Jo was one of our first members of the Alliance Leadership Team. She highlights the determination of people with lived experience to speak out and fight for change, and how this created key changes in justice, acknowledgement and support.
In 1956 I was boarded-out from a children’s home with my younger siblings, to a guardian in the north-east of Scotland. After 10 years of physical and mental abuse, I left for Aberdeen to train as a nurse. I was so distraught at having to leave them behind that I wrote to Glasgow Cooperation to report the extent of the abuse but was not believed. My siblings’ lives were now destroyed, and there was no help available to adapt to life beyond the care system or to heal the mental health difficulties linked to their childhood abuse. This eventually led to my sister’s fatal overdose in 1993.
From that moment onwards I knew that I had to do everything in my power to change that.
After reading Tom Shaw’s Systemic Review of historical abuse in Residential Schools and Children’s Homes 1950-1995, I noticed that there was no mention of the boarded-out generation. I know this is just terminology at its best, but I was determined to find a way to bring this into the public domain, so I wrote to the Scottish Parliament. We deserved to be recognised alongside foster care.
I took it a step further by writing a book called Say Nothing, detailing my family’s experience and found a publisher in 2012. But that was not enough.
It was not until I began posting poetry online, did I come across a man who inquired about the subject matter in my poems, and he invited me to Glasgow in 2015 to attend several survivors’ meetings run by representatives from the Scottish Parliament and Professor Kendrick from CELCIS at Strathclyde University. It was then that I became aware of Time to be Heard, a pilot forum for historical child abuse which had been set up in 2009. It allowed individuals to share personal testimonies before a panel in a safe environment, laying down the groundwork for subsequent national support and inquiry structures which eventually led to the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry.
The door was now open.
I was invited to an interview for the Alliance Leadership Team who met in Glasgow and, after my CV was approved, I joined several other survivors and potential Delivery Partners. The main aim was to set up services for people who were abused while children in care of the state in Scotland, to provide a safe place to be heard and most importantly to be believed, resulting in the creation of Future Pathways.
This was the place I needed to be but, after a time, it became too much for me. Being in the company of other survivors and listening to their stories, made me realise that I wasn’t OK. My past trauma was coming to the surface and I needed to look after myself and get support.
Future Pathways went on to create a unique system where services along with Delivery Partners are tailored so that everyone can access the support that is right for them, all trauma-informed. Providing urgent assistance, how to access records, help survivors re-enter education (which many abused children did not get the chance to complete); to open career opportunities once beyond their reach, encourage hobbies to improve their mental health, to obtain a safe environment and help to apply for grants. Users were encouraged to join workshops and attend peer support meetings on their journey to heal from past trauma.
After encouragement from Future Pathways, I joined the Interaction Action Review Group, again with Scottish Government, Professor Kendrick and other representatives from INCAS, Quarries Home, Independent Survivors and Social Services to campaign for a Bill for Redress. As an Independent, I was able to stand for the boarded-out generation at last. In 2019, we attended Parliament to hear the First Minister announce the Redress Bill for Scotland had been passed and the most important word in that document for me was ‘boarded-out’.
My journey was complete.
Since then, I have continued to keep in touch with Future Pathways through their monthly newsletters and attend Peer Support workshops. The confidence and strength they gave me at the beginning allowed me to go on and help other survivors to pass on their experience to relatives by presenting their stories in booklet form. This enabled their truths to be known without causing further distress.
It’s nearly ten years since Future Pathways pointed me in the right direction and, without their encouragement, I would not have achieved what I set out to do.
Find out more
Say Nothing by Josephine Duthie
Josephine’s memoir covers her time when she and her siblings were boarded out to a small croft in the north-east of Scotland. There, they experienced physical and mental abuse. Say Nothing was written as a voice of support for all abused children who are afraid or were never given the chance to tell their story.
Historical Abuse Systemic Review
Tom Shaw’s report was the direct outcome of a debate in the Scottish Parliament, seeking an inquiry into past institutional child abuse. Independently appointed, Tom Shaw was to look at the systems of laws, rules and regulations that governed residential schools and children’s homes in Scotland between 1950 and 1995. The review highlighted the range of people’s needs resulting from their experience of abuse and neglect in residential child care.
Time to be Heard
In 2010, the Time to Be Heard Forum was launched by Scottish Government. The aim was to listen and validate survivors’ experiences, create a historical record, signpost to services available and test out a confidential committee model. The forum heard from 98 former residents of Quarriers (which, before 1983, was the largest children’s home in Scotland), with the aim of making recommendations on the wider rollout of such a forum.
A year later, the Time to be Heard report was published. The report firmly advocated for a forum which was inclusive of a range of experience of provision, such as being ‘boarded out’, residential provision for children with special needs, hospital provision for children with acute medical and mental health needs, detention centres and other youth justice provision and boarding departments of schools.
Alliance Leadership Team
Future Pathways is delivered by the In Care Survivors Alliance. The Alliance is made up of four organisations. These are: Glasgow Psychological Trauma Service (NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde), Health in Mind, Penumbra Mental Health and the Scottish Government. Staff members from each of these organisations are on the Alliance Leadership Team which runs Future Pathways. The team also includes people who have been supported by Future Pathways.
Interaction Action Review Group
In 2012, the Scottish Human Rights Commission commissioned CELCIS to deliver the ‘InterAction’ project. The project aimed to agree and coordinate how to implement the recommendations from the Human Rights Framework for Justice and Remedies for Historic Child Abuse.
To do this, CELCIS created a series of meetings and events called ‘interactions’ between 2012 and 2014. These activities brought together, for the first time, people with lived experience of abuse and neglect in care, child care service providers from local authorities, the third sector and religious orders, Scottish Government and others.
Scotland’s Redress Scheme
In December 2021, Scotland’s Redress Scheme was launched. This offers financial and non-financial redress to people who experienced abuse or neglect as children in the Scottish care system.
Redress Support Service
Redress Support Service offers emotional and practical support to people accessing the scheme. Delivered by the In Care Survivors Alliance, the Redress Support Service offers personalised support to people throughout their redress journey. This includes supporting people to prepare for applying, during the application and after they have applied.
