Child Friendly Scheduling – evaluation report published

A new evaluation report has been published by SCRA today examining one of our Keeping The Promise improvement projects.

Launched in 2023, Child Friendly Scheduling is a programme of quality improvement work being undertaken by SCRA to promote children and young people’s voices being included in decisions about their Hearings. 

This work links closely to findings in the Hearings for Children report and in Our Hearings, Our Voice 40 Calls to Action.

The programme included a number of pilots which were designed to explore the best ways of capturing children and young people’s views and ensuring that they were better supported to attend and engage in Hearings. 

The pilots were conducted in Ayrshire, Fife, Grampian, Moray and Renfrewshire. The pilots focussed on identifying whether small alterations to how Hearings were scheduled could improve children and young people’s knowledge of their participation options, and result in a greater sense of ownership over their Hearings. 

In addition, the projects also aimed to establish whether these changes could result in fewer late starting, cancelled and deferred Hearings.

The work has now been evaluated by SCRA’s Research Team and they have produced a detailed report on their findings. There is also a version of the report for children and young people.

Dr Catherine Nixon, SCRA’s Research Manager, led on the evaluation, she said: “Our evaluation shows that asking children and young people how and when they would like to attend their Hearings, as well as what supports they need to share their views with panel members, is valued and can make what is a difficult and scary time a little bit easier. 

“Things that worked well within the pilots included a trusted professional supporting young people to share their Hearings preferences, children and young people being invited to attend Pre-Hearing visits at specified times and dates, and for younger children in particular, being given a scrapbook to help them record thoughts and feelings they wanted to share with the panel in advance of the Hearing.”

So, what’s next? Will child friendly scheduling be continued? 

Jenny West, Project Manager explained: “All of the staff involved in conducting the pilots wanted to see child friendly scheduling continue due to the benefits that were identified for children and young people. 

“Based on all the feedback and this detailed evaluation report, during 2025 child friendly scheduling will undergo further testing within four of our Locality areas -Ayrshire, Fife, Renfrewshire and the South East. More information about the next phase of this work will be available shortly.

“In the meantime, I would just like to thank all our partners in the pilot sites who supported this work. We had fantastic buy in from everyone involved.”