Rights Empowered: Children’s Access to Justice Project - Year 1 Update

Date: 30th January 2026
Category: General measures of implementation, Respect for the views of the child, Access to appropriate information

---

The Rights Empowered: Children’s Access to Justice Project is a three-year project funded by the Independent Human Rights Fund for Scotland (delivered by Corra on behalf of a partnership of eight funders). The project aims to maximise the incorporation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) in the lives of all children in Scotland, by supporting Together’s membership to use community action and strategic litigation to challenge decision making and address systemic rights breaches.   

Clan Childlaw and Together have completed the first year of the Rights Empowered project. We are now taking the opportunity to revisit the achievements of the first year of the project, and to invite you to participate in the next stages of the project.  

Reflection on Year 1 

In the first year of the project, we successfully set up the systems and processes that will guide how the project supports Together members to use either strategic litigation or community action as influencing tools.  

As a reminder, we view strategic litigation as litigation used to further the realisation of children’s rights. This definition is deliberately wide to include a strategy to litigate individual cases in a consistent way following a rights-based framework, as well as ‘game changer’ cases arising from an individual case which addresses an issue with broader impact. These cases often find success when they run parallel to third sector campaigning on the issue.  

When we use the term community action, we mean the various steps that a community or group can take to influence strategic change. This means investing in the legal empowerment of Together’s membership - providing you with resources, tools and advice on how to drive systemic change using human rights framing. Any community action supported by Rights Empowered will be fully informed by the UNCRC and the UNCRC (Incorporation) (Scotland) Act 2024 (the UNCRC Act). 

In year one, we created models for multi-organisation information sharing, stakeholder engagement and established the Strategic Litigation Group with the Scottish Human Rights Commission and the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland.  

The project received and responded to 29 enquiries from Together members and provided legal information and signposting to participating children’s charities to build capacity and understanding of UNCRC related issues. All project enquiries which concerned an individual child or young person were referred to our legal team for legal analysis. At the time of writing, we have provided legal information and signposting to support 12 individual children or young people to challenge rights issues.  

Although feedback from members has been overwhelmingly positive, members have also highlighted their concerns about the UNCRC Act’s limited scope, especially where those limitations have hindered the project’s ability to progress certain rights issues. Clan and Together will continue to influence Scottish Government to draft new legislation within scope of the UNCRC Act, and to consider ways to bring existing legislation within scope of the UNCRC Act.  

Year 2 and beyond 

Informed by Together members, we are currently progressing one community action issue and one strategic litigation issue. We will also be launching a UNCRC Community Action Toolkit for Together members in Year 2 of the project. 

Community Action: Article 12 of the UNCRC says that every child has the right to express their views, feelings and wishes in all matters affecting them, and to have their views considered and taken seriously. Children's voices are particularly important in court proceedings, to ensure that decisions made that impact children are in line with their best interests. 

Together’s members have raised multiple perspectives on this issue, both through the #RightsOnTrack data, and in direct enquiries to the Rights Empowered project. As such, the project is looking at various ways we can support the realisation of children’s voices in court proceedings through community action.  

Our first area of focus will be the commencement of sections 1(4), 2 and 3 of the Children (Scotland) Act 2020. These are amendments that will introduce the requirement for children’s views to be considered when the court makes orders about parental rights and responsibilities, in adoption proceedings and in children’s hearings. We are liaising with Scottish Government regarding the timeline of implementation for these outstanding sections. We look forward to working with Together’s members to ensure the timely implementation of these amendments in the most robust, UNCRC compliant and child-centred way. We hope to consider other aspects of the children’s voices issue as the implementation point progresses.  

If your organisation has a vested interest in this issue, please contact us at rightsempowered@clanchildlaw.org. We are hoping to a create a Community of Practice to unite our influencing efforts in this space.  

Strategic Litigation: The absence of a ‘victim test’ in the UNCRC (Incorporation) (Scotland) Act has theoretically broadened access to justice for children and young people in Scotland. Unlike the Human Rights Act 1998, organisations in Scotland, with sufficient interest, can raise UNCRC related legal actions even where the organisation is itself not the direct ‘victim’ of an unlawful action of a public authority. However, there are still significant financial barriers to bringing these types of cases.  

As such, the strategic litigation arm will focus both on a substantive strategic rights issue for children, along with exploring the way in which organisations can raise these issues on behalf of the children impacted.  This will mean looking at pathways for NGOs and community organisations to instigate and fund strategic litigation on UNCRC related issues on behalf of children and young people.  

The substantive issue we will focus on first relates to the use of restraint and seclusion in secure care settings.  

There are several reasons why a child might be deprived of their liberty in a secure care setting in Scotland.  Placements are usually authorised by the Children’s Hearing in instances where the child may pose a risk to themselves, or to others.  

Secure care centres are overseen by the Care Inspectorate and run by care professionals who provide therapeutic support targeted to each child’s specific needs.   They also provide education. Removing children from the prison estate has been seen as an important step forward in ensuring that children in the justice system access child centred support.  At the same time as these changes are being made, through Clan’s representation of children housed in secure care, we have identified an issue in relation to the lack of statutory oversight regarding the protections and limitations that should be applied in relation to the restraint and seclusion of children in secure care.  The lack of statutory oversight is in contrast to the protections in place for adults in the prison system, and individuals subject to deprivation of liberty under the Mental Health (Scotland) Act 2003. 

• ‘Restraint’ means anything done by a member of staff with the intention of physically restraining the physical movement of a child or young person. 

• ‘Seclusion’ means anything done by a member of staff with the intention of isolating a child or young person from others and preventing them from leaving the place they are isolated.  

We are of the view that there should be a UNCRC compliant framework for all children who are housed in secure care. We are currently preparing an evidence base to inform the next steps we take on this issue. We have issued Freedom of Information Requests to the four secure care centres requesting data on the prevalence of restraint and seclusion practices, and the guidance followed regarding these.  

Two of Together’s members, the Children and Young People’s Centre for Justice (CYCJ) and Who Cares? Scotland, have helpfully contributed to our evidence base for this work. If your organisation is aware of children who have been or are currently experiencing restraint or seclusion in secure care settings, please contact us at rightsempowered@clanchildlaw.org. We hope to put together a Community of Practice for this issue to create a space for Together members to share practice concerns and develop a knowledge base in this area.  

Community Action Toolkit: Our enquiries and engagement with Together members enabled us to identify common knowledge gaps and frequently asked questions from participating children’s charities.  

To build capacity, knowledge and confidence, we have created a UNCRC Community Action Toolkit. Part 1 of this resource will focus on the fundamentals of the UNCRC, including ‘what is the UNCRC’ and ‘what is the UNCRC Act’.   

By increasing understanding of legal and human rights frameworks, the overall aim of the toolkit is to create a more legally empowered children’s sector, and to encourage Together members to take action on potential UNCRC rights issues.  

We hope to release Part 1 of the Toolkit in early 2026.