This page is for parents to learn more about how to get involved in CELCIS's research on voluntary care arrangements in Scotland. Thank you for your interest!
About this research
We are interested in finding out more about voluntary care arrangements. Voluntary care arrangements are created using Section 25 (s.25) of the Children (Scotland) Act 1995. Voluntary care arrangements are when parents agree with social workers that their child should live with somebody else who will take care of them. This could be a close family member, a family friend, or a foster carer.
We’re interested in how parents understand and experience voluntary care arrangements. This includes how social workers talk with parents about voluntary care arrangements, how parents are told about their rights, how parents and children are involved in the decision that is made, and how they are supported.
We hope that the project will help CELCIS and children’s services learn how to make things even better for families.
If you have had experience of a voluntary care arrangement, we'd like to invite you to take part
If you have agreed to, or had discussions about, a voluntary care arrangement, we would like to have talk to you about your experience. We would like to speak to you whether you have had a child cared for as part of a voluntary care arrangement or if you refused to agree to this.
We would speak to you in a private conversation, either online or in-person, that would take around 45 minutes.
As a thank you for sharing your time and knowledge with us, you will receive a £20 voucher
Contact us
If you have any questions, or if you’d like to let us know that you want to take part, you can phone or send a text or WhatsApp message to Robert in our team on 07967339359, or you can email Robert and Brandi Lee at: celcis.vca@strath.ac.uk.
Download more information for parents
Your rights in taking part
If you decide to take part it is important to know that:
- It is up to you whether you want to take part.
- Your decision about taking part will not affect what is happening with the professionals and services that you may be in contact with.
- If you decide to take part in the project, you can stop talking to us any time you want to. If you want to stop in the middle of the conversation, we will ask you if you want us to use what you have already told us or if you want us to get rid of our notes and not use anything you have said.
- If you decide that you don’t want to take part in the project after our, that’s OK. We will listen to you and will not use anything you told us and get rid of the information about you. We can stop using what you told us at any time up until we start writing up what we have found from talking to everybody in the project.
- If you choose to take part in the project, we might use some of the words you say but we will not tell people who said it or use your real name in what we write. You will have the chance to choose a name to keep in our notes for you, and we will ask you which pronoun (he, she, they, etc) you prefer to use. We will use this chosen name and pronoun if we use something you said in what we write.
- We won’t use anything you’ve shared with us for any reason other than for the project: what we write and what we say to share with other people what we learned about making things better for children and families.
- You have the right to ask us about and see what information we have about you.
- We won’t share information about you or anything you said with anyone except the project team unless what you tell us means that you or someone else may get hurt. If this happens we have to tell someone who can help.
More information about your rights in taking part are available in the information sheet for you.
Need to speak to someone?
Please consider if a listening and helping service might be helpful for talking through how you are feeling and anything that you are find particularly hard in your life at the moment.
If you would like to speak to someone confidentially for support, you can contact ParentLine Scotland for free by phoning 08000 28 22 33, Monday - Friday from 6am - 6pm, and Saturday and Sunday from 9am - 12pm.
Breathing Space, a free, confidential, phone and webchat service is also available for anyone in Scotland over the age of 16 to listen, offer advice, and provide information to them. Visit www.breathingspace.scot anytime, or phone 0800 83 85 87 Monday-Thursday 6pm - 2am, and Friday-Monday 6pm - 6am.
