Looking to upskill your staff? Discover how commissioned training is helping charities across Scotland

For charities, organisations and practitioners working with children and young people, it is important to continually develop new skills, knowledge and expertise to provide the best care possible.

To help organisations keep up with best practice across the sector, make the most of budgets, meet key objectives, and fit education into busy schedules, Children in Scotland offers a wide range of learning opportunities – and one of the most popular is commissioned training.

We offer commissioned training (click here for more) on a vast range of topics at different levels – both online and in-person – and our expert Learning & Events team can also help to identify your organisation’s learning needs if you’re not sure where to start.

From bespoke programmes to one-off sessions, designed precisely to your requirements, we have experience delivering impactful training that equips staff and individuals with all the skills and knowledge they need to make a difference in their role, covering children's rights and the UNCRC (click here for more), trauma-informed practice, mental health and much more. Plus, with 94% of participants in 2022/2023 describing the courses as "excellent", we are setting the industry standard for quality training.

One of the most requested training themes we offer is child protection and, below, one of our member organisations shares why our training was the perfect fit for their charity, while providing insight into the commissioned training process.

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Allison Barr, Chief Executive of Team Jak Foundation

“I was a primary teacher before taking on my boy’s legacy, so I vowed that we would make sure we were fully trained, fully knowledgeable, and fully experienced in everything we do as a charity. It’s so important when you’re working with children’s lives that you do it properly.

“We recently completed child protection training with Children in Scotland at our Livingston office, which was truly bespoke to us. The trainer was able to tailor some of the case studies to specific instances that might happen within the situations we are dealing with, and our staff found that really, really helpful.

“We found the training to be so helpful, we’ve already planned to do another course for our younger volunteers. We felt that due to a lot of the language used in child protection training, we needed to be careful with our approach. The next course will be tailored to both our charity and the children we’re working with, which is fantastic.

“A saying I used a lot when I was a teacher is, “To teach is to touch a life forever” – and it’s the same when you are working with children as a charity. When you have responsibility for a child, you have to get it right, and part of that is child protection.

“Children in Scotland has proven over and over to us that it is a reliable source. We’ve been on courses with different organisations, and every time it has been the same thing but changed ever so slightly. With Children in Scotland, every training course is unique, bespoke, and their staff go the extra mile.”

Team Jak Foundation provide emotional, social and practical support for children and young people with cancer, as well as their family and friends. Click here for more information: teamjak.org.uk

Click here to find out more about commissioned training: childreninscotland.org.uk/commissioned-training

Alternatively, you can contact the Learning & Events team to arrange a time to discuss your training needs in more detail by emailing: events@childreninscotland.org.uk