Scottish COVID-19 inquiry|28Feb 2025

Testimony by Scottish Children's Reporter Administration.

The final day of the Justice hearing’s. The inquiry will return 29th April 2025 with Worship and Life events.

Introduction

The Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration (SCRA) is a national body focused on children and young people most at risk. The aim is to provide a safety net for vulnerable children and young people. CHS recruits, trains and supports around 2,500 volunteers across Scotland. The panel members are;

• Alistair Hogg -Head of Practice and Policy

• Susan Deery -Head of Human Resources

• Helen Etchells -Senior Operational Manager

‘‘For long periods of time, many vulnerable children were not being seen. The usual interactions with universal services and specialist services were effectively suspended or at least reduced. ‘‘

-Paragraph 85 of statement

‘‘The wearing of face masks, made communication harder and there was a powerful desire to dispense with masks as early as possible. ‘‘

-Paragraph 122 of statement

What is a children’s reporter?

Source Youtube

Testimony highlights

• ‘Substancial’ reductions in referrals due to lockdown restrictions.

• Vulnerable children became even more vulnerable.

• Safeguarding concerns.

• ‘Enormous impacts’ that are ‘far reaching.’ Harms from lockdown on children may have outweighed risk of ‘COVID.’

• Lord Brailsford- ‘‘Perhaps one of the main things we will have to take out of this is thinking about pandemic planning in a far more structured and detailed way.’’

‘‘Children were undoubtedly in incredibly vulnerable places..some of them in households where there were multiple risks around…lack of access to school,nursery would undoubtedly put them in a very vulnerable position.’’

Statement highlights

‘‘There was a real tension between the commitment to provide a service to children, but also the need to make sure that our own children and families were protected and looked after as we tried to understand the pandemic and its future.’’

-Paragraph 59

‘‘The pandemic caused our entire operating model to change. We moved from a face-to-face delivery model to a virtual delivery one.’’

-Paragraph 66

‘‘Social distancing was a challenge both in terms of participation and the practical set up of hearings. There were certain rooms in our estate that we couldn't use and that was at the point decisions were made to take walls down to provide usable spaces, which was a significant impact.’’

-Paragraph 78

‘‘The organisation was also mindful in terms of providing staff time off to accompany dependents and to have as many people vaccinated as possible.’’

-Paragraph 93

‘‘If a member of staff was sitting down and was far enough apart from another staff member, the removal of the mask was accepted.’’

-Paragraph 123

‘‘If we take children out of schools, then relevant support agencies are losing the eyes and ears of identifying the risk for those children. These children may be exposed to risk without the correct input and support from key agencies.’’

-Paragraph 148

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