Together (Scottish Alliance for Children's Rights)

Membership Spotlight – Children 1st

Membership Spotlight highlights the work of our member organisations and outline how other individuals and NGOs can support them. Below we shine the light on Children 1st. In this spotlight we are highlighting the launch of Scotland’s first Bairns Hoose.

Scotland’s first Bairns Hoose opens to offer children who experience abuse and violence all the support they need under one roof.

Children 1st work to keep children safe from harm, to protect children who experience trauma and abuse and to support them to recover from their experiences. As a charity we offer emotional, practical, and financial support to help families to put children first and campaign to uphold the rights of every child. 

Thanks to an award from players of People’s Postcode Lottery through the Postcode Dream Fund, Children 1st have led practice developments to build Scotland first Bairns Hoose in North Strathclyde, in partnership with Victim Support Scotland, the University of Edinburgh and Children England.

The Bairns Hoose is based on an alternative model first developed in Iceland, called Barnahus. This brings together child protection, health, justice and therapeutic support in a child-friendly, single-location alternative to courts, social work offices and police stations.

We have campaigned for years to bring this model to Scotland, because the children we work alongside tell us that the current justice, and care and protection system often causes further trauma, and could sometimes feel worse than the crime itself. This is out of step with Article 39 of the UNCRC, which says that children have a right to recovery and reintegration, following experiences of hurt and harm, in an environment that “fosters the health, self-respect and dignity of the child”.

The views of children and young people have been at the core of this work throughout, upholding their right to be heard under Article 12 of the UNCRC. As one young person told us, “Just because we’re children, doesn’t mean we don’t have strong feelings and don’t understand things.” This work includes influence through our Changemakers group, who have been central to the design and development of the Bairns Hoose.

Children 1st have been supporting children and young people going through the child protection and justice system in North Strathclyde since we began to develop the Bairns Hoose. Now the Bairns Hoose is open and, for the first time, children and young people who experience abuse and violence will be able to get all the protection, care, justice and recovery support they need under one roof.

The space has been specially designed with children and young people for children and young people – from the calming colours of the walls and the soft and comfortable furnishings to the safe and secure garden which offers breathing space for those who need it. This will transform the experiences of children and young people from the moment they disclose they’ve been harmed. We’ve already had some feedback from children and families who have visited the space, who have told us things like “It looks safe, not just physically, it has a safe feel.”

It is warm, welcoming with high quality technical facilities, including space to record evidence, and to deliver live links to court. One of the major aims of the Bairns Hoose is to support the gathering of high quality, pre-recorded evidence that can be used in court, so that the number of times children have to tell their story can be reduced as far as possible.

With that, Children 1st can focus on helping children and their families to recover – the part that so often gets lost in our justice and child protection system.

How can other organisations or individuals get involved or support your work?

You can find more information about the Bairns Hoose on our website here: Bairns Hoose | Children 1st | Children 1st.

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