Another day, another story that makes you stop and ask. What on earth is going on within our children’s services?
A report published by STV News on 26 October 2026 revealed that Suzanne Elliott, a former young person and children’s worker employed by Renfrewshire Council, has been struck off by the Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) following threatening and derogatory messages about young people she was employed to support.
And when you read what was actually said, you have to question how someone entrusted with the care and support of vulnerable children could speak about them in this way.
According to the SSSC’s findings, between February and May 2024, Elliott exchanged Facebook Messenger messages with a young person she supported, making derogatory comments and threats of violence towards another young person.
She reportedly described the girl as a “bogging cow” and a “jealous little b*d”. But it didn’t stop there. In one message, she reportedly threatened to put a “dark hood on and knock 10 shades of s**t out her when she least expects it cause I’ve had enough”. She also wrote that she knew “three big girls who may just take things into their own hands or I will be forced to do so myself”.
In other messages, she reportedly said the young person’s “day of dawning is coming believe me” and that she would “get in that car and kill the boot”. She also asked the young person she was communicating with not to tell anyone.
Alongside these threats and derogatory comments, the SSSC found that Elliott had shared sensitive and confidential information about other young people’s circumstances and cases. She also dismissed another child’s behaviour as “attention-seeking” and shared personal social media content in communications with a young person she supported.
Read those statements again and think about what they mean in the context of children’s residential care.
These were not comments made by a stranger with no responsibility for these children. This was a professional employed to work with young people, someone entrusted with a position of authority, responsibility and trust.
These are the people we are trusting to care for our children.
The SSSC concluded that Elliott’s fitness to practise was impaired. Its report described a serious failure to communicate appropriately and respectfully, maintain confidentiality, and recognise the power and authority inherent in her professional role.
The regulator also noted that she had not demonstrated remediation and had denied the conduct. It concluded that a warning would not adequately address the underlying concerns and issued a removal order. Renfrewshire Council confirmed that Elliott no longer works for the authority and said it took immediate action when it became aware of the incident. But the questions raised by this case do not disappear simply because an individual has been struck off.
This is exactly why we need to keep talking.
We need to be talking about staff who use excessive restraint as a first resort rather than considering the needs, rights and individual circumstances of the child in front of them.
We need to be talking about sexual abuse within residential settings, including cases involving staff and both young girls and young boys.
We need to be talking about professionals who threaten, humiliate, degrade or betray the trust of the very children they are employed to protect.
And we need to be asking how children are supposed to feel safe when the adults responsible for their care can become another source of fear, distress and harm. I will keep raising these issues because children in residential care deserve so much better than this.
They deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. They deserve privacy and confidentiality. They deserve adults who understand the immense responsibility that comes with working with vulnerable young people.
They should not have to fear the people who are supposed to be looking after them. And they should never have to question whether the adults around them genuinely care about their safety and well-being.
There are dedicated, compassionate professionals working in children’s services who do their best every day to support young people. Acknowledging that does not mean we should shy away from confronting serious misconduct when it happens.
Quite the opposite. If we genuinely care about children’s services, we should want the highest possible standards of conduct, accountability and safeguarding. We should want children to be safe, to have their voices heard and to know that concerns about their treatment will be taken seriously. We cannot keep treating these cases as isolated headlines without asking what more needs to be done to protect children and ensure that professional power is never abused.
And what about The Promise?
Scotland’s Promise was supposed to transform the experiences of children and young people in care. It was supposed to put children at the heart of everything, ensure their voices were heard, uphold their rights and make sure they received the love, care and protection they deserve.
But I keep coming back to the same question.What the heck does The Promise actually mean when children are still having these experiences within the very services responsible for their care?