Are you interested in applying for our State of Children’s Rights Report 2024 Development Phase #RightsOnTrack but would like to find out more? In case you missed our drop-in sessions, we have answered some of the questions that came up below.

Could you tell us more about the development phase and what kind of resources you are looking to develop?

Together has been working closely with a range of organisations to inform our approach for gathering children and young people’s experiences for our State of Children’s Rights Report 2024. We have decided to split engagement into two phases, a development phase and second engagement phase. This is so that we can start engagement with children and young people while receiving feedback and develop our resources fully.

We have already produced some draft resources for children, young people and supporting adults which we intend to use as a starting point that can be built upon. In the development phase we will work closely with five organisations to develop these resources and create alternative accessible resources which will be published later this year, in time for the engagement phase over the summer.

How should we go about answering the third question on the application form that asks about being open to “opportunities for peer discussions and support within your organisation”?

This question is to check if your organisation aligns with Together’s core value of “collaboration” – one of the principles of recruitment listed in the criteria leaflet. We know your organisation will have done amazing work with children and young people already and we would love to hear how this work specifically could help Together’s report achieve trauma-informed, safe and encouraging participation from children and young people or help develop our resources to make them as accessible as possible. Together relies on our members and other organisations sharing their specific expertise and knowledge from current or previous work and we would like to know that you would be open to full collaboration for this report. This might mean, for example, sharing tips and advice with other partner organisations to help them plan their story-gathering session, or helping Together to create a version of the resources in a particular accessible format if this is something you have experience of.

Is there a particular group of children and young people Together is interested in working with?

Together aims to ensure that the organisations selected are able to support the involvement of a diverse group of children and young people with a range of views and experiences, particularly those whose voices are marginalised/less frequently heard.

We aim to prioritise diversity of experience of all babies, infants, children and young people in Scotland. We understand that every organisation is different – we do not expect applicants to be able to reach each and every group whose rights are most at risk, but as part of our considerations we will aim to have as diverse a group as possible.

So, if you work with a specific group of children and young people, or you work with many different groups, please try to describe these groups as best as you can in your application so that we can identify an organisation who may be able to fill a gap in representation.

What advice would Together give to organisations who are trying to decide whether to apply for the first phase or the second phase of the project?

Why not both? While the first stage is technically a ‘development’ phase of our resources, findings and stories gathered from children and young people at both phases will be used to inform our report.

If you’re really keen for your organisation to be involved with Together’s State of Children’s Rights Report then it might be best to apply for both stages to give yourself the best chance of success. Selection of organisations will take into account many factors and aim to involve and be able to support a diverse range of children and young people as possible which may depend on which organisations apply and their specific skillset. 

That said, we understand that the timescale for the development phase is shorter (February – March) and so you should think about your organisation’s capacity and any other commitments that the children and young people you support have during this period before submitting your application.

Together has said there’s a ‘small budget’ to support organisations get involved in the development phase. What does that include?

We have secured a small pot of money to work with five organisations as Partners to help us refine our approach and our resources during the development phase. This includes:

• £320 per partner organisation as a contribution towards two days of a participation worker’s time. We estimate that partners will need a day for planning their story-gathering session and a day to hold the session, record feedback and share this with Together;
• £25 voucher per child or young person involved. Each organisation is expected to support up to five children or young people.
• We also have a small amount allocated for reimbursement of travel expenses, refreshments and accessibility resources for children, young people and staff for the day of the story-gathering session.

When will you be recruiting for the second phase of engagement?

Recruitment for the second phase of engagement will start in around March 2024. The engagement itself is expected to take place between April and mid-July 2024.  We will advertise recruitment across all of our social media channels and on our #RightsOnTrack mailing list which you can sign up for here.

If you are would like to apply for our development phase please find our application form here.

If you can’t commit to engagement at this stage but would like to help shape Together’s resources to make sure they are as accessible as possible than please provide feedback in this survey on some of our previous materials for other projects here.

Why not become a Together member?

Take a look at our website and find out further information on how to become a Together member which is made up of Individuals, Organisational and Supporters. If you click here this will take you to further information about our membership.

Donate to Together

By donating to Together, you can help us to promote children’s rights in Scotland and improve the lives of all children and young people. If you click here this will take you to our donate page on our website to complete a form.