Serenity Welfare appointed Whitehouse Communications to found and run a political campaign to end the use of handcuffs and physical restraints on children in care during private secure transportation. The ‘Hope Instead of Handcuffs’ campaign delivered two major legislative wins, with Wales recognising the issue in its Reducing Restrictive Practices Framework and Scotland introducing statutory protections through an amendment to the Children’s Care and Justice Bill tabled by Ross Greer MSP.
The challenge
Serenity Welfare provides comprehensive and bespoke support packages for children and young people in care, with a particular focus on ensuring a caring and nurturing approach in the provision of those services.
Children and young people living in, or on the edge of, care often need to be transported between care settings, to school or to hospital. Local authorities regularly hire private secure transportation providers for these journeys, and many children find themselves automatically placed in handcuffs by their provider. Although the practice is known to Ofsted, the Office of the Children’s Commissioner and the Department for Education, providers are not required to report any instances of handcuffing or restraint, leaving the scale of the problem unknown and the practice unregulated. Serenity Welfare appointed Whitehouse Communications to found and run a political campaign to end these practices.
Our approach
Whitehouse Communications founded the ‘Hope Instead of Handcuffs’ campaign with an original report launch, and established Serenity Welfare as a thought leader on the issue by identifying ongoing developments in the sector for the team to comment on.
The work focused on:
- Developing a detailed core political briefing setting out the issue, the regulatory gap and Serenity Welfare’s policy objectives.
- Building an extensive stakeholder map and engagement plan, reaching out to government, the care sector, MPs, Peers and politicians in the devolved nations.
- Securing the support of Ofsted, the Office of the Children’s Commissioner, the Restraint Reduction Network and the Children’s Home Association.
- Engaging MSPs and members of the Senedd through meetings, drop-in events and letters from political supporters to the Children’s Ministers.
- Generating extensive national media coverage across Sky, The Independent, The Daily Mail, the BBC and The Daily Express, including opinion pieces calling on the governments in England, Scotland and Wales to change the law.
The outcome
The campaign delivered two major legislative wins. In Wales, the Senedd published the Reducing Restrictive Practices Framework (RRPF), making Wales the first UK nation to recognise the need to address the use of physical restraint against vulnerable children during transportation. The framework includes a specific section on secure transportation settings, stating that ‘Welsh Ministers are clear that it is not appropriate to use handcuffs of any kind during such journeys’.
In Scotland in 2024, Whitehouse Communications secured legally binding protections through an amendment to the Children’s Care and Justice Bill, tabled by Hope Instead of Handcuff’s supporter Ross Greer MSP. The amendment made Scotland the first UK nation to introduce statutory protections ending the restraint of children in care during secure transportation. The Scottish government is now legally obliged to publish national mandatory standards on secure transportation, with secure care providers and commissioners legally bound to adhere to them.
