Children's Hearings Scotland is delighted to launch our Progressing Children's Rights Report 2023-2026. This report sets out the progress CHS has made across three years to uphold children's rights throughout the Children's Hearings System.

You can enjoy the full report, the Executive Summary or the shortened and easier to read child-friendly version of the report.

Upholding children's rights every day

The report is CHS's first since the UNCRC (Incorporation) (Scotland) Act 2024 came into practice, giving public bodies a legal responsibility to uphold children's rights. Children’s Hearings Scotland has always worked tirelessly to protect and progress children’s rights, and this is our third three-year report on how we do that. But following the enactment of the UNCRC legislation, this edition of the report is organised around the Articles of the UN Convention.

CHS is proud of how we have made children’s rights more visible across the last three years, and how we have supported children and young people to use their rights. We have done this via the creation of our Experts by Experience group, the inclusion of young people with lived experience of hearings on recruitment panels for staff, volunteers and Board Members, and the launch of our child-friendly feedback forms for children and young people attending hearings.

Supporting volunteers to progress children's rights

Children’s rights feature in our everyday work with UNCRC, trauma-informed and trauma-skilled training embedded in continuous staff and volunteer training. This equips volunteers to understand the impact of abuse, harm and neglect on children, and to make the best decisions to meet their needs.

While this report allows us to celebrate how we have put children’s rights into practice, it also reinforces our responsibility to make sure that children’s rights are respected, upheld and truly felt across the Children's Hearings System.