What do we do?

The Forum concentrates its activities on developing ways to hear the voice of children in need and to relay this to central policy authorities. It seeks to influence changes in policy so that the investments create services that better meet the needs and aspirations of young people. The Forum now acts as the consultee on a number of local authority and statutory bodies providing services to special needs children in Highland.

In summer 2004, HCF hosted the Voluntary Sector Consultative Conference on “For Highland’s Children 2” the Children’s Plan for 2005 to 2008 [FHC2]. This document will establish the Joint Committee on Children and Young People’s priority programme for the coming years and will be used as an example of best practice by the Scottish Executive.

The Joint Committee and HCF have funded a three year consultation project to investigate the experience of services of approximately 200 representational children and young people living in the Highland area. The seven themes of FHC2 (safe, healthy, achieving, active, nurtured, included, respected and responsible) have been used to set questions about the help children get to achieve the objectives of these themes.

HCF made a major contribution to the recent Quality Improvement Scotland’s peer review of services to patients in Highland with Learning Disabilities and has completed a report on children’s experience of Inclusion in Education and Leisure in Highland. HCF has recently produced a report on respite services with a restricted circulation to the operating authority and the families concerned.