Tackling child poverty delivery plan 2022-2026 - annex 8: children's rights and wellbeing impact assessment

9. How will you communicate to children and young people the impact of the policy/measure on their rights?

An Easy Read version of the Executive Summary of the Plan will be published.

Many of the policies in this Plan are directed at the parents/the family as a whole - supporting children's rights and wellbeing via supporting their caregivers. Communicating with parents about the support available to them and their families is a key challenge identified in the plan. The Plan will seek to improve access to advice services, adopting a strategic approach to communications so that families, and the people supporting them, can better understand and navigate the services available.

Through the process of this CRWIA additional stakeholders have been identified to help establish clear and constructive dialogues with children and young people about the contents and principles of the Plan. This is important both to inform children of policies affecting them, and to welcome their feedback as we evaluate the impacts of those policies.

We will look to build upon our relationship with Young Scot. The Scottish Government invests £975,000 annually for the Young Scot National Entitlement Card, which offers discounts and rewards to reduce costs of food, travel etc., as well as access to targeted offers for those most in need, e.g. Young Carers packages. We will look to strengthen our relationship with Young Scot to promote communications with children and young people about the Plan.

The emerging Young Islanders Network (YIN) will enable children and young people from all of Scotland's inhabited islands to have their voices heard on issues in their communities, including participation in the delivery of the National Islands Plan. Following its official launch, (which is scheduled to take place in spring 2022) we aim to undertake partnership work with the YIN and Youth Scotland, who is responsible for coordinating the development and delivery of the YIN on behalf of the Scottish Government. This collaboration will ensure that policy developments associated with the new Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan (2022-2026) fully consider the interests, priorities and lived-experience of children and young people on islands, and how its delivery will affect them. Our vision is to better understand the specific contextual difficulties for tackling child poverty in island communities and to ensure that this understanding is embedded in the child poverty policies that are being developed and delivered across the Scottish Government. As part of this approach and alongside a broad range of other measures, this targeted and solution-focussed engagement with the YIN will support us in continuing to do all that we can to tackle child poverty, across all of Scotland's island communities.