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Seòmar agus comataidhean

Official Report: search what was said in Parliament

The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.  

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Dates of parliamentary sessions
  1. Session 1: 12 May 1999 to 31 March 2003
  2. Session 2: 7 May 2003 to 2 April 2007
  3. Session 3: 9 May 2007 to 22 March 2011
  4. Session 4: 11 May 2011 to 23 March 2016
  5. Session 5: 12 May 2016 to 5 May 2021
  6. Current session: 12 May 2021 to 1 July 2025
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Displaying 846 contributions

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Social Justice and Social Security Committee

Domestic Violence and Violence Against Women and Girls

Meeting date: 3 March 2022

Stephanie Callaghan

That is really helpful, and it leads me to my next question, which is also for you. Do you do any explicit work around neurodiversity? There has been a huge increase in autism. In schools, 30 per cent of children have additional support needs—obviously, that is a wider section. Often, with autism, you find that the subtleties of sex and relationship education do not get through, so you need to be extremely explicit and direct, which can be an issue for boys with autism in terms of their understanding. Has anything specific been done to tackle that? Has anything been done to determine whether the current approach is effective, and whether there is a bit of a gap there that we should be looking at?

10:00  

Social Justice and Social Security Committee

Domestic Violence and Violence Against Women and Girls

Meeting date: 3 March 2022

Stephanie Callaghan

I will direct my questions to Carolyn Fox McKay. First, I say well done to Girlguiding Scotland, for doing the survey of 500 young women aged between seven and 21. It is very good to have that information. It certainly shines a light on harassment and violence in schools.

Will you share your thoughts about what stood out to you and your colleagues when you looked at the results of the survey? Could you also tell us a bit more about the negative factors that you mentioned earlier when Marie McNair asked the question about the positive work that is being done? What have you come up against?

Social Justice and Social Security Committee

Domestic Violence and Violence Against Women and Girls

Meeting date: 3 March 2022

Stephanie Callaghan

I want to ask about early years provision. Laura Tomson has said that quite a bit of information is being collected on young people, because they are a captive audience, and I am quite interested in hearing about what we are doing with the youngest children in nursery and early years education. There is, for example, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children’s pants rule, which is all about privacy, consent and speaking up at a really young age and making it clear that both girls and boys are core to prevention in that respect.

What kind of work is going on around early years with regard to helping children speak up and challenge language through, for example, role play and practice? Are we, for example, treating gender-based violence as being unacceptable in the same way that racism is, but going back a few steps to address the language that underlies it in the early years?

I am not quite sure exactly who to direct that question to—I am happy for anyone to come in on it.

Social Justice and Social Security Committee

Domestic Violence and Violence Against Women and Girls

Meeting date: 3 March 2022

Stephanie Callaghan

That is fine, you have covered it. Thank you very much, indeed. That was very helpful.

Health, Social Care and Sport Committee

Tackling Alcohol Harms

Meeting date: 1 March 2022

Stephanie Callaghan

Good morning. I picked up the same point as Emma Harper, which is that affordability relates directly to consumption, which relates directly to harm. That is an important point.

We have heard quite a lot of figures; clearly, the pandemic has created an issue around evidence. That said, I ask Lucie Giles this: how effective has the minimum unit pricing policy been in addressing alcohol harms and how strong is the case for continuing it beyond the five-year period?

Health, Social Care and Sport Committee

Tackling Alcohol Harms

Meeting date: 1 March 2022

Stephanie Callaghan

Thank you. It was great to hear Alison Douglas talk about the longer-term effects of the policy over 20 years or so, as well as all the ripples from it, such as the impact on children and their lifestyles.

I have a question on data for Lucie Giles. Will we have a strong enough evidence base for the policy? Will it be difficult to ascribe improvements to minimum unit pricing because of everything that has happened, or are you expecting that levels of hospitalisation and the number of deaths next year will support the policy?

Education, Children and Young People Committee

Scottish Attainment Challenge Inquiry

Meeting date: 23 February 2022

Stephanie Callaghan

Thank you, convener, and I thank all the witnesses for being here this morning. I have three questions to ask, but, before I start, I want to say that it is important to be clear that our teachers are trained as educators to work within large classrooms full of pupils, which I hope remains their priority. However, third sector organisations get children who are struggling to a point at which they are ready to learn, and it is really good to be hearing about that today.

It is also great to see that tackling poverty is being put front and centre in the work; we call it the poverty-related attainment gap for a very good reason. The impact of poverty on our children and their families is devastating.

The first of my three question is for Sara Spencer, on parental mental health. How important is parental mental wellbeing, and how big an impact does the practical and financial support that families get have on children’s learning? I know that it can be quite difficult to measure that impact; it is not always easy to work it out. Have you seen a substantial improvement in children’s learning, progress, behaviour and so on?

Education, Children and Young People Committee

Scottish Attainment Challenge Inquiry

Meeting date: 23 February 2022

Stephanie Callaghan

It would be good if you could keep us posted on that.

That brings me to my next question, which is about wider support. In previous evidence sessions we have been told that the wider wraparound support from third sector organisations and from health, social work, youth work, autism and justice services is absolutely crucial to ensuring that children achieve their potential and do as well as possible.

11:00  

We also have the early years work. There has been a huge investment in early years education and in work on things such as attachment—I know that Barnardo’s does quite a lot of work on that.

How important is it to have wraparound care and interagency work? How can that work better? For example, could there be funding for joint teams, or something like that? Do you have any innovative ideas that have worked?

Education, Children and Young People Committee

Scottish Attainment Challenge Inquiry

Meeting date: 23 February 2022

Stephanie Callaghan

You touched on lots of big and important issues. Certainly, in other evidence, it has been suggested that we should be focusing mainly on the 30 per cent of our children who have additional support needs and that all children will benefit from that, which was interesting to hear.

To go back to what you said earlier, there has been a focus on wellbeing and on people in their places. There is a drive to co-locate services in communities. For example, North Lanarkshire Council is looking at having hubs where lone parents can drop their child at nursery and then not go home and be isolated but get involved in education, exercise or a cafe and social events. Is that the right way forward? Should we be looking at that, to complement and support the work that is going on with schools and third sector organisations?

Education, Children and Young People Committee

Scottish Attainment Challenge Inquiry

Meeting date: 23 February 2022

Stephanie Callaghan

I am sorry—I was just looking at you, Maureen, but I did not name you.