Drawing on extensive collaboration with stakeholders, practitioners, and young people with lived experience, these new reports are the result of 18 months of work and provide a comprehensive roadmap for rethinking secure care, placing the rights and well-being of children at the heart of Scotland’s approach.
CYCJ has published a series of reports outlining a transformative new option for the future of secure care in Scotland.
This report outlines a co-designed vision for Scotland’s secure care, building on previous reviews and recommendations. It advocates for reducing the deprivation of liberty for children, emphasising community-based alternatives and needs-led support systems.
Key components include flexible community hubs, multi-disciplinary teams, and “Flex Secure” care environments, which offer adaptive, trauma-informed support. The vision aligns with Scotland’s legislative progress, such as the UNCRC Incorporation and Children (Care and Justice) Acts of 2024, and highlights the need for holistic, integrated support, workforce development, and collective action to create a rights-respecting care system for children and families.
Children and Young People’s Participation
The project team worked in collaboration with children and young people in, and with experience of, secure care and/or Young Offenders Institutions (YOI), their families and carers, as well as all relevant stakeholders who contribute to supporting children and young people before, during, and after secure care, or throughout alternatives to secure care.
Throughout the project, we had a total of 61 conversations with children and young people. This report outlines and explores the views shared with the project team by children and young people with lived and living experiences of secure care and/or YOI. These views were gathered through conversations throughout 2023 and early 2024.
This literature review attempts to offer context and background reflecting developments, approaches and current thinking about the evolving nature of secure care, and should be read in conjunction with the Reimagining Secure Care final project report, and the children and young persons’ report.
For this literature review, the primary focus is on children who are placed within secure accommodation in Scotland; a locked children’s house where children reside without the need for them to give consent.