Scottish Government

We know how important it is to involve children in decisions that affect their lives. We also recognise that sometimes children will need support when they want to share their feelings and opinions.

This is why good quality advocacy support for children and young people is so important. We’ve recently undertaken a full public consultation on a set of draft principles and minimum standards to be applied whenever advocacy support is being given to a child.

The principles and minimum standards are designed to sit alongside a range of other guidance that's already in place. They recognise the right of some children and young people to get access to independent advocacy support.

The principles also emphasise how important it is that all advocacy support for children and young people is free from conflicts of interest.

The consultation closed on 29 February and work is now underway to analyse the responses. For further information please contact childrens.rights@scotland.gsi.gov.uk

Hearing directly from children and young people

As well as seeking the views of interested organisations and individuals, we are also keen to hear directly from children and young people. In order to make this as easy as possible, we have developed a set of consultation materials and notes for facilitators (see links on the right) which can be used by workers when they are discussing the proposed principles and minimum standards with the young people they work with.

Article 12 of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child says that children and young people have the right to speak up and have their opinions listened to and taken seriously by adults.

An advocate could be anyone who helps a child get across their views and opinions about decisions that will affect their life. It might be a parent or a lawyer, a family friend or another person - for example a social worker.

As a concept, advocacy is simple: you support an individual to share their views, perceptions or wishes. In practice, it can be complex particularly if an individual has communication difficulties.

Where children and young people are concerned and there may be additional things to take into account, like the child's capacity to express views, tensions with parents or carers, parental rights or sometimes child protection issues.

In 2009 we published Do the Right Thing, the Scottish Government's response to the 2008 concluding observations of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child. In our response, we committed to working across Government and with external colleagues to develop a plan which would improve the quality, consistency and availability of advocacy support for children and young people. We have since established a National Steering Group on Advocacy Support for Children and Young People to help us deliver activity which we hope will fulfil this commitment.

The Steering Group has debated extensively, and offered a broad range of views about how best to meet the advocacy needs of children and young people. These debates have helped identify the questions which are now included in our consultation.