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Scotland's Children's Hearings System is a unique statutory system that makes decisions about the need for compulsory professional involvement in the lives of children who are maltreated, in conflict with the law or displaying alarming behaviours. It was designed to facilitate in-person, child-centred discussions about the measures needed to ensure the care and protection of children. The Covid-19 pandemic challenged the ability of the Hearings System to fulfil this role due to the physical closure of Hearings Centres and the need to rapidly develop a virtual system. In this paper we present a realist-influenced synthesis exploring how contextual factors such as public health guidelines, emergency legislation, technological challenges and wider structural inequalities interacted with the delivery of virtual hearings to affect the participation and rights of children during the pandemic. We also describe how learning from the experiences of the participants of hearings was critical to understanding how virtual technologies could be adapted to provide a more rights-respecting approach to participation. We conclude by arguing that there is a need to ensure that the voices of children, which are largely absent from discussions around the use of virtual technologies, are incorporated into decisions made about their continued use within Children's Hearings. Plain Language Summary: The Children's Hearings System is a legal system in Scotland that makes decisions about the care and protection of children and young people who are: being abused or neglected; in trouble with the police; or regularly truanting from school. At a Children's Hearing, specially trained members of the public decide whether to place the child or young person onto a Compulsory Supervision Order (CSO). This is a legal document that specifies what support should be provided to the child or young person, where they should live and who they can have contact with. Before the Covid-19 pandemic all hearings were held in person at specially designed Hearings Centres. All of these centres were closed at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, resulting in a virtual Children's Hearings System having to be set up quickly. In this paper we describe the challenges of using video-conferencing software to run Children's Hearings. We explore how rules enacted by the UK and Scottish Governments affected how hearings could be delivered, before moving on to discuss how technical difficulties, lack of access to appropriate technologies and other inequalities such as digital poverty affected how children and young people could participate in their hearings. The paper finishes by describing changes made to virtual hearings in order to try and ensure that children and young people were able to participate in their hearings. In doing so, we highlight the importance of involving children and young people in discussions around how their voices can be heard, even in the context of a global pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on survey work and group discussion by a Scottish parent-led support group (Parents Advocacy and Rights – PAR) that supports parents with children in the care system. A previous paper has been published discussing an overview of the survey results (www.pfan.uk/uncovering-the-pain/). The present paper delves further into parents' particular experiences of contact. The responses are preceded by a critical retrospective of the concept of contact. Our retrospective covers the language of contact, contact's origins, continuing confusions of meaning and the lack of appreciation of the parental experience and points to the artificiality of contact, the impracticalities of contact arrangements and the toll taken by these. We conclude by pointing out that we are in the fourth decade of recommendations about contact between parents and children in state care. We make the observations that there is a continuing failure to empathise with parents' experience of deprivation and loss, a lack of comprehension of the depth of detriment to parental identity caused by the process and practices of contact and avoidance of discussion of the damage to the parent–child relationship which, irrespective of the ultimate destination of a child in state care, cannot be obliterated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses two court cases on adoption and fostering in Scotland. In Application by AB for access to Adoption Papers SC GLW 3, the court granted the son of a deceased adopted person access to the adoption court process under the Adoption and Children Act 2007. In Appeal by AW v Principal Reporter [2022] SAC (Civ) 6, the court ruled the appropriateness of naming the father as perpetrator of criminal conduct on grounds for referral under the Children's Hearings Act 2011.

The article discusses various papers related to adoption and fostering in Scotland. Topics discussed include an analysis published by the Scottish Government regarding sexual offences committed outwith Scotland but within Great Britain, research published by the Scottish Children's Reporter Administration (SCRA) on decision making processes for 200 look after children in Scotland and a recent law passed for the Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Scotland) Act 2015.

The article focuses on draft legislation and Supreme Court judgment deal with the rights of the siblings of looked after children. Topics icnlude the increased awareness of the importance of sibling relationships, and the particularly has promoted by Stand Up for Siblings a collaboration of a number of child welfare and academics within Scotland.

The article presents the discussion on new legislation and regulations coming into operation promoting and supporting sibling relationships for care-experienced children. Topics include reflecting a growing understanding of the importance of brothers and sisters in one another's lives; and local authority seeking and taking account of siblings' views in relation to carrying out the assessment.

The article focuses on a court case where an Inner House decides on the correct point in time for applying the threshold test and its application where there is a pool of possible perpetrators in Scotland. It mentions that local authority had applied to the Sheriff Court for a Permanence Order with authority to Adopt (POA) and the sheriff had not granted this.

UK policy has increasingly promoted early intervention and permanence planning for children who experience, or are at risk of experiencing, abuse or neglect, raising the question of whether these practices have actually increased ‘on the ground.’ There is already evidence of growing early intervention in the form of out of home care, in England as well as Australia and Canada. However, we do not yet know whether this trend also exists in Scotland. Furthermore, there is no research investigating whether rates of permanence planning have changed anywhere in the UK or globally. The current study addressed these gaps through a comparison of two samples of children in Scotland: 110 children born in 2003 and 117 born in 2013, all of whom were placed under compulsory measures of supervision prior to three years of age. The 2013 cohort was significantly more likely than the 2003 cohort to be removed from their parents at birth, to reside away from parents throughout the first three years of life and to live apart from parents at three years of age. Significantly more of the 2013 cohort than the 2003 cohort had a plan for permanence by three years. These findings are consistent with the view that policy changes in the UK are affecting practice (although practice changes may have resulted from other sources as well/instead). The fall in parental care was largely compensated by an increase in the use of foster care, which has resource implications. Children removed from their parents at birth were usually not returned in the first three years of life, not raised by extended family members, and were separated from one or more siblings. This typically reduced instability for young children, but also entailed substantial birth family fragmentation. The impact on children and families of early removal into foster care must therefore be carefully assessed in light of the increasing prevalence of this practice in Scotland and elsewhere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on two Afghan boys arrived in North East of England and placed in long-term foster placement, and mentions about decision taken by court regarding them. Topics include properly accommodating unaccompanied asylum-seeking children under section 20 of the Children Act 1989; supporting the leaving care provisions, and implementing decisions about education, care and medical treatment.

The article offers information on the cases related to the adoption granted despite curator ad litem's recommendation that a Permanence Order was more appropriate. Topics discussed include several others cases such as brother fails in attempt to be considered by the children's hearing as a relevant person to his three sisters, and Sheriff appeal court upholds decision to grant an adoption order as opposed to a kinship care order in favour of grandparents.

Focuses on the Adoption and Children Bill, which sets out the new legislative framework for adoption and long-term fostering, introduced at the end of March 2006 in Scotland. Expected implementation date of the bill; Information on the proposed new Permanence Order; Concern of the British Association for Adoption and Fostering on the negative impact on looked after children of the Education Bill, with its emphasis on parental choice.

Jane Aldgate describes findings from a Scottish research study on kinship care. Her article is drawn from a commissioned study which informed a government review of children looked after by local authorities in Scotland in 2006. The article presents the perspectives of the 30 children in the study on living in kinship care. It explores children's understanding of the reasons for their placements and their views on the future, as well as on the roles and tasks of social workers. Children speak of both the negative and positive challenges of living in kinship care, including maintaining contact with parents and siblings. Children's everyday lives, including experiences of school, peers and activities are recounted. The article ends by describing the Scottish Government's new policy for improving services for children in kinship care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Learning with Care report (HMI and SWSI, 2001) made seven criticisms in relation to the provision of education for looked after children in Scotland. The most recent report, Looked After Children and Young People: We can and must do better (Scottish Executive, 2007), contains 19 actions for improvement. Graham Connelly and Mono Chakrabarti examine whether the distinctiveness of the Scottish political landscape has the potential to lead to improvements in tackling the deficits in the educational experience and attainment of looked after children and young people clearly acknowledged by the authors of both reports. Their article considers the recent history of political concern and asks whether things are getting better, concluding that while there is only limited improvement, the climate is more supportive and more emphatic in its expectations of the young people and the professionals who support them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several recent legislation and jurisprudence in Scotland on adoption and fostering are presented. Subject matters include the National Guidance for Child Protection in Scotland, the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014, and The Adoption and Children (Scotland) Act 2007 (compulsory supervision order reports in applications for permanence orders) Regulations 2014.

The article discusses court cases related to adoption and fostering in Scotland. It relates the decision of the Supreme Court on whether the father is a relevant person when a child was born out of wedlock. It outlines the ruling issued by the Sheriffdom of Lothian and Borders at Edinburgh on the application of a mother for an issue order allowing her to move to England with her children to live with her new partner. It presents the sheriff's decision on an application for a permanence order with authority for adoption.

The article covers legal issues on child adoption and fostering in Scotland as of March 2008. The government has expressed its intention to establish an organization for the delivery of the Children's Hearings Systems. The government guidelines "Getting It Right for Every Child: Guidance on Overnight Stays for Looked After and Accommodated Children" was published as part of the Kinship and Foster Care Strategy. The Vulnerable Witnesses Act 2004 enables special measures such as video links for child and vulnerable witnesses.

The article discusses the findings of the review entitled "The Quality of Fostering and Adoption Services in Scotland," conducted by the Care Commission. It mentions that the report reflects the need to recruit additional carers and improve the application process to increase the availability of foster carers. There were 3,719 children placed in foster care and 255 placed for adoption in Scotland in 2006. It notes that children may be placed in a home that forces them to change school or separated from sibling.