Home supervision requirements are a type of legal supervision order at home which is unique to the Scottish system of child legislation. Despite being the most common type of disposal used by the Children’s Hearing little is known about how HSRs work in practice or about its impact on young people and families. Using a multi-method approach that included secondary analysis of the Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration (SCRA) dataset; documentary analysis of social work case files; and in-depth interviews; this research seeks to find out more about the nature, scope and outcomes of HSRs from the perspective of those who are affected the most by this type of compulsory intervention – young people, their parents and social workers.
The findings indicate that there is a great deal of ambivalence towards HSRs. Although HSRs can facilitate access to support and services otherwise not available to families, the evidence gathered indicates that the availability of resources for this particular age group (12-15 years old) is limited and that there are concerns about the quality of services made available to young people and their families. Moreover, whilst HSRs can facilitate access to support and services; the mechanisms (or disciplinary techniques) put into place to ration these services result in constant struggles between stakeholders. This limits their ability to work together, as well as the interventions’ scope for positive change.