Work by Bairns Hoose Partnership praised

The Bairns’ Hoose Partnership in Fife recently welcomed the founder of the original international model for the project.

Bragi Guðbrandsson paid a visit to the Kingdom and met with representatives from the organisations who make up the Bairns’ Hoose Partnership in Fife.

Mr Guðbrandsson established Barnahus in Iceland in 1997 when he was director of the Icelandic Government Child Protection Agency.

The model spread to other Nordic countries and began to be adopted more widely across Europe.

A Barnahus Network was established in 2019 to support adoption and alignment of practice across Europe and the Scottish Government published their standards in 2023 to give grounding for the model in Scotland.

The overall vision of Bairns’ Hoose in Scotland is that all children who have been victims of or witnesses to abuse or violence, as well children under the age of criminal responsibility who may have caused harm or abuse, will have access to trauma informed recovery, support and justice.

Fife was chosen as one of the pathfinder areas to take the work to set up a Bairns’ Hoose forward.

And as part of the visit, members of the Bairns’ Hoose Partnership were able to give Mr Guðbrandsson an update of work so far and what’s planned.