Tam's diary

Cathy Begley and I met with Bruce Wilkinson (UNICEF) and several champions of Rights Respecting Schools (RSS) in Scotland.  The discussion centred on concerns around the changes proposed for RSS in the UK and how this will impact in Scotland.  I expect this will be followed up in the coming weeks.

I met with Cleland Sneddon (Executive Director, Education, Argyll and Bute) and we were joined via video conferencing by Martin Turnbull, (Head of Youth Services, Argyll and Bute).  I fed back RIGHT blether results nationally and my response to them, we discussed the Argyle and Bute results, bearing in mind the predominate response from Oban High School, so not to make too much of the result in terms of the whole Council.

 It was also an opportunity to promote a RIGHT wee blether, my national creative conversation with children aged between two and five.

I attended two sessions at the Young Carers Festival.  The first was a 90 minute  pilot session of ‘Tell Tam’, an opportunity for me to engage with more marginalised groups of children and young people with the aim of ensuring that their voices and experiences are heard. An estimated 50 young people took part, contributing to a busy atmosphere in a ‘world cafe’ style event.  My impression is that this type of approach worked well in this setting because of the easy access to potentially large numbers of young people -now for the challenging task of collation and analysis of the responses. 

The second day was a fast paced question and answer session with a panel of around 8 people.  I shared a table with Michael Matheson (Minister for Public Health) and Harry Stevenson (Director of Social Work Services, South Lanarkshire).

I attended the launch of the evaluation of the ‘Respect me’ programme managed jointly by SAMH and LGBT Scotland.

I presented the results from a RIGHT blether to around 35 people in the Scottish Parliament as part of the Festival of Politics.  The audience included around 12 pupils from schools in Dundee and Edinburgh.

I met with Mike Russell (Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning) to discuss my priorities from a RIGHT blether and my Strategic Plan.

 Stefan Stoyanov and I met with Kelly Bayes and Juliet Harris from Together to discuss our approach to the future Scottish Children’s Rights Monitoring Group.  It is hoped that the group will be able to clearly focus on the monitoring role of the implementation of the action points from the UN Committee Concluding Observations.

Stefan Stoyanov and I had a full day of visits in Moray to deliver and discuss the results of my national consultation, a RIGHT blether.  The first port of call was a specially arranged event in Elgin Youth Cafe, where 70 representatives from school councils in Moray attended along with Sandy Riddell (Director of Education and Social Care) and Councillor Jeff Hamilton.

 We then visited Mosstodloch Primary School and met with 20 pupils in P7 – the previous P7 had participated in the blether vote. 

 This was followed by a meeting the Sandy Riddell and his senior management team in the Council offices.

I met with the Education and Culture Committee, along with representatives fromADSW and EIS.  This was an informal session to assist the Committee in making decisions on their work programme for the year. 

 I visited Dunfermline High School to meet with the Head Teacher and senior management group and then onto meet pupils and staff from the Inclusion Unit managed by Apex Scotland.  This was a really useful insight into the work of the school and particularly how they were managing to ensure that all pupils maximised their time at the school through the additional support of the unit, as and when required.

Steve Grounds, Heather Belmonte and I attended Audit Advisory Board meeting.  This was a very positive meeting in terms of the report back and laying the ground for future engagement including Audit Scotland.

Sheila Hamilton and I visited Shetland Islands as part of the feedback on a RIGHT blether.  The programme was arranged around the following meetings: 

Sandwick Junior High School - we engaged with over 200 pupils as a way of giving feedback and thanking the children and young people for their involvement in a RIGHT blether.  It was also an opportunity to seek direct feedback from the pupils on the process.

 We met with professionals- Phil Garnier, Martin Summers, Rosemary Inkster, Rachel Bell and Audrey Edwards to discuss the blether results in more detail and discuss the distribution for wee blether.

 We later met with Councillors Fullerton and Miller who have responsibility for children services and also Councillors on the Executive Group – including Councillor Cooper, Councillor Smith, Councillor Simpson (Leader of the Council) and, Alastair Buchan (Chief Executive).

I met with Scott Wood and Phil Raines, Scottish Government.  This is a continuation of the meeting considering legislation and it was encouraging that UNCRC continues to figure in the potential legislative proposals.

Cathy Begley, Sheila Hamilton and I met with senior officials from Glasgow City Council - Maureen McKenna (Education Director) and David Crawford (Social Work Director).  The meeting covered the feedback from a RIGHT blether as well as the pending legislation and what it may (or may not) cover.  It was useful in terms of outcomes with Cathy getting a contact for a RIGHT wee bletherdistribution and I will receive an invite to speak to the Executive Group co-ordinating children’s services – this is the group to which the Health group considering the UNICEF proposal report.

I did some filming for the Inspiring Scotland event taking place 15 August. The IS event will celebrate the two year funding for Go Play projects and I look forward to what the new session might hold for play and early years developments. 

I met with Anne Lee and Dawn Burns, from NHS Health Scotland – Cathy Begley joined us for the latter part of the meeting.  I already have a meeting in the diary to speak to senior officers from NHS Health Scotland and this was useful preliminary meet to be made aware of the points of synergy with the participation agenda. 

Stefan Stoyanov and I met with Phil Taylor and Kathleen Burke from UKBA.  The prompt for this meeting was the handling of the first case of a family return from Scotland under the new arrangements.  The meeting covered this and other matters.  Phil invited Stefan to observe a meeting of the Family Returns Panel and expressed strong views on the need to better co-ordinate our responses to tackling child trafficking.

I spoke to and handed out the awards to the 3/4th year pupils from Fife, Angus and Dundee at the Lift-Off graduation event held in St. Andrews.  This is part of a larger national initiative and was attended by 65 pupils and around 50 adults.  The atmosphere was really upbeat with lots of personal testimony from the young people as to the benefits of taking part.

I attended and addressed the North Ayrshire Child and Public ProtectionChief Officers Group Away Day.  This seminar was attended by around 30 of the most senior officers from the local authority, health, police as well as Scottish Government.  I was most encouraged by the discussions around early years implementation and the genuine efforts being made to grapple with the challenge of re-shaping services to focus on prevention rather than crisis intervention.

Stefan Stoyanov and I had a meeting with Peter Davies, the new Chief Executive of CEOP.  This was a useful meeting and is part of Peter introducing himself to each of the UK Children’s Commissioners.  There were a number of follow up points which I expect to develop continuing contact with Peter and CEOP.

 I met with Heather Gray, Who Cares? Scotland.  There are a number of points of relevant contact with Who Cares? and Heather and I had a most useful discussion.  Heather informed me of the continuing work on the anti-stigma campaign for young people in care and this provides potential synergy with whatever activities we generate under the work stream promoting respect and challenging prejudice and negative images of young people.  

 I met with Douglas Hamilton, Save the Children to discuss our approach to the proposed legislative opportunities.

I attended Belladrum Festival.  While there we ran morning workshops on Friday and Saturday, consisting of story-telling sessions for young children.  This was a fore-runner to the launch of a RIGHT wee blether with the potential to develop the approach.  While the story telling sessions were interesting for those who attended, it would require considerable work to incorporate into a RIGHT wee blether and I do not expect it to form any part of the development of the work.

 I later shared a Question Time panel with Mary Scanlon, MSP, Rob Gibson, MSP and Cammy Day, Edinburgh Councillor, with Ian MacWhirter in the chair.