Home Supervision

This chapter traces the origins of the most common outcome available to the children’s hearing – a supervision order in terms of which the child will remain in their own home. Social supervision grew out of the probation service developed at the turn of the 20th century, and was extended to care and protection cases by the Children and Young Persons (Scotland) Act 1932. The nature and role of probation officers in the early 20th century is looked at, supervising both child offenders and child victims, and the legislation governing probation is analysed. The formal shift from probation to supervision for all children subject to orders made by the children’s hearing came about with the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968, under which the probation service came under local authority control, and supervision orders became the main outcome at children’s hearings. The nature of supervision in that Act and its 1995 and 2011 replacements is then examined.