Scottish Child Law Centre

✨Thank you so much your support this year. 🎄We wish you a wonderful Christmas and all the best for 2025!

‼️ Our team will soon be off for the winter holiday period so any enquiry sent after Wednesday 18th December 2024 will be answered in January 2025. If you need advice from our solicitors during the holiday period, we recommend you get in touch as soon as possible. We apologise for any delays this may cause and thank you for your patience. Get in touch here: https://lnkd.in/e8zMfvft

Thank you Scottish Independent Advocacy Alliance for sharing our report on access to justice for children and young people following rights breaches. We both call for increased access to independent advocacy for children and young people. https://lnkd.in/eAMbbsij

“When families email us they are in crisis.”, Ms Speirs said: “They are often living in poverty and we are often their last port of call. Sometimes they’ve tried upwards of 30 different firms for legal aid.” Without a working legal aid system, rights abuses will continue to go unchecked. We received hundreds of inquiries every month from families and young people unable to access justice when they most desperately need it. Hear from our Senior Solicitor on this crisis here:  https://lnkd.in/ecwdm-Zg 

📚Could your organisation use rights-based approaches to protect children? We provide tailored, high quality bespoke #training courses specifically tailored to the needs of organisations, individuals and schools. ⤵️ Find out more here: https://lnkd.in/erdi5Kge

📝New blog post! Judith, a young person involved in our work, has written this brilliant article sharing the importance of thinking about how many cultures might have different approaches to human rights and highlight the value of taking multicultural approaches. https://lnkd.in/eJdwaJWv 

📚 Could your organisation use rights-based approaches to protect children? We provide high quality bespoke training courses specifically tailored to the needs of organisations, individuals and schools. We can discuss your training needs with you and explore how best to meet them. Our training formats include workshops and seminars, full day or half-day courses on a variety of subject matters affecting children in Scotland. Find out more here: https://lnkd.in/erdi5Kge

📝 New Blog post! We have just published a blog post explaining the recent changes to children’s justice and how the Children Act 2024 is trying to make the legal system more compassionate. ⬇️ Read here: https://lnkd.in/ea-mF3a5 

🌟 We have just published our report on Access to Justice! ⚖️ The Scottish Child Law Centre, has found that there are significant barriers to children accessing justice when their rights have been breached. Poverty is preventing children and families from realising their rights and it is vital that organisations continue to come together, collaborate on solutions and hold decision makers to account. Our free legal advice is a lifeline for many children and families. The demand for the service has increased significantly with a 250% increase from January 2024 to July 2024. This August we received 313 enquiries, a record number. We wanted to bring together organisations with an interest in this area to understand the issues and to discuss potential collaborative solutions. A Round Table was held on 25th June 2024. We came up with five key issues and multiple ways to solve them. Read the summary report and the full report here: https://lnkd.in/e8a6Azft Thanks again to all the organisations who took part in the Round Table: Together (Scottish Alliance for Children's Rights), Human Rights Consortium Scotland, University of Strathclyde, Institute for Inspiring Children's Futures, The Law Society of Scotland, Children & Young People's Centre for Justice (CYCJ), JustRight Scotland, Action for Children, Scottish Children's Reporter Administration, Clan Childlaw, Who Cares? Scotland, Amnesty International UK, Scottish Legal Aid Board (SLAB)