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Our news and what’s happening
Keeping you up to date with Our Hearings, Our Voice latest news and developments.
Virtual Hearings
The voices of Hearings-experienced young people are at the heart of new research looking at the impact of the Coronavirus pandemic. Andrew, Ciara and Zodie, all OHOV Board Members worked on the...
Consulting with young people on redesign of the Hearings System
The Scottish Government has just finished their formal public consultation on the legislative change needed to redesign the Children’s Hearings System. Our Hearings, Our Voice (OHOV) believes it is...
OHOV autumn round up
The young people at Our Hearings, Our Voice have had a busy few months. Here’s a round up of some of the great projects we’ve been involved in… Presentation to 4th Year Education Students at...
VOICE issue 4 is hot off the press!
It’s here – the fourth edition of the Our Hearings, Our Voice magazine for children and young people!!! Hundreds of copies of VOICE magazine have just been distributed to a Hearings centre near you!...
Spreading the word on language change
In May we launched the Articulate Animation, co-written, designed and voiced by some of Our Hearings, Our Voice’s Board Members. The short film – made by Braw Talent – brings to life the importance...
New recruitment podcast alert
We are excited to share with you our new podcast which is part of our ongoing recruitment campaign to encourage more children and young people to get involved with OHOV. In this 10-minute podcast we...
The best experience ever!
If you are interested in becoming an Our Hearings, Our Voice board member, then check out this article by Remi! A current board member, she has written about the recent OHOV weekend away to...
Our Hearings, Our Voice – Summer update
We’re halfway through 2024 and what a year it’s shaping up to be! OHOV has been part of so many great projects so far, and there’s much more to come. In particular, this year has seen many of our...
Supporting 16 & 17 year olds in the Children’s Hearings System
OHOV Board Member Andrew is passionate about making the Hearings System better for children and young people. In a new blog, he shines the spotlight on the Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Act...
Language Reform led by Lived and Learned Experience
Significant steps are being made to improve how children experience language in the Children’s Hearings System. A new update on the multi-agency work of Language Leaders, with full involvement of...
Launch of Articulate Animation
We are excited to launch our new Articulate Animation today! The cartoon animation has been co-written, designed and voiced by some of our Board Members. The short film – made by Braw Talent -...
Board Members give presentation to Children’s Hearings Scotland
Board members Dylan and Andrew were invited by Children’s Hearings Scotland to deliver a presentation to 84 panel members at a training day at Forth Valley College, Falkirk. Reflecting on their own...
Creating connections with CHS
Our board of young people at Our Hearings, Our Voice are committed to driving improvements in the Children’s Hearings System and one of the ways in which we approach this is by influencing key...
Understanding my Hearing initiative launched
Our Hearings, Our Voice (OHOV) was delighted to attend the launch of an ‘Understanding my Hearing' initiative in Stornoway yesterday. The Keeping The Promise pilot includes children age 6 and over,...
Our Hearings, Our Voice spring update
OHOV have had a busy start to 2024, getting involved in a range of interesting and important improvement projects. Here is a summary of what we’ve been up to and what we’re looking forward to in the...
Language animation under development
The Language Leaders are a group of young people with lived experience of the Children’s Hearings System, along with professionals with lived and learned experience from CHS, SCRA, social work,...
Catching up with Thomas Carlton
OHOV Board Members Achilles and Ciara were recently at a Keeping The Promise event at Glasgow Clyde College delivering a workshop on changing the language of care and Children’s Hearings. Before...
Helping children take control of their Hearings
A Taking Control of my Hearing pilot scrapbook – the brainchild of two OHOV board members - is already making a difference to children and young people in Fife. Launched last month, the scrapbook is...
Q&A with Who Cares? Scotland
Our Hearings, Our Voice Board Member, Andrew James talks exclusively to Louise Hunter, Chief Executive of Who Cares? Scotland (WC?S). Andrew is a member of OHOV and WC?S and chose to interview...
Edition 3 – VOICE magazine has arrived!!!
It’s finally here – the third issue of the Our Hearings, Our Voice magazine for children and young people. Hundreds of copies of VOICE magazine have been distributed to Hearing centres across the...
Taking Control of My Hearing
Two OHOV Board Members are helping children and young people take control of their Hearing. Achilles and Ciara came up with the idea of a scrapbook which will help children and young people through...
OHOV joins the Love Rally
Our Hearings, Our Voice was proud to take part in the Love Rally yesterday. Board Members and the OHOV team marched from Glasgow Green to George Square to show their support to Who Cares? Scotland’s...
What I Need
To mark Care Experienced Week, Our Hearings, Our Voice Board Member Achilles (Dame Marsha Ducky) has written a beautiful poem called What I Need which they would love to share with other young...
OHOV Autumn update
Here’s a quick summary of just a few of the exciting projects the Our Hearings, Our Voice (OHOV) gang have been involved in lately… Solicitors guide Board Members Ben and Ange have been working with...
Leading The Way!
Our Hearings, Our Voice Board Members helped launch the Language Leaders principles yesterday. OHOV Board Members have played a key role in this exciting piece of work which aims to make sure that...
Our Hearings, Our Voice summer round up
It's been a busy few months here at OHOV. Here’s a quick summary of just a few of the exciting project the gang have been involved in lately… Guide for solicitorsBoard Members Ben and Ange have been...
OHOV on display!
The Children’s Hearings Centre in Glasgow has had two creative new additions! Board members Ciara and Achilles from Our Hearings, Our Voice (OHOV) created two window displays based around work...
Three boards come together
Young Board Members from Our Hearings, Our Voice (OHOV) met with Board Members from Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration (SCRA) and Children’s Hearings Scotland (CHS) on Saturday. They spent...
Isla’s journey through a redesigned Children’s Hearings System
Across the last 19 months, OHOV board members have been working alongside the Hearings System Working Group (HSWG) - Sheriff David Mackie, The Promise Scotland, the Scottish Children’s Reporter...
OHOV attends Hearings for Children launch
Young people from Our Hearings, Our Voice enjoyed taking centre stage at yesterday’s launch of the Hearings System Working Group’s ‘Hearings for Children: the Redesign Report’. The report contains...
Meeting the Falkirk Champs
Our Hearings, Our Voice took part in an event for Hearings-experienced young people in Falkirk recently. The free event at the Dawson Community Centre on Friday 28 April was open to children and...
VOICE magazine – issue 2 published
It is here!!! Our second edition of VOICE magazine has arrived at a Hearings centre near you! This latest edition is packed full of helpful information, as well as lots of fun stuff including a...
Leading the way
If you are a regular visitor to the OHOV website, you will know we are working on an exciting project to radically improve language in the Children’s Hearings System. Previously called the Word...
Children’s voice in the re-design of Hearings
At Our Hearings, Our Voice (OHOV) we have always tried to follow Laura Lundy’s model of participation[i]. We provide safe, inclusive space for children to express their views as well as options,...
Keeping The Promise podcast
Board Members from Our Hearings, Our Voice star in a new podcast produced by the Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration. The young people talk about why Keeping The Promise is important to...
Impact of Virtual Hearings on children’s participation and rights
Our Hearings, Our Voice have continued to be involved in the research being carried out by Catherine Nixon at the Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration into the impact of Virtual Hearings on...
2022- a remarkable year for young people at OHOV
At OHOV, we’ve had a wee break and been able to reflect on all that our young, hearings experienced board members achieved in 2022. Here are just a few of the highlights of the ways in which they...
Our Christmas card competition winner
We’re delighted to announce the winner of our VOICE magazine Christmas card competition! Kaitlyn (aged 9) sent in this beautiful reindeer design which was voted the winner by the young people on the...
Who you gonna call? Word Busters
For some time now, young people involved in children’s hearings, including those from Our Hearings, Our Voice (OHOV) and the Voice Inclusion Project (VIP) have been unhappy about the language they...
CHS Co-Production Event
At the end of November three of our board members and a young person from the Voice Inclusion Project (VIP) lent their time and talents to a co-production event facilitated by Children’s Hearings...
Peer Mentoring at OHOV
Joining an established group such as OHOV can be a daunting experience for any young person. Navigating the group norms, dynamics, and unique way of working can take time, and until a new member has...
Legislative Reform for Hearings – sense checking with OHOV
At our board meeting in October, our young board members were joined by some key individuals in the current reform of the children’s hearings system. This included leads of each of the collaborative...
OHOV Christmas card competition
Do you fancy getting creative? Then why not enter our Christmas card competition? This is our very first Our Hearings, Our Voice Christmas card competition! Who can enter? The competition is open...
Launch of VOICE Magazine
We’re delighted to introduce ‘VOICE’ our new magazine written for young people, by young people. In our first issue you can read our top tips for attending a Children’s Hearing, as well as some of...
Tailoring Hearings to meet children and young people’s needs
Summer holidays don’t seem to have slowed things down for the young people at Our Hearings, Our Voice. Our board members have been using their skills and experience of Children’s Hearings to...
OHOV responds to the consultation on the Child Care and Justice Bill
Our Hearings, Our Voice have just responded as a group and through individual conversations with our hearings–experienced board members to this Bill. Eight young people chose to take part. Scottish...
OHOV hold their 19th Our Hearings, Our Voice Board Meeting
We are holding our 19th Our Hearings, Our Voice (OHOV) board meeting this weekend and this one feels special for a few reasons- friendship, support and the chance to create real change in the...
OHOV welcomes new member of the team
We were excited to welcome a new member of the team last month. Amy Miskimmin-Logan is our new Participation Development Worker. It is Amy’s third week and she has been getting to know board...
Latest Board Meeting
Our 18th and latest board meeting was jam packed with lots of activities and another visit from Sheriff David Mackie. The sun was shining for our event in Glasgow on Saturday 26 March. It was a...
Redesign of the Children’s Hearings System
This Saturday OHOV will be holding its 18th board meeting and the focus is on redesign of the hearings system. We will be joined again by Sheriff David Mackie, who chairs the Hearings System Working...
New Faces at Our Hearings, Our Voice
What an exciting week this is! For three years now, Our Hearings, Our Voice has been supercharged by the commitment, lived experience, altruism and brain power of the same hearings-experienced board...
Looking ahead at Our Hearings, Our Voice
OHOV have had a busy start to 2022 and there is so much ahead. Since the turn of the year we have been involved in: sharing the voices of our board members at a webinar on advocacy Feedback on OHOV...
Feedback on OHOV input to advocacy webinar
On 19 January the views of OHOV members on advocacy were shared with 178 people at a Scottish Government webinar. Several of the board member’s voices were recorded and used with characters to...
What Difference Can We Make Together?
Last Saturday we held our 17th board meeting and invited the Chairs of two key boards involved in the Children’s Hearings System- Michelle at the Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration and...
Day in the life of a board member
Interested in joining Our Hearings, Our Voice, but not sure what it involves? We have created a short visual guide which might help you. The day in the life of a board member follows our recent...
Social media takeover!
We have joined the world of Tik Tok and Instagram! Our board members wanted to reach out to more young people. So we have launched or Our Hearings, Our Voice Tik Tok and Instagram accounts. Our...
Children’s Mental Health Week
This week we are supporting Children’s Mental Health Week (7-13 February 2022). This year's theme is Growing Together. That's something that has certainly happened to Our Hearings, Our Voice since...
Key stakeholders support OHOV board member recruitment
Some key individuals in the Children’s Hearings System have shown their support to Our Hearings, Our Voice campaign to recruit new board members. Minister for Children and Young People, Clare...
OHOV highlights the importance of advocacy
The voices of young people from Our Hearings, Our Voice were heard loud and clear at an event today to promote advocacy. A virtual event was held online to celebrate free advocacy provision being...
We are recruiting new Hearings-experienced Board Members
Today (Monday 17 January) we have launched our latest recruitment campaign for new Board Members. Now Our Hearings, Our Voice (OHOV) is three years old, we are ready for our next intake of...
OHOV in 2021: What A Year!
It can be easy to feel that the last couple of years have been against us, but we feel we have achieved a lot at Our Hearings, Our Voice. Here are some of our highlights in 2021… A new team: By...
New report on how we are doing
A really important report has been published about Our Hearings, Our Voice (OHOV) today. The report looks at how we have been doing since we were set up just over three years ago. There’s a short...
Our Hearings, Our Voice Evaluation – Kirsty Deacon
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...
OHOV Participation Worker – we are hiring!
There is an exciting opportunity to join our team at Our Hearings, Our Voice. Do you want to empower children and young people to shape the future of the Children’s Hearings System? Are you...
Sharing Power (and fun) with Adult Decision Makers
We had a fantastic day at Dynamic Earth on Saturday, meeting with some of the adults who will influence change in the Hearings System. Sheriff David Mackie, Chair of the Hearings System Working...
Partners show their support
On the final day of our week-long Calls to Action anniversary celebrations, we are delighted to share some supportive messages from organisations in the Children’s Hearings System. Advocacy...
Happy birthday messages from Children’s Hearings Scotland!
Children’s Hearings Scotland (CHS) is one of our key partners and we have worked with them on several really important pieces of work, including Panel Member recruitment, the CHS Rights and...
Keeping The Promise
On the first anniversary of the launch of our 40 Calls to Action, we have received a fantastic show of support from a key figure in the Hearings System. Sheriff David Mackie, Chair of The Promise...
SCRA responds to Calls to Action
Last year when we published The Zine, one corporate parent described it as “breath taking.” Neil Hunter, Principal Reporter from the Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration (SCRA) also said:...
Happy 1st Birthday to our 40 Calls to Action
The young board members at Our Hearings, Our Voice shared their 40 Calls to Action within our interactive online Zine one year ago on 19th October 2020. These came from two years of work by the...
OHOV Takes Part in COVID-19 Research
Our Hearings, Our Voice recently met with Catherine Nixon, a researcher at the Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration (SCRA), to reflect on how COVID-19 has impacted young people. The Board...
OHOV come together – face to face!
Our Hearings, Our Voice came together face to face as a group for the first time since March 2020. Due to the pandemic, the board has been meeting virtually for the past 18 months. However, they...
Nice Weather for OHOV Ducks
Our Hearings, Our Voice is famous for our use of duck aliases to protect the young people’s identities, but the rain was so heavy we were nearly swimming with the ducks on Saturday. We had our...
Our Hearings, Our Voice Evaluation Launched
Now we have been up and running for two years, we are being evaluated. This is important so we know what we are doing well and what could be better. The Children’s Hearings Improvement Partnership...
Connecting with Decision Makers
Our Hearings, Our Voice has three main functions - To identify and recommend improvements across the Hearings System. To scrutinise and support the work of partners across the Children’s Hearings...
Celebrating Care Experienced History Month
Our Hearings, Our Voice is proud to support the first ever Care Experienced History Month. Throughout April, we will be keeping our young board members informed of all the amazing work going on...
New team at OHOV
There’s a new face at Our Hearings, Our Voice and a familiar face has returned. Gordon Main has taken over as Project Lead on a 12 month secondment from Celcis. While Sophie Henderson has returned...
OHOV welcomes UNCRC incorporation
Here at Our Hearings, Our Voice we are celebrating today after the Scottish Parliament has passed the UNCRC (Incorporation) (Scotland) Bill! Today is a historic one for children and young people’s...
Our journey – two years on!
On Saturday 14 November, Board Members met virtually to mark two years since they first all got together at the Lighthouse in Glasgow. Our virtual meeting allowed Board Members to celebrate the...
Zine goes online
Our Hearings, Our Voice new Zine is now available online! Printed copies of the Zine have already been sent to key people involved in the Children’s Hearings System, including all Panel Members,...
Board meeting meets bake off!
Our Hearings, Our Voice held its second virtual Board Meeting on Saturday 3 October. Two special guests joined the online event to get a sneak preview of the OHOV Zine. The Board Members have...
Face to face Hearings – OHOV consultation response
With lockdown restrictions easing, Our Hearings, Our Voice was asked to take part in a consultation to prepare for the reintroduction of face to face Hearings. SCRA (the Scottish Children’s Reporter...
Consultation – planning for face to face Hearings restarting
Our Hearings, Our Voice has just taken part in a consultation about planning for face to face Children’s Hearings resuming. Since lockdown, virtual Children’s Hearings have been taking place....
First for OHOV – virtual Board meeting
Our Hearings, Our Voice held its first ever Board meeting online! The Home Stay Hangout took place on Saturday 13 June, with Board Members, OHOV Advisors and some Corporate Parents all taking part....
Wellbeing packs delivered to Board Members
Our Hearings, Our Voice teamed up with the Resilience Learning Partnership to provide wellbeing packs for young Board Members during lockdown. The Clackmannanshire-based social enterprise initiative...
Recruitment on hold
Our Hearings, Our Voice will have a new member of the team hopefully very soon! We had advertised a vacancy for a new Project Development Worker (see our news item from 16 March) however, due to the...
First Board Meeting of 2020!
On Saturday the 14 of March, the Board Members came together in Glasgow for their first Board Meeting of 2020. This time we had our very first digital live link for one of the Board Members who...
OHOV responds to Care Review
Our Hearings, Our Voice would like to say a huge thank you to every child, young person and adult who took the time to share their experiences to create such a powerful and detailed review of care...
Welcome to our website
We are thrilled to share with you our new website for Our Hearings, Our Voice! It contains everything you need to know about OHOV – who we are, what we do and how to get in touch with us. You can...
Scottish Parliament exhibition
Our Hearings, Our Voice is hosting a thought provoking exhibition in the Scottish Parliament this week. The exhibition, 'What is a Children's Hearing?, is being held in the Member’s Lobby in the...
First ever consultation response submitted
Today we are pleased to have submitted a consultation response on behalf of Our Hearings, Our Voice Board Members on ‘Incorporating the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child into...
Requests for projects
Our Hearings, Our Voice (OHOV) has issued a briefing sheet which explains the process for partners who would like to work with the young people.OHOV is an independent board for children and young...
OHOV launches new logo
Our Hearings, Our Voice has recently launched its eye-catching logo.Young people from OHOV were excited to see the final version of their logo at their latest meeting last month.The young people had...
First training event
The first training event for young board members from Our Hearings, Our Voice took place recently. The young board members came from across Scotland to the training event at the Centre for Health...
Recruiting now – Project Worker (Participation)
Do you want to empower children and young people to shape the future of the Children’s Hearings System? If so, Our Hearings, Our Voice wants to hear from you. They are looking for a dynamic and...
Our Hearings, Our Voice gets going
Young people from across Scotland came together for the second time for Our Hearings, Our Voice’s latest event. ‘Our Hearings, Our Voice Gets Going Day’ was held on Saturday 9 February at the Studio...
Let’s Get Started event
Young people from across Scotland came together on Saturday for the Let’s Get Started event. This was the first event for young board members following the Our Hearings, Our Voice recruitment...
End of first OHOV recruitment drive
The campaign to recruit the first Board Members to Our Hearings, Our Voice, has just come to an end. The drive ran from 3 September to 1 October to recruit children and young people to join the...
Recruiting now – Our Hearings, Our Voice
The drive to recruit the first group of Our Hearings, Our Voice (OHOV) Board Members gets underway today, Monday 3 September. The aim is to recruit 12 Board Members for the new board for the...
Our Hearings, Our Voice latest progress
As we are quickly moving towards the summer months, here is a short update of what’s being happening with developments at Our Hearings, Our Voice (OHOV) … We are delighted to announce that we have...
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