Power Up / Power Down
Changing the story: hearing children and young people’s voices ❤
Power Up/Power Down was an exciting partnership project between Scottish Women’s Aid and the Children and Young People’s Commissioner for Scotland.
In 2016, 27 children and young people aged between 6 and 17 years old took part in a participatory project, Power Up/Power Down, supported by Glasgow Women’s Aid, Shakti Women’s Aid and East Dunbartonshire Women’s Aid. Throughout a series of sessions, they explored themes of power, children’s rights, making their voices heard in court, and how to improve the experience and outcomes for children affected by domestic abuse in family court actions relating to contact decisions.
Children and young people taking part were given an illustrated story about two children with experience of domestic abuse going through the family court system, based on real-life examples collected by Scottish Women’s Aid. Through an exploration of the story in relation to children’s rights and concepts of power, the children and young people ‘rewrote’ the story to improve the outcomes for the children in it.
The resulting new story highlights key areas for positive change and identifies recommendations for making the system better for children and young people. These recommendations have been used to directly inform our policy and influencing work around court-ordered contact.
Read the original and rewritten story below or download here.
The stories of Power Up/Power Down, along with the background of the project, have also been compiled into a series of videos which can be viewed here.
The Super Listener was designed by children and young people with experience of domestic abuse as part of the Power Up/Power Down project.
The children taking part felt it was important that all adults working with children know what makes a Super Listener, and this image was produced based on what they said.
You can download the poster and postcard Super Listener resources to use in your own work.
Content note: This resource is about domestic abuse, and may be distressing to some children and young people. In particular, Zayne and Mia’s first story may be upsetting to those who have experienced domestic abuse.
Power Up/Power Down is a participative project we ran in partnership with Children & Young People’s Commissioner Scotland
It asked 27 children and young people who have lived with domestic abuse to tell us what needs to change in Scotland’s present system of court-ordered contact.
This series of videos:
- gives a background to issues around court-ordered contact and domestic abuse in Scotland,
- explains the participative processes used in the project, and
- highlights what the children and young people thought needed to change.
Introduction
This video explains how court-ordered contact works in Scotland, explores issues that can arise around a child having their voice be heard and best interests be considered, and provides background around the Power Up/Power Down participative project.
Zayne and Mia’s story
This video shows the story that was presented to the children and young people who took part in Power Up/Power Down. The story is based on real experiences of children and young people in Scotland, and highlights issues that can arise when a court orders contact in a situation where domestic abuse has taken place.
What happens next?
This video summarises Zayne and Mia’s story, and explains how children and young people were given a chance to change it.
Changing the story
The children and young people finished Zayne and Mia’s story by telling us the changes they’d like to see in their situation. This video shows what they wanted to see happen.
Summary
This video runs through some of the most important things that the children and young people wanted to change about court-ordered contact in situations of domestic abuse.
