Why we need safe baby courts in Scotland
The Best Service Trial (BeST?), led by Professor Helen Minnis, compared an infant mental health intervention with social work services in Scotland and England, to identify the best service for infants placed outwith their birth family.
The study found that authoritative and consistent oversight of a child's journey through care was crucial in safeguarding children's wellbeing. It also revealed that decisions about the permanent care of infants were made almost 4.5 times faster in England than in Scotland.
For babies, timely decisions about their permanent care is critical for their recovery from trauma. Permanence can mean a child being returned to their birth family, achieving a permanent home with kin or adoption.
Children should remain with their families wherever possible, with infant-parent relationship support, where necessary.
Even with this support we know some babies will need to be placed outwith their birth family, to receive safe, consistent care. This means that Scotland must have a legal system that makes decisions about infants within their development timescales.
Babies make up a large proportion of children in the Children's Hearings system. Yet it has not evolved to consider the unique needs of babies.
Urgent reform of the Hearings system is required. Key policy proposals such as an authoritative chair, specialism on the panel and mandated timescales can help to strengthen the legal process for infants, but more fundamental change is required.
We are calling for a pilot of a Safe Baby Court type model in Scotland. This is an evidence-based, trauma informed, legal decision-making model designed around the specific needs, and rights, of infants.
It aims to maximise the chances of infants at high risk of significant harm being able to remain safely in the care of their birth family, when it is safe.
When this is not possible, it is designed to make timely decisions about an infant's permanent home, to prevent the drift and delay that happens to so many infants in the Children's Hearings system, and which leads to a greater risk of relationship breakdown and repeated traumatisation which contributes to poor outcomes.
Legal systems in New Zealand, Australia, America are working towards safe baby courts, and we are exploring the feasibility of adapting this model.
The Children and Young People (Care) (Scotland) Bill presents an opportunity to place babies at the heart of social care and justice systems.
Considering the BeST? evidence, it is no longer enough to adapt a system designed for older children and young people. We need ambitious action to enhance the Hearing system for infants and measure the impact against a pilot of a Safe Baby Court model.
We must design a justice system that can make robust and timely decisions about where our most vulnerable citizens will call home.
Joanne Smith is NSPCC Scotland's Policy and Public Affairs Manager
Agenda is a column for outside contributors. Contact: agenda@theherald.co.uk
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