Additional Support for Learning review action plan: second progress report

Parent and Carer Engagement, Participation & Rights

As with children and young people's engagement, some of our work in this area is ongoing, such as the increased funding for partner organisation, as Enquire and Let's Talk ASN.

ADES will continue to promote good examples joint working between parents, schools and local authorities through the ADES' Collaborative Improvement Programme with Education Scotland. All 32 authorities are participating in this programme with several having a focus on aspects of additional support for learning.

Local authorities continually review the information available on their websites, and seek to enhance this information with additional content on social media platforms, and through the channels that families go to for information.

Parent and carer organisations have presented at previous meetings of the COSLA Children and Young People Board and COSLA officers will look for further opportunities for this in the new term.

In addition to this ongoing work we also have work planned to support delivery of the remaining recommendations in this theme.

In addition to their core tasks of providing advice, information and awareness raising, in 2022-23 Enquire will carry out development work to improve service efficiency and increase capacity to provide advice and information to as many parents and carers as possible. This will include delivery of targeted outreach sessions to groups who may face barriers to accessing digital and online services; additional outreach sessions to professionals and advisers and a comprehensive review of their helpline delivery model.

"The adviser was really good, listened to what I had to say and very quickly and efficiently outlined some key points of advice. They also very promptly sent me lots of follow up information which I have found to be really useful."

Quote from a parent's experience of Enquire

The Scottish Government has included information and signposting on additional support for learning within Read, Write Count packs. Building on this we will carry out a mapping exercise to capture the universal resources that are proactively provided to families. Following this, we will explore opportunities to update these resources to include information on additional support for learning within the context of whole family support.

We also recognise that more must be done to ensure that parents are pro-actively provided with information and signposting to support services about the support that their child might be entitled to in Early Learning and Childcare Settings. Therefore, the Scottish Government will work with our partners, including parents and carers and professionals, to consider further opportunities to enhance the information and signposting proactively offered to parents and carers in these settings.