Parent Advocacy and Rights, Scotland

Scotland’s Parent Advocacy and Rights organization (PAR) began in 2016 as an alliance between parents impacted by the child welfare system and independent social workers created to provide individual advocacy to parents, raise awareness of the debilitating stigma of child welfare involvement and advocate for more just, less punitive policies to address family issues related to poverty, mental health and domestic violence.

In 2017, Scotland began a three-year independent review of its child welfare system, hearing from all parties impacted by child welfare. PAR invited the review’s chairwoman to attend the first ever PAR conference. After the conference, the review regularly met with PAR parents and families, who advocated for investment in and support for families. 

In the Changing Practice section of the Toolkit for Transformation, developed by IPAN in partnership with Rise, you can: 

• Read an interview with PAR parent advocate and trustee Taliah Drayak about how PAR worked to ensure that the review did more than just hear individual parents’ stories, but understood the significance of parents’ experiences for policy and practice — and how PAR supported parents in the process. 
• View the results of the survey PAR conducted with more than a hundred child welfare-affected parents that they use to advocate for change.
• Learn more about the Independent Review and read its full reports.