I’m a researcher at the Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration (SCRA) and I carried out an evaluation of Our Hearings, Our Voice (OHOV) between May and October this year. The full evaluation as well as a version for children and young people are both publicly available on our website.
As part of the evaluation, the OHOV Board Members took part in a focus group and interview to share their experiences of being part of OHOV. They spoke about whether it had lived up to their expectations and what difference being Board Members had had on their lives. They also spoke about what OHOV had achieved so far, and thought about what the future of OHOV could look like, and what support they might need to make sure they can keep on having an impact on the Children’s Hearings System.
OHOV Board Members also had the opportunity to provide questions for the interviews that took place with senior staff in SCRA and Children’s Hearings Scotland (CHS) as part of the evaluation. The SCRA and CHS staff who were interviewed were really keen to respond to these questions in particular, and the responses to them were used in the evaluation and were also fed back to the Board Members. As well as receiving a copy and being able to discuss and comment on the children and young people’s version of the evaluation report, an animation was created to help sharing the findings.
Making sure that young people can provide input into the questions being asked as well as being the ones who are answering some of the questions is important in making sure we #KeepThePromise.