Rights Detectives

Background

The Rights Detectives are a group of children and young people aged 11-17 from across Scotland who are supported by Together and some of our member organisations - Children in Scotland, Scottish Youth Parliament, and previously also Aberlour, SNAP Inverness and Who Cares? Scotland.

Running from July 2022 to December 2023, the Rights Detectives receive special missions from Scottish Government and join Together for online and in-person sessions.  The missions involve investigative research with other children and young people to help make sure what matters to children is put into this new law! 

The Rights Detectives form one of three ‘Lived Experience Boards’ set up by Scottish Government who are helping to shape a new Human Rights Bill for Scotland.  The new Bill will bring extra protections into law in Scotland for disabled people, Black, Brown and minority ethnic people and women and girls.  It will also strengthen rights for older people and LGBTQ+ people and include the right to a healthy environment.

[Image Description: above is a slider with information regarding our Rights Detectives Project. Answering questions - what is the Rights Detectives Project? Why a new Human Rights Bill for Scotland? What will it do/mean? The information is on our Rights Detectives branding.]

Approach

Whilst the Detectives have their own views about the Bill, they want to find out more about what other children and young people think by carrying out special investigative missions to help make sure what matters to children is included into the new law.  The Detectives identified the groups of children and young people they wanted to talk to, co-designed session plans and resources, and co-delivered the Investigation workshops between July 2022 – December 2023.  In total, Detectives spoke to 269 children and young people, aged 5-17 from across Scotland.  

Mapping report

Children and young people express frustration that adults repeatedly ask them the same questions but do little with what they have heard, To support the Detectives in their role, Together conducted desk-research to established what we already know about children and young people’s views and experiences of their human rights.  We did this by mapping previous Scottish Government and Scottish Parliament engagement with children and young people between January 2020 and June 2022. It focuses on projects funded by (or delivered in partnership with) public authorities including Scottish Government, Scottish Parliament and executive agencies.

• Read our mapping report here

Developing resources for children and young people

In autumn 2023, to support the Scottish Government’s consultation on the new Human Rights Bill, the Rights Detectives helped to create child-friendly resources to help other children and young people respond to the consultation.  Two different sets of resources were developed - one for children and young people who were new to the topic and another for those who already had some knowledge of human rights and incorporation. Each pack came with a facilitator guide for adults who were supporting children and young people to share their views.

• Introductory consultation pack
• Accompanying introductory facilitator guide
• More detailed consultation pack
• Accompanying more detailed facilitator guide

Detectives finding

Through the project, the Detectives’ findings have been written up in full and child-friendly reports and submitted to the Human Rights Bill Team at Scottish Government.  You can read their Mission Update Reports below:

• Mission Update Report #001_Feb 2023 (full report)
• Mission Update Report #001_Feb 2023 (Child-friendly version)
• Mission Update Report #002_June 2023 (full report)
• Mission Update Report #002_June 2023 (Child-friendly version)
• Mission Update Report #003_December 2023 (full report)
• Mission Update Report #003_December 2023 (Child-friendly version)

Human Rights Bill for Scotland, Child-Friendly Version of the Scottish Governments Consultation Analysis Report

On Thursday the 21^st of March 2024, we published our child-friendly version of Scottish Governments Consultation Analysis Report.  This report is the fourth in the series and shares what the Scottish Government asked, how people answered and what children and young people told us during our Investigations. 

Last summer, the Scottish Government shared its ideas for the new law and asked what people thought. We helped to create a child-friendly version of the questions so that children and young people could take part too. Nearly 400 people shared their views (including children, young people, adults and many organisations). This report shares the findings from the consultation.

• If you click here you will be able to view our child-friendly version of Scottish Government’s Human Rights Bill Consultation Analysis Report

Thank you!

The Rights Detectives and Together (Scottish Alliance for Children’s Rights would like to thank all the children and young people who have taken part in our investigations, as well as the Scottish Youth Parliament, Children in Scotland, Aberlour, SNAP Inverness and Who Cares? Scotland for their support.  We would also like to thank the Scottish Government Human Rights Team who have not only funded the work of the Rights Detectives, but have also worked closely with us to make sure their findings are taken into account in the development of the new Human Rights Bill.

Below is our Rights Detective Timeline to help keep us on track with our missions from Scottish Government: