This is just wonderful to be here today.
It's a real priviledge to be opening this conference.
It's a priviledge for me to be Scotland's...
...Commissioner for Children and Young People.
As I speak today and the topic and the way that I try and link...
...the voices of children and young people...
...to what's in the framework and quite honestly it's really easy.
That's one of the really heartening things about...
...the way the framework has been put together.
Now, I'm going to tell you a bit about my role...
...because I think that's relevant in terms of what the framework is trying to do.
I speak to thousands of children and young people in school settings...
...in social care settings, in youth settings.
Explaining to them that as a country, we have signed up to United Nations convention...
...on the rights of the child. What that means is that we're obligated...
...to do the very best via children and young people.
In the way that I often summarise that to children and young people...
...is to say that my role is about improving the lives of children and young people...
...across Scotland. That's your role as well.
One of the challenges in that is, how do we know...
...if we are actually improving the lives of children and young people across Scotland.
I think one of the ways that we will know...
...is if we follow the framework, if we manage to acheive the ambition of...
...the mental health indicators, we will start to develop a better understanding...
...of how well we are actually doing, by our children and young people.
So that's why it's such a powerful document, its such a powerful framework...
...because every person here should be able to locate their work within the framework.
To be able to locate their contribution to improving the lives...
...of children and young people in Scotland, within the framework...
...that you've just been handed out.
I'm going to give you some examples from my work, about the close resonance...
...of the way that we've approached our work in the commissioners office...
...or the way I've approached the work as Commissioner, with the framework.
Just as a start, one of the calls that has come through...
...from the child mental health indicators...
...is to have a measure of how well children feel that their rights are being respected.
The people who put together the framework have been brave enough, not just to look at...
...the measures that we already used, of which there are numerous...
...but to actually say that there are things that are important...
...to children and young people that we have to develop.
So I give a hearty welcome to that call of developing a measure of how well children...
...feel that their rights have been respected.
In executing my own work, I've been saying to children and young people, I want you...
...as children and young people to direct the work that I'm involved in.
To do that, we were trying to give life to article 12, which is a child's right to...
...have an opinion, to express that opinion and for that opinion to be given due way.
So over the last 2 years, we've conducted an exercise which we called A Right Blether.
A Right Blether, which was a very significant, national, constultation...
...on what my priorities should be, over the next four to five years.
In fact what that was doing, was trying to bring life, to children...
...being able to direct, have a real influence on the work that I do.
Infact within the framework, you'll find that...
...there's a call for a measure on a sense of agency.
How well do children and young people feel, or how much to the extent...
...do young people feel that they can exert influence on the world around them.
So I'm very pleased that that's also in the document.
The way that we went about A Right Blether, was to say that we were...
...interested in four areas.
The first of those areas was in the home.
The second was where they learn, the learning environment.
...as you'll see in your document there.
The third, was in the community.
The fourth was Scotland.
Now these are the areas that we went to, in terms of a right blether...
...and if you look at the document, you'll find that those four domains...
...are four of the five that are contained in document.
The additional one is individual measures.
We weren't looking at individual experiences of children and young people.
That's really strongly reaffirming of the approach that we took...
...towards A Right Blether. That means when I come here today...
...to tell you the messages that children and young people give...
...in those four domains, because that's the only ones I can report on...
...that you'll be able to see the strong link between...
...the measures, the calls, the data sets that are already existing...
...and the voices of children and young people.
So in the first of those, in the home...
...what children and young people told us, they wanted to be safe...
...and secure.
Sorry, I should add that the number of children and young people...
...who took part in A Right Blether, was 74,059.
That makes it the biggest consultation ever undertaken in Scotland.
So we're not talking about a small survey...
...we're talking about something that touched every single...
...local authority area, health board area in Scotland.
We're talking about an exercise that had really big numbers...
...and really big responses to it.
So in the home, children told us that they wanted to be safe and secure.
My take on that, my response...
...and we have to give an interpretation because we were having to ask...
...big questions which need to be narrowed down...
...in terms of how do we respond to it. My response to it...
...is that this is about the prevention of abuse and neglect...
...for children and young people, and indeed...
...the area I'm going to home in on is domestic abuse.
Now if I had longer I'd take you through the reasoning and how we got to...
...domestic abuse. But, you'll find in the document here...
...one of the areas which we need to develop is a better understanding...
...of the numbers of children that are living with domestic abuse.
Yet again, another big tick to the fact that this framework won't just pull together...
...knowledge and understanding that we have of children, but it will actually add...
...and we should make progress in the kind of data sets...
...that we are collecting routinely on children and young people.
When we ask children about where they learn, most often...
...that was about the school environment, but it was also about youth club environments.
They came back to us and said, we want the same chances...
...no matter how much money our families have.
Now there's a big issue in their about poverty and I'll say a bit about that later.
But that for me is the link, between children with...
...and poor circumstances, stressed out circumstances and educational attainment.
But I'm not interested in producing another rapport that tells us...
...children from poor, stressed out circumstances do not attain well at school.
Infact we're looking at what that agenda might look like...
...but one of the key things that have come out of the discussions so far...
...with the Directors of Education across the country...
...has been that this is not just about educational attainment.
This is about achievement. This is about how we celebrate...
...the rounded individuals, the rounded young people...
...that we produce into it or that we assist into adulthood.
Indeed again, in your framework, there is a call for a measure...
...which is looking at how well children think the schools...
...respond to their whole achievement, rather than just educational attainment.
I'm para-phrasing just now, but essentially there is an acknowledgement...
...that we shouldn't just measure our children by how well they do in terms of...
...academic achievement, there are so many other areas of achievement...
...for children and young people. So I really welcome that in the document.
There's a resonance there where the voices of children and young people...
...through A Right Blether.
The third area that we looked at was in the community.
In the community, children and young people said, we want to feel safe and respected.
That word safe again. Safe is a really big word, for children and young people.
I'm going to go down the route of respected, because time and again...
...when I was engaging with children and young people, they said that they felt judged...
...that they felt stereotyped, that they felt on occassions...
...demonised. They felt that they were viewed through the prism of the last negative...
...press report on children and young people.
So, I'm going to home in on respect and in fact there's a campaign in there...
...and we're looking at what might be the topic of that campaign.
To relate it back to the framework, it has two measures in it...
...that it's calling for, which is about whether children and young people feel...
...that adults value them or not and also whether they feel stigmatised or not.
This is exactly the territory that for me is relevent for children and young people.
Yet again, the framework as it is just now is pushing us in the right direction...
...and in the direction that are of concern to children and young people.
The forth area that we looked at was Scotland.
What children and young people told us from that, is that they want to be included...
...no matter how different we all are. My interpretation on that initially...
...is to look at some of the most excluded groups.
Children with disabilites for instance...
...who are three times more likely to live in poverty...
...more than three times more likely to suffer abuse.
So we're developing a work stream around that.
But children and young people came back and said...
...but it's not all about disability. There are lots and lots of children...
...who are not included. So we're developing different ways of working...
...with different groups of young people. We've already done something...
...with young carers and there's a whole list of children and young people that...
...don't experience the same inclusion as others.
Link that back to the framework and you've got a measure in there, a call for...
...a measure of the extent of discrimination that children and young people...
...feel they experience as they go through their childhood.
So for me, there is a really strong resonance, not only with...
...the framework in terms of the domains, but also in terms of some of the detail...
...some of the identification, some of the bravery of the people who were involved...
...to say that there are measures which we need to be able to...
...to assess how well we're doing by our children and young people...
...that we haven't quite got yet.
That for me is a really powerful message, that comes through the framework.
Not least, to compliment all the the other massive amounts of information...
...that we collect on children and young people.
There's two other aspects that I want to mention on this...
...because these are over-arching issues.
The first of those as I mentioned earlier, is poverty.
Poverty, unless we in Scotland, structurally...
...reduce the gap between the haves and the have nots, then we will continue...
...to produce children who have lesser life chances than their peers.
We will continue to have to plough time, energy, resources, to try and compensate...
...for those negative experiences of those children who are living in poverty.
So, we've got plenty of information about poverty and they're in the framework.
The other over arching issue for me is early years.
The importance of early years. The importance of us listening to the evidence...
...and really being assertive about doing something about our early years...
...services, our early years support, and that's from pregnancy...
...particularly through the first three years of life and beyond...
...and to their credit, again the framework is identifying a number of inducies...
...a number of measures which we need to look at in terms of...
...how well are we actually doing by our children and young people...
...in those earliest of years.
So I hope I haven't stolen any of the thunder of Jane.
I could talk for ages really, about the links that I can see in my own work...
...in the framework and the links that I think you and every member of this audience...
...will be able to see in their work in terms of the framework.
One of the things that I want to summarise is...
...if you look at the messages that children and young people give us, or have given...
...from A Right Blether, they're looking for a Scotland that is safe.
...They're looking for a Scotland that is fair.
They're looking for a Scotland that is respectful to them.
And they're looking for a Scotland that's inclusive.
This audience doesn't need any telling about the importance...
...of those really big messages. Those really important aspects of a child's life...
...that contribute towards their mental health and mental well-being and in fact...
...these for me are reflected in the framework as it stands.
The framework, which in my view, is a world leader, in terms of our understanding...
...of children in Scotland.
I think we should be proud, not only of the production of the framework...
...but also the challenge that it presents us in terms of the new information...
...that we have to gather. The new information that we are challenged with collecting...
...so that we can get a better insight into our children and young people...
...to know how well we are reaching that ambition of improving the lives...
...of children and young people in Scotland.
Thank you.