By Karen McCormack, Strategic Inspector

This year, we are starting a new approach to joint inspections of services for children and young people in community planning partnerships. This new model takes a more focused look at the experiences and outcomes for children and young people who need protection or who are subject to corporate parenting responsibilities. We are also involving young people as part of the inspection team itself.

Gathering views
Over the past year we’ve had lots of help from young people across Scotland in designing this new approach and our young inspection volunteers played a crucial role in this. These volunteers are specially trained people aged 18-26, who themselves have experience of care. Most have lived in foster care, residential houses or with extended family in a formal kinship care arrangement. Some have used aftercare support, disability services or experienced homelessness.

The volunteers have helped us to gather the views of children and young people, finding out what really matters to them, what they think we should be looking at and what questions our inspections should answer. These conversations have had a significant influence on our work and we want to thank everyone who has contributed.

The most important message we got from these conversations was that children and young people should be helped to experience at least one key consistent and positive relationship in their lives. As a result, we have given a commitment to look at how well children and young people experience continuity in their care and develop lasting relationships. We will also look at how well staff are supported and equipped to carry out their role in facilitating this.

During inspections
We know how important it is that during our inspections we hear from children and young people about their experiences of care and they have told us how important it is for them to be heard.

During our inspections we want to find out how well children and young people understand and have been involved in decisions and plans made about their care and support, and how well they think professionals work together to promote their wellbeing. Young inspection volunteers play a vital role in working with the inspectors, making sure that the concerns of the children and young people are understood and taken seriously. Children and young people often feel that they can talk more freely to another young person than they can to an adult. Young inspector volunteers bring a unique perspective and help us to understand what it feels like to experience care.

During our recently completed five-year programme of joint inspections across all local authority areas in Scotland our young inspection volunteers played a big part in helping us to gather feedback from children and young people. We have given a commitment to continue to work with young inspection volunteers during our new model of inspection. They will meet with children, young people and the staff who work with them, helping us to understand the impact of services through the eyes of a young person. The volunteers will also meet with leaders, looking at how they work together and how they demonstrate the difference they are making to the lives of children in need of protection and those for whom they are corporate parents.

The volunteers have also been doing lots of work with us to find new and improved ways to help children and young people tell us about their experiences. They helped us design leaflets, surveys and posters as well as planning more interactive activity groups. We’ve listened to feedback from young people about how we use technology and will be using social media more to tell young people about how they can become involved in our inspections.

What next
During the first year of our new inspection model, our young inspection volunteers will continue to help us review and develop our approach to engaging with children and young people, finding out what is working and what we need to adapt. They will also be asking for feedback from the children and young people they meet, finding out about their experiences of being part of an inspection. Most importantly, we want to make sure we’re doing everything we can to enable children and young people to have their say and understand what difference this makes to improving services.

More detailed information on our revised model for joint inspections is available on the Care Inspectorate website.

If you’re interested in becoming a young inspection volunteer, you can find more information on the Care Inspectorate website. We’re also happy to answer any questions you may have, just email the Involvement team at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..