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Hello,

We are writing from the Scottish Institute of Residential Child Care (SIRCC), University of Strathclyde and the Care Leavers' Association to ask you for your help in our research on Human Rights and Historic Abuse.

We have been funded by the Scottish Human Rights Commission and have been asked to gather research material from care leavers and service providers for an "Acknowledgement and Accountability Forum" on the historic abuse of children in care in Scotland.

We are interested in carrying out interviews with yourself. Some of the issues we are interested in are:

    What you think the issues around human rights and historic abuse are.

The LAW says you the VICTIM should be fully compensated for the abuse that occurred but prevents this in Scotland due to TIMEBAR. This compensation is for you to decide and can be in a number of various shapes and forms. No one else has the Right to decide for you.

  1. Why is such confidential and personal information required to be passed over to organisations such as SIRCC and CLA who have received Funding from the Scottish Government, prior to the Acknowledgement and Accountability process being set-up?
  2. Is it appropriate for other care leavers within CLA (Care Leavers Association) to gather such confidential and private information on those abused and those alleging such abuse?
  3. Should you only give this confidential information to the Police only until such times as a Forum is actually agreed and set up?
  4. What information do you give?
  5. Perhaps: Name, DOB, which Care Home you were in, contact address. What about your anonymity if you have been through a Court of Law? Do you wish to protect this information? What arrangements can be made to ensure this?
  6. Should you give any details or just retain your anonymity at all costs?
  7. Think about what other Survivors and True Victims have achieved across the world in countries such as Ireland and Canada.
  8. Would you accept anything less than them?

 

    What you think "Acknowledgement and Accountability" means.

  1. Ask yourself, what is really meant by accountability?
  2. Who will really be held accountable? The care home? The abusers? Both? Or others such as the Scottish Government, the local authorities the Church?
  3. Will anybody?
  4. Is there a realistic chance in your particular case?
  5. Does acknowledgement come with an apology unreserved and without any caveats from the care home, Scottish Government or the Abusers?
  6. What do you wish to be acknowledged and how?
  7. What do you really want to repair the damage and destruction that has caused you so much pain and distress by your past experience in-care in Scotland?
  8. Is it a Job?
  9. Is it Money?
  10. It it an unreserved apology?

 

    What you think "Acknowledgement and Accountability" means continued...

  1. Is it to be believed?
  2. Is it happiness?
  3. Is it to tell your story?
  4. Is it something else?
  5. It is for you and you alone to decide.
  6. Is it for the past care home or past organisation to accept their full responsibility for the past damage caused to you and apologise to you unreservedly?
  7. Does Acknowledgement mean full financial and other such compensation for you?
  8. Are you afraid to say you want financial compensation because survivors and True Victims are continually attacked as only being in it for the money?
  9. Can you make these decisions freely for yourself without undue influence or coercion by others?
  10. Can you speak for yourself?
  11. What happens to you when it's all over? Will you be happy with what you have got from the processes of "Acknowledgement and Accountability"?
  12. Will you be left abandoned by those who say they represent and speak for you today?

 

    What you think an "Acknowledgement and Accountability Forum" should look like.

  1. Were you given the opportunity to discuss this with other victims and survivors from different care homes who have had similar experiences in Scotland?
  2. Have you been given free access and travel to enable you to attend any conferences in Scotland on Historical Abuse in the past?
  3. Have you or those who claim and purport to represent you been through a Court process?
  4. Have such individuals had their own abuse claims upheld in a Court of Law?
  5. Who is actually claiming to represent you? Have they had their claims upheld in any process? Can you verify such claims?
  6. Why are some survivors claiming to represent the views and opinions of the Quarriers victims when they were never in Quarriers care at any time?
  7. Ask yourself what is in it personally for those who are claiming to represent your interests.
  8. How have they personally benefited to date and why have others not?
  9. Are individuals from other care homes trying to stop the Quarriers survivors and true victims and others from participating in the processes in a fair and impartial manner?
  10. Do they have their own secret agenda?
  11. Are the individuals who claim to represent the survivors and true victims interests weak and simply not up to the job?
  12. Are these individuals trying to manipulate you?
  13. Do these individuals want you to accept less than what you deserve and are fully entitled to?
  14. Have such individuals failed to represent the abuse issues in Scotland properly, accurately and truthfully for the majority of true victim survivors?
  15. Are the survivors and true victims being denied the right in Scotland to organise their own seminar and conference to allow all our voices to be heard?
  16. Will the Scottish Government simply impose their own solution without any real genuine proper and fully inclusive consultation with true victims and survivors in Scotland?
  17. Is it accurate to say that all survivors and true victims have been fully consulted in this process?
  18. Are today's care professionals and others, including the Scottish Government, trying to cover up the past by not having a proper Judicial Inquiry into all historical abuse in all care homes?
  19. Think of Ireland and what they achieved!

 

    Suggestions for how this forum could be run.

  1. Ask yourself many of the same questions as above.
  2. Have you really had an opportunity to discuss this with other victims and survivors who have had similar experiences in care homes in Scotland?
  3. Have you been given free access and travel to enable you to attend any conferences in Scotland on Historical Abuse in the past?
  4. Are the survivors and true victims being denied the right in Scotland to organise their own seminar and conference to allow all their voices and opinions to be heard?
  5. Have you or those who claim and purport to represent you been through a Court process?
  6. Were they even in the same care home?
  7. Have such individuals had their own abuse claims upheld in a Court of Law?
  8. Who is claiming to represent you and have they had their claims upheld in any process? Can you verify such claims?
  9. Do you want proper legal representation in a forum?
  10. Do you want documents and files pertaining to the past care organisations to be made available without restrictions?
  11. Do you want this forum to be totally and trully independent, without representatives from the Scottish Government and other organisations in Scotland?

 

We envisage the interview to last no more than an hour during which you will have the option to elaborate on the questions asked, propose your own questions and decline to answer any the researcher puts to you.

The final report will be presented to the Scottish Human Rights Commission in January 2010, but we will keep you informed at different stages of the research.

Central to this research is an advisory group that includes care leavers who have knowledge of historic abuse and they have guided this research.

  1. Who are in this advisory group?
  2. Why is it so secretive?
  3. Why does it not publish the names of the individuals in the group?
  4. Which care homes do these individuals come from?
  5. Have any of the Advisory Group had their own individual abuse claim upheld in a Court of Law in Scotland?
  6. Why does it not publish a record of its meetings and deliberations?
  7. Why is it not fully open and transparent?
  8. Why can we not scrutinise its work and findings?
  9. Is this advisory group really representative of the true victims and survivors of abuse in Scotland?
  10. Who are they?
  11. What is really going on?

 

Undertaking the interviews will be Zachari Duncalf, a Research Fellow at the Scottish Institute of Residential Child Care and a care leaver who is also working as an Executive Committee Member of the Care Leavers' Association.

If you want more information or are interested in taking part in an interview please get in touch. If you have any transport difficulties we are able to travel to you to carry out the interviews.

Zachari Duncalf - zachari.duncalf@strath.ac.uk. You can also contact the Secretary to the University Ethics Committee on ethics@strath.ac.uk, or at the University of Strathclyde, McCance Building, 16 Richmond Street, Glasgow, G1 1XQ.

www.sircc.org.uk www.careleavers.com

 

 

Consent Form

This consent form includes some information about the research we would like you to be involved in. Please read this carefully and ask us any questions you may have. Then, if you are still interested in taking part, please sign this consent form.

This form is to ensure that all people taking part in the research fully understand the following:

I understand that this research will be published in reports, journal articles or other forms that will be widely available.

  1. Do you know what you are really consenting too here?
  2. Do you wish an independent advocate to advise you?
  3. Do you wish an independent advocate to attend the interview, as is your right?
  4. Perhaps a trusted friend or family member or an independent person?
  5. Are you happy for your confidential and private information to be made available to publications, reports, articles which you have no control over, before any such forum or there after?
  6. Should this information be used only for the forum and nothing else?
  7. Do you wish to be a number and a statistic in some journal, article or other publication, anonymously without any control of when and where it will be published?
  8. Should you see and agree all the text and working, which will be used in any such publications, reports, and articles before you consent to this?

I understand that my data will be kept confidential and secure and when it is published will always be kept anonymous so that no one can recognise me.

  1. Should you not wait for the forum to be set up and agreed before you give any such personal confidential and information about your abuse circumstances over to any individual.
  2. Is it really accurate and truthful that you cannot be identified?
  3. Does that mean the same for the alleged abuser and the Care Home?
  4. Do you wish the Care Home to be kept secret and out of the public domain?

I understand that, although my information is confidential, and will only be viewed by the research team, if I should tell the researchers anything that may be causing me or someone else harm or putting anyone at risk then this information may be passed on to relevant agencies. Should this situation arise the researchers will discuss this process with you before taking this step.

  1. Who are the research team?
  2. What are their names and backgrounds?
  3. Why does the information have to be given to others?
  4. Are you happy for your personal and confidential information to be given to others, is it really required in these circumstances?
  5. Are you happy to pass confidential medical information to non medical personal?
  6. What information will others have and have you agreed to specific individuals having this?

 

DO you want a full, unedited copy of your interview?
You are entitled to request this.
Ask for an unedited version of your testimony and a copy of the tape recording.
It is your testimony and your RIGHT to do so!
Remember it is your data and information

 

I acknowledge that if I share any information about a case of abuse that is currently going through court proceedings that this information and my case may be compromised. I further understand that the researchers cannot use this information in any publication.

  1. "I further understand that the researchers cannot use this information in any publication." Do you really understand what this means to you?
  2. Should you discuss this whatsoever with any researcher who has no legal rights to have this information?
  3. Have you previously given a police statement?
  4. Are you giving up any of your rights in this part of the process, now or in the future, by speaking to any of these researchers?
  5. Does this apply to everyone in this process? Are we all giving up fundamental rights which may be denied to us later?
  6. Should you not wait until "Acknowledgement and Accountability" is set-up properly?
  7. Think and consider. These are very important decisions which affect you and others.
  8. Seek independent advice if unsure.
  9. Contact independent advocacy or other independent bodies.
  10. You can speak with a trusted friend or family member.
  11. Rely on your own judgement.
  12. Others may have there own agendas.

 

I have been informed that the research data will be kept safe and secure and only the research team will have access to my personal information. I have also been informed that this data will be destroyed after the research has been completed.

  1. Again, who are the researchers?
  2. How many are involved?
  3. What are their names?
  4. What is their position?
  5. Where will this research data be kept and stored?
  6. Where will it be kept?
  7. How secure is "secure"?
  8. Will you be present when it is destroyed?

 

I agree/disagree (please delete one) to my information being recorded on a dictaphone.

  1. It is your decision do not be pressurised to do anything you do not want.
  2. This testimony is yours and yours alone.
  3. You own the rights to it.
  4. Request an unedited audio copy.
  5. Request a hard copy
  6. Read and correct anything you disagree with.
  7. Remember it's yours.
  8. Keep a record of your own testimony

 

I understand that my participation in this research is entirely voluntary and of my own choice. I understand that if I choose to withdraw all or part of my data at any point in the research then I am free to do so without giving any reasons.

  1. Remember it is your decision.
  2. If at any time you wish to withdraw you can do so.
  3. You can request a copy of everything recorded up to that time.
  4. You can request that all recordings and data is destroyed.
  5. Remember to withdraw your consent in writing.
  6. You can request the research team individually to confirm in writing that they have carried out your wishes fully.
  7. Keep a Copy of your request to withdraw as a record.

 

I am consenting to undertake an interview for this research.

  1. This is a very important decision for you.
  2. It is your decision and yours alone.
  3. Do not be influenced by anyone except those you really TRUST!
  4. We suggest you think seriously about this request before coming to a decision as this decision may have an impact on you at some later stage.

 

If you agree to all of the above please can you sign and date below.

 

 

Signature:___________________________ Date: _________________