family centre or somewhere else, it is somewhere for children to go. They do not have to say what the issue is, but they can get a whole lot of compensatory experience.
In your evidence, and that of others, we have heard that the system is struggling because of the gap in the recruitment of social workers but that, in five years' time, it will all be different. In the short term, however, there seems to be a chasm. That problem may not be easily resolvable. I appreciate that linked assessments, improved standards and so on will gradually bear fruit, but I wonder whether we are putting too much emphasis on assessing children and not enough emphasis on doing something about their problems. You have experience at the coalface: how should we be dealing with the short to middle-term gap in the recruitment of professionals in this line of work, and what should our short-term objectives be?
Retention of staff is the major issue at the moment. The marketplace is fierce for those who want to retain staff. That is especially true in work related to drug and alcohol problems, because there are so few people with both an understanding of working with children and an understanding of working with families in which there are drug and alcohol problems.
Perhaps you need to say, "We've got holistic expertise that needs to be drawn in, and some of the training should be done by people with our experience as well as by local authority people."
That is exactly right. There are interagency issues. We can work much more collectively. We are in a competitive environment as, with the best will in the world, funding creates an element of competition. However, voluntary organisations have to come together to ask, "What are we doing? How can we stop duplicating work? How do we take forward things that need to be taken forward, hold our staff together and provide services in a way that is empowering for us all and uses all our skills and knowledge?" There has to be a shift from the commissioning notion to the partnership notion, and that has to happen fairly quickly. Also, local authorities should be encouraged through the way in which they are funded to realise that it is not about grabbing money but about working at a strategic level alongside all the organisations that can help to deliver services to families.
Thank you. This has been a useful session. We are grateful for your input this morning. If on reflection you think that there is anything that you want to tell us about, please feel free to contact us.
I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak with the committee today. As you said, I am the national children's rights worker for Scottish Women's Aid, so I work at the national office. We are hoping to give you national and local perspectives today, as Ruth Kennedy works in North Ayrshire.
I work as a children's outreach worker on a pioneering project that is now four years old. We offer one-to-one support for children and young people who are experiencing or have experienced domestic abuse but who have never been in refuge and never will come into refuge. The one-to-one support has developed into facilitating group peer support for young women who are aged between 15 and 19. That is an exciting project for them to develop themselves.
Thank you.
The first thing, which links into short-term and long-term issues, is the need to address the funding issues for direct and distinct support services for children and young people across the board, which Aberlour Child Care Trust has already mentioned, and to recognise the cost-saving measures that there could be. One of my colleagues in the Scottish Children's Reporter Association recently spoke about children being in need, but not necessarily in need of child protection if we get the support services in place straight away. In that context, we need to consider a strategy for support services for children and young people.
I understand that you attended the previous evidence session, when we discussed the children of parents who misuse drugs and alcohol. By what routes can children get support? What is the trigger? Your experience is that the trigger is domestic abuse, and the matter is passed on. What is your experience of key agencies working with children at risk? Is the parental need in fact the trigger? What happens to children thereafter? Does it depend on the parents? Is there a way in which the children whom you come across do not have to rely on the fact of the parent having been a victim of abuse in order for them to get support?
Traditionally, it has been the woman who has accessed the service to get support for herself and, subsequently, for the children. As the outreach work develops, we find that mothers are accessing the service in order to gain support for their children. As a consequence, they receive support themselves. In addition, some groups run drop-in services, which children and young people can access directly themselves. The broad spectrum is covered in that way.
What is your current experience with regard to drug and alcohol misuse? Is there a danger that it becomes just the latest area of concern, in the same way that domestic abuse and problems with children have been treated in the past? Is it almost as if the labels are the key to the service, as opposed to the needs of the children?
We have worked closely with voluntary and statutory agencies. As we have stated before, the children and young people and women whom we are trying to support might fit into different categories. For example, many women with substance misuse problems use our services. We have been developing services jointly with others to address several concerns in that area.
Before you do, could you tell us what "shared refuge" is in this context?
It is different in different areas. Traditionally, it has meant a family having to share one or two rooms within a house in which there would be other families. Usually, there would be some communal areas but, depending on the location, those might be either quite expansive or quite small. The point is that people now have the privacy and security of their own flat within the shared accommodation. That has drawn on good practice and on the views of women and children from the research that has been carried out. Although that is very positive, we still have a long way to go. The £10 million that has been allocated to the refuge development programme has allowed us to set up 24 new-style cluster refuges with another 11 pending. However, we still have 61 shared refuges.
And what about adult-led services?
As the statistics emphasise, outreach support is available in most areas to the women who need it. Although that support might not be good enough and although it is not a 24-hour service in all areas, most women receive one-to-one support, are able to return to a place whenever they want to, and can choose to access refuge accommodation. Women can also call the helpline.
In your submission, you mention the implementation of the child protection reform programme and criticise the fact that
I was talking about the child protection reform team steering group. During the child protection review, an advisory group of statutory and voluntary sector members met every month. However, despite the fact that the members of the child protection review team and the advisory group found the meetings productive, that approach has been lost in the new system. Although there is a steering group whose members include Romy Langeland and Bob Ovens of the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland—whose remit covers domestic abuse—the input from the voluntary sector has been lost.
So the review's early stages had an enthusiasm and momentum that it would have been worth keeping up.
Although the advisory group meetings generated an enormous amount of paperwork, they were consistently well attended by the statutory and voluntary sector members. We had huge debates and arguments, but the group was very motivated and had a lot of influence on the child protection review. Many of the members of the advisory group would have liked to continue their involvement and take the matter forward. However, that approach has been lost.
The local child protection committee in our area includes one representative from a voluntary agency, although we are also involved with the sub-groups. As a result, there is voluntary sector involvement at a local level, which is great. Moreover, the child protection committee is rolling out the real roles and responsibilities training and we are delivering the domestic abuse training on training day. The child protection co-ordinator in North Ayrshire very much supports the involvement of voluntary agencies in these matters.
Will you expand on the link between domestic abuse and child protection? For example, you talked about a teenage boy phoning up, and it would be useful to hear about that. Also, is enough joined-up work happening to link the national strategy to address domestic abuse and child protection work, given that different departments are involved?
On the link between domestic abuse and child protection, a useful place to start is the link between domestic abuse and child abuse. In Scotland, we have moved forward; the child protection review recognised that domestic abuse involves emotional abuse of children and that there are links with the physical, sexual and mental abuse of children. The most recent overview of the literature that I have seen shows that 30 to 60 per cent of children whose mothers experience domestic abuse will be physically abused.
May I interrupt you? There is automatic referral at the moment, is there not?
That is a good question. As you know, the review warned against automatic referral and called it unhelpful. ACPOS invited us to a meeting to discuss that, and we debated the matter at length. At present, there is a debate with children's reporters about what is best practice. Not all forces have automatic referral, but all forces are reviewing their practice in relation to automatic reporting to the children's reporter when a child is present at a domestic abuse incident. We await an imminent meeting that will bring together children's reporters, social workers, police officers and us to consider what is best practice.
To summarise that, domestic abuse is a trigger factor that we cannot ignore, but we need more sophisticated ways to assess it. To avoid the risk of non-reporting, the provisions should probably be non-statutory.
If a case that has been automatically referred to the children's hearings system is carried on and there are proceedings, more often than not, the father is present at those proceedings. That puts the child and the mother at severe risk and defeats the objective of the proceedings, which is to protect the child. Because domestic abuse is all about control, fear and power, there is no way that the child will speak up with the father present in the room. The child might not speak up in the children's hearing anyway, but if the father or another abuser is present, the child will be even more unlikely to speak up.
There may be issues for the children's hearings system in that answer, but that is for another day.
I asked a question about how your work links with the strategy on domestic abuse.
There has definitely been progress, even since we made our written submission to the committee. As I said, I represent children and young people on the national group to address violence against women, but we also have a member—Bob Ovens—who represents the police interest in domestic abuse and child protection. Recently, the links in those fields have been much stronger, but the child protection reform programme and team need to link even more with the national group. The latest development is the strategy group that is considering the strategy for children's and young people's services, which has brought members of the child protection reform team together with the children's services team. The head of better-integrated children's services and I are co-chairs of that strategy group, which gives us a chance to link our work far more meaningfully.
I do not want to go too far down that line; that is perhaps for another day. Those are important issues, but they are not central to what we are talking about.
I think that there is a reference to the subject in the report.
The main point about the child protection reform programme is that, in children's services, women's protection is child protection, and that and abuse by the father need to be addressed across the board in any changes to services or family law. Change in that respect is imminent.
Do you have a general view on the wider provision of early intervention services throughout Scotland? Is further action from the Scottish Executive or other bodies needed to strengthen those services?
I will give you an example of current good practice in early intervention. In North Ayrshire, we take a 360° approach to prevention and intervention. We have compiled training packs for teachers and community workers to use in working with young people. They are age-specific and tackle a range of issues pertaining to domestic abuse. In addition, we provide the multi-agency training in which teachers participate, which means that teachers are aware of outreach provision and support for children and young people. We are addressing prevention at grass-roots level and are encouraging children, teaching them about self-respect and equality and making them aware of domestic abuse in case they want to identify themselves as experiencing it. Research is about to come out from a secondary school in South Ayrshire in which one third of children said that they had experienced domestic abuse. That highlights the fact that it is crucial that there is prevention and intervention training in schools.
Do you envisage the projects being taken on board and being expanded throughout the country?
The strategy group that I talked about earlier is considering a two-pronged approach to developing services. All the agencies around the table agreed that outreach support would overtake refuge support in terms of the number of children and young people whom we support. They supported recommendations for a national funding stream to develop the service while taking into account local children's services planners. They are pleased that enhancing services to children who experience domestic abuse has been named as a national priority for children's services planners. The group is working to give planners guidance on outreach and early intervention, which is due out in June. We are looking for outreach and early intervention services to be funded nationally as a lever and to be integrated into children's services. We are hopeful, because funding is being considered, and we await the outcome of discussions and the spending review. Early intervention is now being seen as a priority.
That was helpful. Thank you.
I have two questions. The first relates to Disclosure Scotland and the timescales involved when somebody needs to be checked out to ensure that they are suitable to work with children. We have heard evidence that, in recent months, it has taken up to 12 weeks to get a reply. Disclosure Scotland says that the timescale has improved enormously, but will you tell us what your experience is?
I will hand over to Ruth Kennedy, who has recruited recently and can give up-to-date information.
We are going through the CRVS route with Disclosure Scotland, which stands for the central register for voluntary agencies in Scotland. Unfortunately, there has been a delay in setting up the process because policies that we sent to Disclosure Scotland were lost. However, we have been led to believe that the process will take six to eight weeks.
So it takes six to eight weeks.
We are still setting up the process at the moment because there was a delay of several months. However, Disclosure Scotland has said that it will take six to eight weeks.
We heard evidence from Disclosure Scotland that it had got the time down to 16 days.
That has certainly not been the case for the majority of local groups.
What would be an ideal period for you? Would three weeks be fair?
Yes. Most new recruits must give a month's notice in their current employment, so it is important that the process is completed within that time.
Does the delay have the effect that the best people may go off to other jobs or that the wrong people may be employed?
The delay in the vetting process has meant that we have had to hold off new workers from having contact with children and young people or with vulnerable women.
So posts are not filled until you have the information.
That is correct. One problem that we have found with Disclosure Scotland's vetting process is that schedule 1 offences are not highlighted in it. I do not know whether that has been changed, but the issue has been raised through our multi-agency forum and was to be passed on to Disclosure Scotland. If a person has perpetrated a schedule 1 offence, because that does not involve a criminal conviction and goes through the children's panel, it will not show up in the Disclosure Scotland vetting.
Are you certain about that?
It certainly was the case a year ago.
Could you give us a note about that important piece of evidence? I suspected that that was the case and you have given confirmation.
As of a year ago, that was the case.
It would be helpful to have a note of the chapter and verse because we should follow up that matter.
At a local level, we are considering the development of a sub-group of the child protection committee to address domestic abuse. The group will address information sharing, automatic reporting and contact issues. If the group goes ahead, it will be a good and effective forum for multi-agency working.
Nationally, that is not the case. The fact that there are seven children's support workers in the North Ayrshire group means that they can be active partners in multi-agency domestic abuse forums, children's services forums and child protection committees, which need to be brought together. Unfortunately, in half of our groups there is just one part-time children's support worker. The fact that we must balance directly supporting women and children with being part of committees or forums means that we are not all working together for the sake of the children, because people cannot spare perhaps one of their two or three days. Improvements can be made, but North Ayrshire is an example of best practice.
Your submission states:
Many children and young people who experience domestic abuse and who are in contact with Scottish Women's Aid gave views, both in the part of the review on messages from young people and in the consultation on the children's charter, and we support what has been produced on that. However, in all those interviews and focus groups with children, there were lots of views about specific services. For example, there was criticism of the lack of continuity of support and of sentencing. Children were very well aware of the link all the way through, so we heard comments such as, "I've been through the children's hearings and I've been to court, only to end up seeing my father there laughing and getting a £650 fine for 11 charges against myself and my mum." I will not say too much about the link to contact, but some children said, "I'm still awarded contact and I can't get away from him."
I wanted to know how you take on board the views of children, but I think that you have covered that. Each agency has to consider its specific involvement with young people. It is not something that can be done across the board.
We have begun the process and we have had the two child protection consultations and the refuge consultation with children and young people across Scotland, which was very interesting with regard to teenagers who felt left out of services. Issues concerning black and minority ethnic children and young people, including rehousing problems and racism as well as domestic abuse, have also come to light. I feel that we need to do more research in constant consultation with children and young people on best practice for all our agencies. That is certainly what we will be looking at next.
Are there any key issues that you think the reform team should be taking into account to ensure that that happens?
The key issues in the consultation are specific issues that are very real to children. One of the criticisms from the police, from us and from others was about the lack of engagement with the judiciary and solicitors on many issues, including domestic abuse. We need to ensure that all aspects of the issue are brought together and I think that we should look at prevalence studies. There are small pockets of studies, and we should examine innovative ways of finding out what is happening to children and young people. Prevention work on all issues with children and young people in schools, to challenge their attitudes, to inform them and to give them a language to say what is going on in their lives, will give us a bigger picture of what children and young people are experiencing in Scotland.
You mentioned the lack of engagement with the judiciary. I understand your comments about lack of engagement with the criminal justice system, but how do you envisage greater engagement with the judiciary coming about?
Steps are being taken by domestic abuse forums and by Scottish Women's Aid, so my comment is not a blanket criticism of the amount of engagement. We have a sheriff on the national group to address violence against women who is very understanding and committed to listening to children's views in the process. There are also sheriffs leading on domestic abuse in courts in Glasgow. However, the child protection reform programme as a whole should be engaging with the process for the child all the way through. That has not gone right through to police practice and the criminal justice system as a whole. We could engage more through the reform team, and progress is being made by the multi-agency groups coming together. However, the majority of multi-agency domestic abuse forums—but not the Glasgow one—are not engaging with sheriffs. Solicitors also have a major role to play in advising and representing women and children.
So you would prefer there to be an educational engagement with the judiciary, with the Procurator Fiscal Service being more closely involved.
There is a sheriff—I think that it is Iona MacDonald—who works in Kilmarnock who has been superb because, as a rule, she sees children in her chambers. Personally, I think that that practice should be rolled out across Scotland. I know that guidelines, information and reviews on child witnesses are coming out at the moment. It would make sense—especially from a child's point of view of how they are supported through the experience—if the standard practice was that they did not have to go to court and that contact, when required, would be through closed-circuit television or that, if they were called up to speak to the sheriff, that would be in chambers, where the wigs and the cloaks are off. That would make the process far more child friendly.
A couple of the domestic abuse forums are engaging with procurators fiscal, and there are good crossovers with child protection committees, the police and procurators fiscal. However, the majority of domestic abuse forums are not engaging in that way. Again, that is a gap that we need to address. We need to bring all the relevant people together as a child goes through the system, but I do not think that that is happening locally or nationally.
I have a couple of specific questions about the experience of your organisation. The first concerns child protection committees and the second concerns training. Leaving aside what is happening in North Ayrshire, which seems to be a good model, we are getting the feeling that the voluntary sector is not as involved with child protection committees as it ought to be. Is that your experience? How would you like child protection committees to develop in local areas?
Yes is the answer. That is our experience. When I found out for the child protection review team how many Women's Aid groups were actively involved in the child protection committees, I found that just two groups had a member on the child protection committees. Although all the members of the committees felt that that was useful, especially because the effect of domestic abuse on children is an emerging issue about which there needs to be lots of discussion, it is rare for there to be that kind of engagement.
My second question was on training. Ruth Kennedy mentioned that she was engaged in multi-disciplinary training on child protection issues relating to domestic abuse. Do you feel that the voluntary sector is involved enough in that type of training? Is it being funded properly? What could or should the Scottish Executive do to try to encourage that?
I will quickly give the background to how we became involved in delivery of the roles and responsibilities training. That resulted from the participation of the training sub-group in the pilot day. Participants' evaluation forms asked why Women's Aid was not involved in domestic abuse input. We will be making such input—7 June is the next day for that. I do not think that the idea of having a representative of a voluntary agency on the training day had even been considered. That is quite a rarity. I do not think that voluntary agencies are involved nearly enough. Anne Stafford's research identifies Women's Aid as the lead agency for domestic abuse. With specific issues such as domestic abuse and substance abuse, it is necessary to have a lead agency that has the expertise and knowledge to deliver the training.
Anne Stafford's research provides a national perspective. Her recent report, which has not been published because it forms part of the work of the working group, is called "Mapping Services for Children and Young People Experiencing Domestic Abuse in Scotland". Two posts have been funded specifically to train everyone who works with children and young people, and there are four local authority posts that have the same remit. In addition, Women's Aid has six trainers. The fact that those 12 workers are trying to do the domestic abuse training throughout Scotland shows that there is a huge funding problem. Margaret Curran has put £700,000 into the national training strategy, which has enabled the national office of Scottish Women's Aid to have one more external training worker, for example.
That is quite a good point at which to draw proceedings to a close. I thank you for your attendance this morning; the session has been useful. If there is anything that, on reflection, you want to let us know about, please feel free to write to us. We are finishing our inquiry quite soon.
We will certainly address your points.
I suspend the meeting until 2 o'clock. For the avoidance of doubt, I point out that we will reconvene in committee room 2.
Meeting suspended.
On resuming—