Getting help
You may want to speak to your social worker about this (if you have one).
You may want to speak to an advocacy worker (if you have one). If you don’t have an advocacy worker and are under 18 you can get in touch with one in your area via the Hearings Advocacy website.
The law is not simple and you may want to speak to a children’s reporter. We have details for all local offices in the contact us section of our website. But don’t worry, if the Children’s Reporter thinks all of these things apply to you, then you will have the participation rights. Or you can ask the Reporter to arrange a Pre-Hearing Panel to decide whether you have participation rights.
There are some more changes as well. If you had participation rights at a Hearing, or you think you should have had participation rights, then you can ask for a review of the child’s Compulsory Supervision Order in some circumstances:
1. If you had participation rights, you can ask for a review of the Compulsory Supervision Order – the review will take place after three months from the last Hearing.
2. If you had participation rights but did not attend the Children’s Hearing, you might be able to have a review before three months. This can happen where you were not able to participate properly because of a procedural failure or because of exceptional circumstances.
3. If you did not have participation rights and did not attend the Children’s Hearing, you might be able to have a review before three months. This can happen where there was no decision by a Children’s Hearing or Pre-Hearing Panel about whether you had participation rights and a Children’s Hearing or Pre-Hearing Panel – if it had considered it – would likely have decided you did have participation rights.