Care Inspectorate: Embedding Voice in Practice

The promise has a lot to say about inspection and regulation and the need to make sure that inspections value the voices and experiences of the children and young people who experience those services.

The promise is also clear about secure care. Secure care is a form of residential care that restricts the freedom of children. It is for the small number of children who may be a significant risk to themselves or to or from others in the community. The promise states that “Scotland’s response to the small number of children who need this level of security, care and protection must look radically different”. To help ensure this happens, we must listen to the views of young people who have experienced secure care.

The Care Inspectorate carried out a review of secure care pathways. This focused on listening to and understanding the experiences of 30 young people across Scotland before, during, and after experiencing secure care accommodation.

The report reflects the voices of the young people who participated. The video below represents composite findings and stories of those young people:

More information can be found in the report here.

Young people’s experiences of living in secure care were at the centre of this work. The Care Inspectorate is working to embed the voices of people who use services in all of their inspection and regulation work.

There is also other work underway in Scotland to make changes to secure care. If you want to know more about work to transform secure care, the Children and Young People’s Centre for Justice is leading work on redesign. You can find out more about the secure care redesign work and the interim report here.