Scottish Care, in partnership with Life Changes Trust and My Home Life, is delighted to launch these reports from the Rights Made Real project.

The Rights Made Real in Care Homes was established in 2019, with the Life Changes Trust investment of £135,000 to support seven projects across Scotland to promote the inclusion and participation of care home residents with dementia in a meaningful way.

Each of the seven projects, which took place within care home settings across Scotland, demonstrated how human rights can be embedded in practice across all aspects of care home life and support whilst showcasing real examples of creativity, innovation and dedication in upholding and respecting human rights.

We are pleased to launch this report, entitled ‘Recognising, respecting and responding: promoting human rights for residents of care homes in Scotland’. Commissioned by Life Changes Trust, it brings together a collection of stories from across the project sites with the aim of informing and supporting rights-based practice in all care home support.

Dr Donald Macaskill, CEO of Scottish Care, said:

“Human rights have always been critical to the support of individuals who live in Scotland’s care homes. That is why in 2019 Scottish Care was delighted to work with Life Changes Trust and My Home Life in the creation of the Rights Made Real project. This project was and is about making human rights more than just a set of warm statements. The project is about making sure that human rights speak to everything that happens in a care home, whether that be the way we care for and involve people or the right to the fulfilment of individual choice and freedoms.

 “The horror of the pandemic, not least the enforced lockdown for many months, may have shone a light on human rights issues around access and choice, but what the Rights Made Real project makes clear is that there was before Covid-19 and continues to be a growing emphasis within our care homes which puts human rights at the heart of all practice and decision-making.

“I warmly commend these reports – written in a time before Covid-19 – as an example of what human rights practice can mean for care homes and in the hope that as we move into the second stage of this project, that human rights will remain the focus of work and life in Scotland’s care homes in the months and years to come.” 

More information about the Rights Made Real project and this report can be found on the Life Changes Trust website: https://www.lifechangestrust.org.uk/rights-made-real-care-homes-evidence-and-learning

Whilst the Rights Made Real project work largely had to be paused in 2020 due to pandemic restrictions, we are delighted that Phase 2 of the project will be commencing in Spring 2021 including a series of workshops for care home services. Find out more and sign up for the workshops here: https://scottishcare.org/rights-made-real-phase-2/