In Scotland, My Rights, My Say is an independent service that supports children aged 12–15 with additional support needs to use their rights. This ensures that the views of 12–15-year-olds are heard in decisions about their education. It is a service that takes the time to connect with young people and support them to have their say.

My Rights, My Say involves partner organisations and the My Rights My Say Young Advisors. They work closely together to ensure children’s rights in education are respected and met in formal processes like assessments, planning meetings or resolving disagreements.

My Rights, My Say was created because of changes to the Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act 2004, often called the ASL Act.

In 2018, this law was updated to give children aged 12–15 their own legal rights to be involved in decisions about their support for learning.

This meant that children aged 12–15 don’t need an adult to act on their behalf – and that they can use their rights directly. My Rights, My Say was set up to ensure that young people could understand and use these new rights, with the right support.

My Rights, My Say is made up four partners:

• Partners in Advocacy – who provide the Independent Advocacy service

• Children in Scotland – who provide the Children’s Views service

• Cairn Legal – who provide the Legal Support service

• Enquire – who provide advice and information about additional support for learning (ASL)

You can find out more about the My Rights, My Say partnership on our About page, or click on the images below to visit the partner websites.

Each of the partner organisations who make up My Rights, My Say are dedicated to supporting children to use their rights to achieve positive outcomes at school. Each partner brings specialist skills and knowledge. By joining forces, the My Rights, My Say partners can direct referrals to the most relevant support service.

How many people you can expect to speak to will depend on the nature of the referral. As a partnership, we respect the trust that people, especially children, place in the services that are supporting them, and we are careful with that trust, throughout the process.

My Rights, My Say is committed to upholding the rights of each child it represents. This underpins the work of every partner connected to the service.

We work just for the child at the centre of the process to support them to make informed decisions based on the available information and their own choices.

Supporting children to exercise their rights and find positive outcomes is our shared motivation and the reason we exist as a service.

Any child aged 12–15 in the Scottish education system and who requires additional support for learning can refer themselves to the service.

Additionally, a parent or a professional working with the child (such as a teacher or social worker), can make the referral on behalf of a child.

Training for teachers and other professionals is available on request.

My Rights, My Say uses a referral system. Once you have made a referral using our online form, the partners will decide who is the best person to respond. That person will get in contact with you using the telephone number or email address you have provided.

For young people, your parent or carer will need to agree to the referral. At that point, you will usually hear from a My Rights, My Say advocacy worker. The advocacy worker will tell you your rights and explain how they can help you to have your views heard at school. They will listen to what’s going on for you at school and help you to think of ways that school could be made better. They will support you to ensure the school understands how you’re feeling. 

For parents and carers, Enquire, the Scottish national advice service for additional support for learning is likely to be the first point of contact. One of our helpline advisers will chat through the issues raised to understand your situation and advise on next steps.

For professionals, it will depend on the details of the referral which partner will be in contact.

All referrals made to My Rights, My Say will be stored for a limited time as explained by our privacy policy.

It’s important to say that everything a child tells My Rights, My Say will be treated confidentially and without judgement. We will not share details of what’s been discussed with their school, social worker or parent or carer without a child’s approval and consent. The only time we will break this confidentiality is where something is said that puts the child at risk of harm or puts someone else at risk of harm.

Yes.

My Rights, My Say is funded to provide a free service at the point of need for children who make a referral or are referred to the service by a parent, carer or professional. There is no fee to pay by anyone involved in supporting the child with an issue brought before the service.

The answer depends on how the child wants to engage in the process for communicating their views. Some of our processes are time sensitive, however there is no set programme for every child to follow. We will always be led by the individual child and what they want to achieve.

There is often a waitlist for accessing aspects of the My Rights, My Say service. You may find it useful to look at Enquire or Reach, our partner organisation’s websites while you wait to hear more.

A lot of formal processes to do with solving issues with the school are described using legal terminology and technical terms that will be new to anyone accessing My Rights, My Say for the first time. We have created guides in the ‘Find out more’ sections of the website that explain these processes and how we can help.

Don’t let this put you off getting the support you need. All our partners will be happy to go into further detail about anything that needs further explanation.

My Rights My Say, supports children with additional support needs at school.

Enquire is Scotland’s advice service for additional support for learning and a partner in My Rights, My Say. They have lots of advice and information to help parents, carers and professionals understand additional support for learning.

Enquire has a website for children and young people called Reach. It has lots of practical advice and information about children’s rights and support for learning. Reach also has real life stories from children and young about how issues in their lives affect them at school.