Rights Ready Shetland

In July 2024, the Scottish Government’s United Nations Convention on Rights of a Child (UNCRC) Incorporation Bill came into effect, leading to major changes in the way public bodies in Scotland work. The Act requires public authorities to take steps to protect children's rights and makes it illegal for them to act in ways that are incompatible with the UNCRC. The UNCRC is the most widely ratified human rights treaty in the world and applies to everyone under the age of 18. It states that children should be recognised, respected, and protected as unique and valuable human beings with rights. Incorporating the UNCRC into law shows children that public bodies care about their rights and will take them seriously.

A series of workshops, engagement events and training were organised by Shetland Islands Council’s Children’s Services over three days in March 2024, with a Children’s Rights Focus. The aim of these sessions was to:

• Raise awareness about UNCRC and the Incorporation Bill
• Upskill Children’s Services Staff (and relevant partners) in terms of Rights in Action in different contexts
• Stimulate engagement and conversation between partners in order to create next steps (How Rights Ready is Shetland? What do we do now?).

The sessions were aimed at three different groups:

• Young people (through school assemblies, workshops and wider UNCRC Rights Ready event)
• Staff working directly with young people (through training sessions aimed at Additional Support Needs (ASN) practitioners/management, Early Learning and Childcare (ELC) practitioners/management, Youth Development Team)
• Strategic Leadership across Shetland Community (elected members, decision makers, officers).

The following organisations had input on the sessions:

• Childrens Parliament
• Together Scotland
• Improvement Service
• Children and Young People’s Commissioner
• My Rights My Say & Enquire (Children in Scotland)
• Scottish Youth Parliament
• John Loughton (Youth Activist and Leadership Speaker)

The focused events created a wave of engagement in UNCRC with over 200 people (staff and young people) engaged in activities and 8 schools represented in staff sessions.

By having input from a range of partners, it has helped staff realise where support and expertise is available. For example, the Children’s Parliament have now been asked back to Shetland schools for in-service to widen opportunity for Primary and ELC staff to upskill in Rights work.

By opening up the activity to partners out with Children’s Services, activities reached staff and leaders from services such as Economic Development, Employability, Arts, Sport & Leisure, Library Services, University of Highlands and Islands and Shetland Charitable Trust. From these conversations, there have been collaborative pieces of work between SIC’s Youth and Employability Service and Shetland Arts Development Agency (a youth-led Takeover of the arts venue, Mareel).

A mentimeter evaluation taken before and after the showpiece Rights Ready session at Lerwick Town Hall demonstrated that people’s confidence in being ‘Rights Ready’ increased after the session from 3.5/5 to 4/5. The Mentimeter also highlighted next steps for the community.

The feedback from some of the Continuing Professional Development (CPD) sessions was very positive. Below are some feedback quotes left:

“Excellent session! Very well facilitated. Really enjoyed the video clips & discussions.  Lovely suite of resources. I’m feeling fired up and looking forward to taking this forward in our work.”

“Thought-provoking and timely.  Good reassurance that we are doing lots of things right and also ideas to take forward.”

“I found the training really beneficial and it’s given me a clearer understanding of what children’s rights look like and how we can, and already do, incorporate and embed this in practice.  Thank you! 😊”

Work has begun to create a learning resource for young people in partnership with local Shetland dialect group, Shetland ForWirds. This aims to teach about Rights in a Shetland/island context as some staff had felt UNCRC sometimes felt too abstract. A competition has also been launched locally around UNCRC Articles and making them fit into a local/Isles context.

Linking UNCRC with other priorities such as The Promise, Trauma Informed practice and Shetland Partnerships’ Compassionate Communities means that Rights will be embedded in practice through these agendas and resources.

This contributes to Shetland Partnership’s ‘Participation’ and ‘People’ priorities with public agencies working together to help delivery improved outcomes including Shetland being a safe and happy place with more people feeling connected to their communities.