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Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry

Accessing your care records

Everyone has a right to access information about them, and we understand how important care records are. Care records can answer many questions and provide part of your life story. Accessing your care records can be a daunting experience which is why we have dedicated support for anyone who needs it. Accessing social work support is voluntary, free of charge, and available at any stage of your journey.

You don’t have to tell us why you would like to access your care records, but it does help if you are able to provide as much detail as possible, including

  • Full name and any other names you have used as a child
  • Your date of birth
  • The names and dates of birth, if known, of any siblings or parents
  • The care establishments you were resident in if you remember this

Some older care records might not have survived for many reasons. We will always search our archive collections for any unit records that may be held in the hope of providing you with as much information as possible. Older records are usually smaller than modern records and may not include as much information about your day-to-day life in care. They can also include some unpleasant and outdated language that would not be used today. This is because of changing practices in social work recording and the changing social landscape over the decades. Support to make sense of your records will be available to you at all stages, should you wish to make use of this.

The most common route to access your care records is through a Subject Access Request.

What happens next

Once we have received your form and confirmed your identity, we will begin searching our records for your information. If necessary, we will get in touch with you for more information in order to help us in these searches. We aim to respond to you within a month but it may take us up to three months. This is due to the number of documents that we must review or the presence of information about other people. We will always let you know if this is the case.

We are currently missing these deadlines due to unprecedented demand for services. We know that this can cause further inconvenience, and are looking to remedy this and work through our backlog of requests as quickly as we can.