INTRODUCTION
Young Scot is the national youth information charity, supporting young people across Scotland aged 11 - 26 to make informed decisions and choices and to access opportunities. We do this through a variety of information channels, including books, magazines and online services such as the national youth information portal for Scotland - www.youngscot.org. Young Scot currently has 360,000 members and a network across all 32 Scottish local authorities through the Local Authority Dialogue Youth partnership initiative.
Young Scot, in partnership with local authority, statutory and voluntary sector providers, has significant experience in developing consultation processes and investigatory initiatives as part of a menu of connections enabling young people to be involved in community planning structures, national decision making processes and changing service delivery.
This approach, in partnership with the Scottish Government's Children's Rights Team, has been applied to engage young people across Scotland, aged from eight up to 18 years old, in a consultation which has the primary aim of understanding what young people think about children's rights and in particular the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child ( UNCRC). We also wanted to find out which of the UN Commission on the Rights of the Childs's Concluding Observations on the implementation of children's rights in the UK were priorities for young people.
The data and insight from the consultation will be used by the Scottish Government's Children's Rights Team as a contribution to shape their planning in relation to the implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in Scotland.
Young Scot's Outreach Team helped to support the consultation process by running four focus groups (plus one pilot), awareness-raising sessions and information sessions with young people in a variety of settings, including schools, youth groups and shopping centres. The team were also very active in encouraging and supporting young people to complete offline consultation surveys.
PURPOSE
The high level aims of the consultation were:
- To provide a measure of young people's awareness of children's rights and rights more generally
- To raise awareness of children's rights, the UNCRC and their concluding observations with young people
- To give young people the opportunity to share their experiences and express their views in relation to children's rights
- To gain insights into what children and young people think are priorities for action in Scotland in relation to children's rights