How to get legal help for a child or young person

If you are a professional or practitioner – support, advocacy or advice worker or foster carer – who is working with a child or young person who has a question about the law or a legal problem, then we can help.

Free Legal Information Helpline

You can contact us to ask questions about the law affecting children and young people in Scotland and children’s rights : we can provide information and guidance about how the law can be used to help the child or young person. Calls to our Legal Information Service are dealt with by qualified, practicing child law solicitors with current experience of working directly with children and young people. That means we know about the real life problems that children and young people face and we are experienced in helping them understand how the law affects them.  We can  help you work out if there are things that you can do to help the young person, and we can identify if the young person needs to get a lawyer to protect their rights.

Call free on 0808 129 0522 to speak to one of our solicitors.

Lawyers for Children and Young People

If a child or young person needs their own solicitor we can represent children and young people in Edinburgh and the Lothians, Glasgow and the surrounding area. We provide outreach services – that means that the child or young person can choose a time and place where they are comfortable and we will come out to meet them. Our help is always free for children and young people – they will never have to pay a fee for a Clan Childlaw lawyer.

We work in a child-centred way which means we listen and let the young person set the pace and communicate in the way that works best for them. If we cannot take a case, we will do what we can to help you to find a local, legal aid lawyer for the child or young person you are working with.

If you’d like to know more, get in touch.

Webinars and Toolkits on Issues Arising Due to Covid-19

We have produced four webinars with toolkits in order to assist young people who have experience of local authority care and those working with them. The webinars cover four issues that we know have been difficult throughout the pandemic: contact with family, moving placement, care leavers’ rights to continuing care and after care and housing and homelessness. The webinars are intended to minimise the impact of coronavirus by assisting young people to challenge restrictions on their home life and housing rights. Read more here.