Keeping The Promise to our children, young people and families: progress update 2024

Part 7 Detailed Review of Progress Against our Actions and Commitments

To mirror the approach set out in The Promise and the structure of The Promise Implementation Plan, updates on activity across Scottish Government are presented against each of the four stated aims.

1. Keeping Families Together Through Whole Family Support And Support For Our Care Experienced Children, Young People And Adults

2. A Good Childhood For Our Children And Young People

3. Creating The Right Scaffolding

4. Building Capacity

As detailed in previous chapters our work to track the progress of delivering The Promise is underpinned by our theory of change, which identified the primary drivers, secondary drivers, and activities which need to be undertaken across Scotland to realise the vision of The Promise.

The Promise Progress Framework builds on the theory of change to create a link between how these activities are feeding into the vision for change and better understand how this work is impacting the experiences and outcomes of the care experienced community. Going forward, the Framework will tell the story of change and how these changes are impacting the outcomes we need to improve.

Alignment with the National Performance Framework and Children, Young People and Families Wellbeing Outcomes Framework will ensure we are understanding whether the care experienced community is getting what we all need to thrive, and how this work is contributing to Scotland’s overall aims.

In this part of the plan we provide an update on progress against each of the actions and commitments that were presented by the Scottish Government in The Promise Implementation Plan published in March 2022.

This demonstrates progress towards targeted activities and initiatives; policy and legislative change; investment in services; and support through universal service provision. While some of the activities will support change and improvement in particular areas it is the sum of all the actions that we take that will truly impact the change that keeping The Promise requires to collectively drive our national commitment to improve the lives of children, young people, adults and families with care experience.

1. Keeping Families Together Through Whole Family Support And Support For Our Care Experienced Children, Young People And Adults

Commitment

Whole Family Wellbeing Funding

We are committed to investing £500m in Whole Family Wellbeing to improve holistic family support so that families get the right support, in the right way and at the right time.

Status

The Whole Family Wellbeing Funding Programme aims to enable and support the system change required at local Children’s Service Planning Partnership (CSPP) level to deliver holistic family support so that families can access the help they need, where and when needed. This is a transition fund, which is focused on delivering the system changes required to shift investment towards early intervention and prevention activities.

Since 2022-23, £50m per annum has been allocated to support activity focused on:

• providing funding direct to CSPPs to build capacity for change and test and scale transformational practice;
• providing national support for local change, including 3 collaborative partnerships with CSPPs to explore learning about what will enable this system change;
• building a co-ordinated cross-portfolio approach to delivering system change.

Going in to 2024-25, we have maintained this commitment to spend, allowing us to continue the programme of activity which has been established across a range of workstreams. In particular, it maintains our multi-year commitment of £32m to Children’s Service Planning Partnerships for them to progress their transformation plans at local level.

The Year 1 Programme evaluation was published on 31 January 2024. Further case study examples, including information about projects we have funded as part of a cross Scottish Government approach to system change, are detailed in our online Knowledge Hub. In the Programme for Government 2023/4 the commitment was made to publish our Whole Family Wellbeing investment approach to supporting the provision of preventative, holistic family support. This is presented in Part 4.

Commitment

The Promise Partnership Fund

We will continue to support early intervention through investing in The Promise Partnership Fund until 2024-25 ensuring alignment with the Whole Family Wellbeing Funding.

We will continue to ensure alignment to our Tackling Child Poverty goals and that this transformational change delivers the person centred family support needed to tackle child poverty.

Status

In 2022 the Scottish Government appointed Corra to administer £12 million (£4m p.a.) through The Promise Partnership Fund from December 2022 until March 2025.

To date this has helped over 100 organisations and local authorities across the country to take steps towards implementing The Promise, focussing on supporting the care sector, workforce, helping brothers and sisters stay together, and moving on from care.

The organisations supported range from third sector organisations, local authorities, including Health and Social Care Partnerships and NHS Boards, universities and Police Scotland. A number of the projects involve collaboration across sectors and organisations and show how joint working can lead to wider change. Some examples of projects supported by The Promise Partnership Fund are included in Part 2.

Commitment

Access to financial advice

Adult Learning and Empowering Communities (CYPFEI & ALEC) Fund

We will, from April 2023 introduce a new third sector fund which will replace the Children, Young People, Families Early Intervention and Adult Learning and Empowering Communities (CYPFEI & ALEC) Fund.

Status

The Scottish Government has committed to continue the Children, Young People, Families Early Intervention and Adult Learning and Empowering Communities funding (CYPFEI & ALEC) until March 2025. In addition, the budget has been increased (2023/25) by a further £6 million to support 22 additional third sector organisations since July 2023 under the new Children, Young People, Families and Adult Learning (CYPFAL) third sector fund which is also committed until March 2025.

CYPFEI & ALEC has provided over £106m core funding to 115 organisations since 2016 to deliver support that tackles inequalities, child and

family poverty, improve learning and build skills across Scotland. The fund supports third sector organisations who work with children and families to ensure that sustained, high quality support is available. The Promise is embedded as one of the main focuses and key policy priorities in the fund by way of supporting organisations who are providing services to young people with care experience and their families.

Commitment

Access to financial advice

Advice in Accessible Settings

We will invest £10 million over the Parliament to increase access to advice services in accessible settings through Welfare Advice and Health Partnerships, other health settings and community hubs and education settings giving people the opportunity to access holistic advice in a place they are comfortable visiting.

Status

The Scottish Government has committed over £4.7m in total since 2021 to the Welfare Advice and Health Partnerships, and committed a further £2.5m in 2023-25 to the Advice in Accessible Settings Fund delivered by Advice UK. This funding supports 32 partnerships delivering debt, welfare, and income maximisation advice in health, community, and education settings.

From July 2023 to June 2024 there were over £7.5m of financial gains recorded for the total of over 5,500 people supported with over 4,000 clients recorded as belonging to one of the six priority family group households. Over

£700,000 of financial gains were directly related to children, for school meal vouchers, Educational Maintenance Allowance, Scottish Child Payment, school clothing grants, and charitable grants from children’s charities.

Along with investment in the Welfare Advice Health Partnerships there is now significant accessible household financial advice available across Scotland. Alongside investment in the WAHP as set out below there is now significant accessible household financial advice available across Scotland.

Commitment

Access to financial advice

Welfare Advice and Health Partnerships & Money Talk Team

We will expand Welfare Advice and Health Partnerships, placing money advisors in up to 150 GP practices in some of Scotland’s most deprived areas. We plan to expand this to other health settings and community hubs and to expand on pilot local partnership approaches providing advice in education settings giving people the opportunity to access holistic advice in a place they are comfortable visiting.

We will simplify our financial advice services funding streams, including funding for Citizens Advice Scotland to enable a focus on outcomes rather than inputs, delivering joined up advice and support combining income maximisation and reducing household costs.

Status

To date, the Scottish Government has invested over £4.7m, since 2021, in a ‘test and learn’ programme of Welfare Advice and Health Partnerships (WAHP), supporting people to access advice in up to 180 GP practices across Scotland, with 150 targeted in the most deprived communities and 30 in remote, rural and island settings.

Through the initiative, embedded welfare rights advisors can provide regulated and accredited advice on a number of issues including social security entitlement, income maximisation, debt resolution, and employability. The objective of this funding has been to understand and demonstrate the effectiveness and positive impacts of this accessible advice model and to encourage participating local authorities and health and social care partnerships to consider this model of advice provision. The interim evaluation identified more than £17.9 million in financial gains for the over 13,000 service users (between July 2022 and October 2023).

Following successful completion of the ‘test and learn’ phase in 2024, the Scottish Government is seeking to support participating local authorities, through continued investment, to mainstream the WAHPs model over the medium-term.

A new, streamlined Money Talk Team service is now being delivered by Citizens Advice Scotland. The funding arrangement brings together three previously separate funding streams into one grant agreement. The service incorporates income maximisation, welfare and specialist debt advice delivered through one national website and telephone number as well as the CAB network of local bureaux. The service continues to provide holistic household financial advice across Scotland. In 2024-24 over 48,000 clients were

supported, including over 10,000 from Tackling Child Poverty priority family groups. Total client gains reached over £33.7 million and for priority family groups, this totalled over £9 million.

Funding for the Money Talk Team service continues in 2024/25.

Commitment

Homelessness Prevention

We will implement the next phase of work to end homelessness and rough sleeping in Scotland and invest a further £50 million over the current parliamentary term to continue this work.

We will continue to provide help with housing costs for those most in need through Discretionary Housing Payments and will put in place measures to mitigate the previous UK Government's benefit cap as fully as we can within the scope of devolved powers.

Status

We continue to work closely with COSLA and third sector partners to deliver our Ending Homelessness Together action plan, of which the delivery of our five prevention pathways for people at higher risk of homelessness is part. The five groups include care leavers and young people.

This is supported by providing a total of £100 million from our multi-year Ending Homelessness Together Fund to transform the homelessness system. This includes funding of £62.5 million (between 2018-25) to local authorities for development and implementation of their rapid rehousing transition plans to support people into settled accommodation and Housing First which provides settled accommodation with intensive support for people require it, with some local authorities operate a Housing First for youth programme targeted specifically for care leavers.

We also give local authorities £30.5 million annually specifically for their work to prevent homelessness, recognising that the best way to end homelessness is to stop it happening in the first place.

In 2023-24 we committed an additional £2 million of funding for local authorities to reduce the use of temporary accommodation. And we will invest over £90 million in Discretionary Housing Payments (DHPs) in 2024-25 – an increase of over £6 million on 2023-24 – which enables us to mitigate the previous UK Government’s bedroom tax and benefit cap.

The Minister for Housing has also convened a Ministerial Oversight Group on Homelessness which brings together Ministers from across a range of Scottish Government areas to promote joined up working, strategic funding and to drive forward the ethos of a shared responsibility to prevent homelessness.

Commitment

Scottish Recommended Allowance for Kinship and Foster Carers

We will set a Recommended National Allowance for foster and kinship allowances. This investment will mean that no matter which area of Scotland children are living in, their caregivers will receive at least the Scottish Recommended Allowance to care for them.

Status

The Scottish Recommended Allowance (SRA) for kinship and foster carers was announced on 29 August 2023. Funded by an additional £16 million from the Scottish Government, the new allowance has benefitted more than 9,000 children. Introduction of the payment means every eligible foster and kinship carer will receive at least a standard, national allowance which recognises the valuable support they provide, no matter where they live.

Following agreement with COSLA, this marks the first time a set rate, which all local authorities must pay, has been introduced across Scotland. The weekly allowances, which will be backdated to 1 April 2023, are:

• 0 to 4 year-olds: £168.31
• 5 to 10 year-olds: £195.81
• 11 to 15 year-olds: £195.81
• 16-years-old and over: £268.41

The Scottish Government has committed to a review of the implementation of the SRA to start in the autumn of 2024.

Commitment

Whole Family Approach to Children & Young People’s Mental Health

We will support mental health pathways and services for vulnerable children and young people. Aligned to the work of The Promise, these pathways will ensure that support is available and accessible to those who need it, at the right time. This will also work to ensure there are no gaps in provision of mental health support.

Status

As highlighted within the 2023 Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy and accompanying Delivery Plan, the Scottish Government and COSLA have launched a new Joint Strategic Board for Children and Family Mental Health (JSB) with a remit spanning pre-conception, the perinatal period, early years, children and young people (up to 26 for care leavers), their families and carers.

Building on the recommendations of predecessor groups and as part of a whole system approach, the JSB will consider how gaps in provision of crisis support and children and families in vulnerable situations can best be addressed, alongside work on prevention and early intervention. The JSB will work to an Outcomes Framework to support and frame its work. This framework is intended to inform actions that the JSB may plan, and the type of monitoring and evaluation that may be useful, feasible and proportionate. It links across many related policy areas and supports the Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy outcomes, as well as the National Performance Framework.

The Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy Delivery Plan (2023-25) commits to funding the enhancement of crisis and distress services for children and young people, giving particular consideration to the needs of children and young people with care experience or on the edges of care.

Going forward we will work closely with stakeholders to ensure that a range of supports are in place to meet the needs of children and young people. We are also seeking to enhance the focus on mental health within Children’s Services Planning processes, including the co-development of national briefing. The review of Part 3 Children's Services Planning Statutory guidance will provide a further opportunity to strengthen content on mental health/mental wellbeing. This is anticipated to be completed over 2024 with consultation in early 2025 and publication of revised statutory guidance by June 2025.

Joint work to support the mental health in schools digital resource, school counselling services and whole school approaches to mental health, will continue to address the spectrum of mental health and wellbeing needs in schools, with a new digital resource in development for primary school aged children to support coping and resilience skills.

We have fully delivered on the Programme for Government commitment to support colleges and universities to introduce more than 80 extra counsellors to support their students’ mental health with an investment of almost £16 million over four years since 2019/20. Additionally, we are investing over £3.2 million in academic year 23/24 in a Student Mental Health Transition Fund to help institutions diversify their support offering to students and integrate with local services. We are also consulting with stakeholders in developing a Student Mental Health Action Plan.

Commitment

Island Dimension

We will continue to work with NHS Boards, local authorities and Health and Social Care Partnerships to ensure that there is fair, accessible health and social care for those on islands, as set out in our National Islands Plan (2019). We will also continue to identify and promote good practice to enable the improvement of services in rural Scotland and across Scotland’s islands.

Status

The Rural Scotland Data Dashboard, which supports development of the Rural Delivery Plan by the Ministerial Working Group, and the Scottish Islands Data Dashboard, which presents data categorised by the strategic objectives of the National Islands Plan, were published in December 2023. The dashboards are a compilation of evidence on Scotland’s rural and islands communities, drawn from a range of sources. They provide baseline and trend data to aid understanding of the extent to which Scottish Government outcomes are being achieved in rural and islands areas and will contribute to identifying priorities and gaps.

A vision, strategic objectives, and ambition statements are being drafted, and key performance indicators selected, for the Rural Delivery Plan. The Plan will gather evidence from stakeholders and communities via a review of public consultations since 2021, and we will connect with a broad programme of existing engagement to share information and developments with stakeholders.

We will continue to monitor progress through the Rural Scotland Data Dashboard and the Scottish Islands Data Dashboard. The dashboards contain data on life expectancy, satisfaction with services, general health, diet, alcohol and tobacco use, suicide rates and experience of care.

Commitment

Whole Family Approach to Drug & Support

Our whole family approach to drug and alcohol services is supported by Scottish Government annual investment of £3.5 million over the next 5 years. Additional funding such as the £3 million Children and Families Fund administered through the Corra Foundation, is in place to improve support for children, young people and families impacted by drug use, and ensure all children, young people and families have access to services.

Status

£3 million continues to be available to Alcohol and Drug Partnerships to support local implementation of the delivery framework. 23 projects have been funded to date through the Children and Families fund administered by Corra.

As part of the development of drugs and alcohol policy for Early Interventions for Children and Young People we have considered the needs of care experienced and looked after young people. We are working with Public Health Scotland to develop a National Consensus Statement for reducing harms in young people affected by substances, as well as developing National Standards for young people affected by substance use.

The Early Interventions for Children and Young People working group includes members who work with young people with care experience. We recently engaged young people in a co-design process, and the outcomes from this engagement will be used to develop standards of support for young people with problematic drug or alcohol use. During this process, we engaged with various cohorts of young people, which included young people who have lived and living experience of being in care.

The Scottish Government are supporting Alcohol and Drug Partnerships and local partners to implement the delivery framework. We are developing implementation support for local partners which includes family inclusive practice pathways at an operational level across the alcohol and drug workforce; national quality standards; and monitoring and evaluation processes. Survey results provided a national baseline and an understanding of local progress.

• Families on the Frontline was a two-day national conference held March 2023 which brought families and services from across Scotland together.
• The National Development Programme for Family Inclusive Practice commenced June 2023 – the learning will support other local areas develop pathways to meet the needs of their families, free training to support this will be made available to ADPs.
• A Whole Family Approach/ Family Inclusive Practice (WFA/FIP) Test event for ADPs and stakeholders was held in Highland, and a deep dive is underway into the outcomes from this event to shape a future event offer and implementation support offer to ADPs.
• Phoenix Futures officially opened their National Specialist Families Service, known as Harper House, in November 2022.
• Public Health Scotland’s most recent report published in June 2024 showed that between October 2023 and March 2024, 21 placements were approved at Harper House, with 32 placements approved overall in the 2023-24 financial year. Officials are continuing to work closely with Phoenix Futures to raise awareness of Harper House and to support with localised blockers where appropriate, with the aim of working towards full capacity and utilisation by 2025-26.
• Aberlour Childcare Trust officially opened the first of their Mother and Child Houses in Dundee in January 2023, with the second house due to be officially opened in Falkirk on 2 September 2024.
• Aberlour's Dundee Mother and Child House has maintained occupancy levels since opening; supporting 8 placements with 8 women and 8 children in its first year .. Cowan Grove is also now embedded in Dundee’s Drug and Alcohol Rehabilitation pathway.

Implementation progress survey will be issued to ADPs in autumn 2024 to identify progress and gaps for national support priorities. We will also develop Families Standards monitoring and evaluation.

Harper House are progressing their aim to be a Centre of Excellence for whole family interventions in Scotland. A partnership is in place with Liverpool John Moore’s University undertaking research focusing on outcomes and impact, to support with final reporting in 2025/26.

Aberlour commissioned the Social Value Lab to conduct an external evaluation into the impact of Cowan Grove following its first operational year. The final report was completed and shared with Scottish Government in July 2024.

We are also working across government, as well as with key stakeholders and women with lived experience to develop guidance to support the wellbeing women who use substances, and their babies, in the perinatal period.

Commitment

Whole Family Approach to Drug & Alcohol Support

Minimum Unit Pricing (MUP)

On 17 April 2024, the Scottish Parliament voted to continue minimum unit pricing and increase the minimum price per unit of alcohol to 65p

Alcohol Advertising

We are taking forward further action to tackle alcohol harm including considering potential restrictions on alcohol marketing and advertising following the consultation that closed in 2023.

Status

Minimum Unit Pricing (MUP)

A key strategy for tackling alcohol-related harm in Scotland was the introduction of minimum unit pricing (MUP) in 2018, setting the minimum cost of one unit of alcohol to 50p. Since then, the Scottish Parliament has agreed legislation brought forward by Ministers to continue the effect of the MUP legislation beyond 30 April 2024 and to raise the level it is set at to 65p per unit, aiming to increase its public health benefits. An independent evaluation of MUP found that, during the period it was reviewed, MUP was estimated to have reduced alcohol-related deaths by 13.4% and likely to have reduced hospital admissions by 4.1% compared to what would have happened if MUP had not been in place.

The Scottish Government is currently considering whether there should be an agreed process at set intervals to review MUP and the price of MUP in future. As part of this industry, business and all key stakeholders will be engaged to consider the potential impacts of implementing an uprating mechanism at specific time intervals might be.

Alcohol Advertising

The Scottish Government is fully committed to improving public health and reducing the health risks faced by young people, including by considering how to reduce their exposure to alcohol marketing – one of the World Health Organization’s three ‘best buys’ to prevent and reduce alcohol-related harm. Research has consistently shown that exposure to marketing is associated with an increased likelihood that children will start to drink or – if they already drink – drink more.

That is why we consulted on proposals to restrict alcohol advertising and promotion in 2022/23 and are continuing to engage with public health stakeholders and business organisations with an interest in alcohol advertising to ensure it strikes the right balance in achieving its public health aims.

Commitment

Whole Family Approach to Children & Young People’s Mental Health

Joint Strategic Board

We will, through The Joint Strategic Board for Child and Family Mental Health, oversee reforms.

Community Services

An additional £15 million to local authorities to fund new and enhanced supports and services for children and young people aged 5-24 in the communities; and an additional £15 million will be provided in 2022/23 to fund the continuation of these services.

Crisis Support

We will ensure crisis support is available 24/7 to children and young people, filling any gaps that exist in telephone and text crisis services for 5-24 year olds their families and carers.

Status

The Joint Strategic Board for Child and Family Mental Health (JSB) is taking forward crisis support as one of its four key priority areas. As outlined above, the JSB is building on the recommendations made by the Children and Young People’s Mental Health and Wellbeing Joint Delivery Board to consider how the gaps in provision of crisis support can best be addressed, including gaps in digital services. Additionally, the Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy Delivery Plan (2023-25) commits to funding the enhancement of crisis and distress services for Children and Young People.

Funding of £64,000 has been awarded to Medics Against Violence for the expansion of their Youth Navigators programme. The programme supports

young people aged 12-16 arriving at Emergency Departments who are experiencing crisis, and the funding also allows for a pilot of the programme in a school.

The JSB considered the crisis support priority area in its first full meeting in February 2024. It is anticipated that JSB will stand up implementation group(s) to support this work. The Board will have a strategic overview of mental health work spanning preconception, the perinatal period, parent-infant relationships, early years (up to 5), children and young people (5-24 year olds or 26 years for care leavers), their families and carers – with a particular focus on the most vulnerable groups.

Through the joint Scottish Government/COSLA Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy Delivery Plan, we have committed to fund delivery of community-based mental health and wellbeing services for children and young people, with a further £15 million committed for 24/25. This now supports over 300 services; with local authorities reporting that over 58,000 children, young people and family members accessed this support in the first half of 2023.

Commitment

Whole Family Approach to Children & Young People’s Mental Health

Mental Health Pathways

Supporting mental health pathways and services for vulnerable children and young people. Aligned to the work of The Promise, these pathways will ensure that support is available and accessible to those who need it, at the right time. This will also work to ensure there are no gaps in provision of mental health support.

Status

Joint Strategic Board for Children and Family Mental Health

The Joint Strategic Board for Children and Family Mental Health (JSB) is focused on identifying key areas for improvement in the mental health and wellbeing support available to children and young people in vulnerable situations, while reviewing data and evidence and the views of children and young people with care experience to support this. The group used care experience as a lens by which to explore system changes, which can impact on and lead to improvement for all children and young people in vulnerable situations.

The Board is taking forward support for children and families in vulnerable situations (e.g. with care experience) as one of its four key priority areas building on the recommendations made by the Children and Young People’s Mental Health and Wellbeing Joint Delivery Board to consider how the gaps in provision and barriers to accessing support for children and families with care experience or on the edges of care.

The JSB considered the support for children and young people and families in vulnerable situations (with a particular focus on children and young people with care experience) priority area at its second meeting in March 2024. It is anticipated that JSB will stand up implementation groups to support the work to further all priority areas and that all implementation groups will give consideration to The Promise. Further, there are likely to be specific implementation groups considering the needs of those in care, or with care experience.

Additionally, the Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy Delivery Plan (2023-25) commits to giving specific consideration to children and young people with care experienced or on the edges of care when developing any expansion of crisis and distress services for children and young people.

Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) and Neurodevelopmental Services for Children and Young People

In 2023/24, we allocated funding of £55.5 million via the Mental Health Outcomes Framework to improve the quality and delivery of mental health and psychological services for all. This is on top of the £36.6 million that Boards received in 2022-23. In 2024/25, the Scottish Government has directly allocated £120 million to NHS Boards and Integrated Joint Boards through a new Enhanced Mental Health Outcomes Framework in 2024/25. The Framework focuses on embedding increased capacity in CAMHS as well as supporting improvements across a range of mental health and psychological services in line with the Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy. Additionally, Scottish Government has allocated over £3.4 million in 2024/25 to NHS Boards to support delivery of regional service provision of the CAMHS Service Specification. This funding will work towards delivery of the first of three regional Intensive Psychiatric Care Units (IPCU) for Adolescents; Learning Disability, Forensic and Secure Care CAMHS pathways; and Intensive Home Treatment Team services.

The priorities for the funding for 2024/25 are to continue delivering improvements in CAMHS, psychological therapies, eating disorders and neurodevelopmental services, as well as ongoing innovation and service reform.

This funding continues to contribute to:

• Clearing long waits for CAMHS and meeting the waiting times standards.
• Implementing and delivering local elements of the national CAMHS service specification, including improvement in provision for those with eating disorders, by March 2026.
• Supporting improvements in both neurodevelopmental services for children and young people and eating disorder services.

Neurodevelopmental Services for Children & Young People

We are supporting boards to implement the National Neurodevelopmental Specification. As part of this, we funded five tests of change which are focusing on implementing various aspects of the Specification. Four of the Neurodevelopmental Tests of Change continued until March 2024. So far, through the Tests of Change, we have gathered a good understanding of key challenges and barriers faced in implementing various aspects of the Neurodevelopmental Specification including challenges around: funding, multi-agency working, role of education and workforce more generally.

The Neurodevelopmental Tests of Change concluded in March 2024 and reported to Scottish Government in May 2024. We aim to share learning and information from this final stage with all appropriate stakeholders to support wider implementation of the specification and inform future policy development. We are also considering how best to share the tools and resources which have been developed as a result of the Tests of Change so that these can be utilised and replicated in other areas of Scotland, where appropriate. We intend to revisit the specification to ensure it continues to be relevant and meets the needs of children and their families. Progress with implementation of the National CAMHS and Neurodevelopmental Service Specifications will be fed in to JSB updates.

Commitment

Perinatal and Infant Mental Health

The Perinatal and Infant Mental Health Programme Board 2020-2021 set out its commitment to keep The Promise by ensuring its work is:

• informed by lived experience at a strategic and operational level with family members being meaningfully involved in decision-making.
• supports positive relationships within families and creating opportunities for positive relationships where it is not possible for children to stay with their families.
• actively supports the development of relationships within families and with the community and professional systems involved, who in turn must be supported to listen and be compassionate in their decision making and care
• is accompanied by responsive help, support and accountability to enable support to be accessed and utilised to its fullest potential.

Status

Following the conclusion of the Perinatal and Infant Mental Health Programme Board, and the associated Children and Young People’s Mental Health and Wellbeing Joint Delivery Board (JDB) and recognising the ongoing need to support infants, children, young people and families with their mental health and wellbeing, COSLA and the Scottish Government are now progressing this work through the new Joint Strategic Board for Children and Family Mental Health (JSB).

In addition, the Scottish Government has recently opened a new round of the Perinatal and Infant

Mental Health Fund. This fund of £1.5 million over 18 months is for charities providing support to pregnant women, new mums and their families to expand and enhance their mental health and wellbeing services. Over 10,000 parents, expectant parents and infants have been supported by existing funded organisations since 2019. The new round of funding will start from October 2024.

The Voice of the Infant Best Practice Guidelines and Infant Pledge was published in 2023 and supports the recognition and understanding of the voice of all infants.

Currently there are 13 health boards in Scotland with new Infant Mental Health services. To support this the Perinatal Mental Health Network Scotland have published an IMH Service Development Guide and role descriptors for Parent-Infant Therapists. Infant mental health service provision is part of a wider evaluation being conducted by PHS which is due to start reporting in spring/summer 2024.

Awareness raising has been a key part of the Infant Mental Health work with two runs of a social media campaign using film and images to highlight the importance of early interactions. This campaign was accompanied by the launch of the Wellbeing for Wee Ones Hub on the Parent Club website, supporting parents to gain an understanding of their infant’s emotional wellbeing from an early stage. We have since built on this work with some filming focused around how items in the Baby Box can be used to promote attachment and infant mental health.

We have developed a suite of Infant Mental Health focused content on the Parent Club website on a set of pages called Wellbeing for Wee Ones. Since the infant mental health campaign launched in February 2021, there has been over 100,000 visits to the infant mental health pages on the Parent Club website. During the 2021 and 2022 campaigns, we engaged with over 23,000 people via Parent Club social media posts. The Wellbeing for Wee Ones campaign re-run took place from October to December 2023.

We have made the Solihull Online programmes accessible to every parent across Scotland, providing evidence based information on relationships and child development all the way through to 18 years. It has been accessed by over 25,000 parents and professionals. An increase of 6,000 since 2022.

One of the priorities of the Joint Strategic Board is mental health support during pregnancy and the early years. Prioritising this area of work aims to further enhance cross-organisation working and further develop support, across the full range from preconception to 5 years with specific focus on the perinatal period (preconception to 1 year) and during infancy (up to third birthday) which are both key life stages. The work and impact of the Child and Family Mental Health Joint Strategic Board will be considered through the JSB’s Outcomes framework.

Commitment

Supporting Disabled Children & Young People

Self-Directed Support

In March 2021 we published a framework of standards to ensure consistency of outcomes and approaches in self-directed support practice across Scotland. We will review the statutory guidance which accompanies the Social Care (Self-Directed Support) (Scotland) Act 2013 in order to reflect learning and developments since the legislation was introduced, and to ensure services are delivered flexibly in a way that reflects the specific situations of everyone who receives Self Directed Support.

Status

The Self-Directed Support (SDS) Statutory Guidance was updated in November 2022. This is a major update of the guidance which prioritises a human rights approach and the rights and responsibilities of duty bearers under the provisions of the SDS Act 2013 (and related legislation). The update incorporates content on children, families and instructing local authorities to ensure that they are allowing social workers sufficient autonomy to exercise professional judgement regarding provision of SDS to children, their families, young carers and those in transition, and referencing appropriate other legislation which applies. Concerning disability, the guidance emphasises the mitigation of societal barriers placed that disabled children and their families may face with respect to their access to services, and to give those children the opportunities to live lives which are as normal as possible. A SDS Improvement Plan builds on the update of this guidance with effect from April 2023.

The Improvement Plan 2023-27 was developed jointly with COSLA and the SDS National Collaboration and was published in June 2023, and an annual progress report is due in the summer of 2024. The overarching aim of the SDS Improvement Plan is to support and enable people of all ages (including children) to achieve the outcomes that are important to them, to lead full and meaningful lives, and to participate in and contribute to the economy and society.

The activities within the Improvement Plan will be supported with a Scottish Government contribution of over £7.5m for 2023/24, comprising a package of grants implemented by Social Work Scotland, In Control Scotland, Inspiring Scotland, and the ALLIANCE. This includes a revision and relaunch of the Support in the Right Direction programme, which will commence for three years from April 2024. The Improvement Plan 2023-27 annual progress report for year one will be published in the summer of 2024.

Commitment

Access to Early Learning & Childcare

Maximise Uptake of the Existing Offer

We will maximise uptake of the existing offer of funded ELC for eligible 2 year olds

We will embed learning from the roll out of the Equity and Excellence Leads (EELs) roles and from our investment in the Family Learning Scotland Programme.

Status

The Scottish Government continues to work with the Improvement Service to support local authorities with maximising the current offer. This include supporting local authorities to access ‘Datapipeline’ (the online platform through which local authorities can access data on households in their area with an eligible, or nearly eligible, two-year-old) and make best use of the data and identify improvements with other eligible families who are not part of the data share e.g. children and families with care experience.

We are developing an Early Learning & Childcare Outcomes Framework which along with the establishment of a new Education Assurance Board will ensure greater local accountability for improvement.

Peeple were chosen as the delivery partner for Families Learning Together.

We plan to evaluate the impact of the Equity and Excellence Leads (EELs) programme in 2024-25. We are developing an Early Learning & Childcare Outcomes Framework will ensure greater local accountability for improvement.

Commitment

Implementing GIRFEC

We reaffirmed our commitment to GIRFEC policy in September 2019 and we continue to work with practitioners and other stakeholders to refresh national guidance materials to support consistent effective practice across all children’s services.

Policy and Practice Guidance

The Scottish Government is strongly committed to GIRFEC and is updating Policy and Practice Guidance to provide organisations and practitioners with confidence and clarity to continue to deliver this approach.

We will implement our vision and principles focused specifically on children with, or on the edges of, care experience, building on the GIRFEC principles and values, and principles of holistic family support. This work will contribute to the shared aims and wellbeing outcomes of the Children, Young People and Families Outcome Framework.

Children’s Services Planning Partnerships and the Kinship Care Collaborative

We will continue our work with Children’s Services Planning Partnerships and the Kinship Care Collaborative to improve delivery of holistic whole family support including through our work to:

• support pregnancy and maternal health and development through implementation of the guidance for schools on how to support young pregnant women/young parents to stay in school; and guidance on Healthy Relationships and consent.
• continue to support families through preventative health and care programmes, including maternity services, Family Nurse Partnership and health visiting, and initiatives designed for families and early years including: Baby Box, BookBug and Play, Talk, Read.
• support families to access employment or education through provision of early years childcare; and increase financial assistance through doubling of the Scottish Child Payment and further increasing it to £25 by end 2022 when roll out to 6 – 15 year olds takes place. Scottish Child Payment was extended to under 16s and increased to £25 on 14 November 2022.
• support programmes like Intandem that provide scaffolding to support children and young people who are subject to a compulsory supervision order (or at-risk of becoming so), living at home or in kinship arrangements.

Status

Policy and Practice Guidance

In September 2022 the Scottish Government published GIRFEC policy and practice guidance materials (GIRFEC Policy Statement, practice guidance on Using the National Practice Model, the role of the named person and the role of the lead professional and information sharing, and statutory guidance on Assessment of Wellbeing).

In October 2023 we published the GIRFEC Child’s Plan Practice Statement to communicate our current policy intention regarding the roles and responsibilities of practitioners involved with the development and monitoring of a non-statutory GIRFEC Child’s Plan. This accompanies the suite of GIRFEC practice guidance produced in 2022.

Children, Young People and Families Outcome Framework

The GIRFEC guidance underpins our approaches to holistic family support and contributes to the shared aims and wellbeing outcomes of the Children, Young People and Families Outcome Framework. The GIRFEC multi-agency approach provides a framework to plan care and support for children, young people and families across a range of services to help families meet their individual needs, to thrive and to stay together. The Outcomes Framework provides a consistent approach to measuring and evaluating effectiveness and impact on improved outcomes for children, young people, and their families. The national report on Core Wellbeing Indicators of the Children, Young People and Families Outcomes Framework was published in September 2023. Phase 2 CYPF Outcomes Framework includes further exploration of deep dive and developing data focused on more specific aspects of wellbeing, including care experience and family support with further detailed analysis of the core wellbeing indicators published with a focus on the impact of poverty on child and parental wellbeing.

GIRFEC Learning Network

The Scottish Government has also established a GIRFEC Learning Network – a forum in which effective practice can be shared between ‘Getting it right for every child’ leads across Scotland. It also provides a professional space where practitioners and leaders can identify common challenges with implementation of the values and principles of GIRFEC and how these can be overcome. This approach aligns with our response to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child’s recommendation to “strengthen the capacity of all relevant professionals for assessing and determining the best interests of the child and for giving it due weight as a primary consideration”. The Network meets approximately every 8 weeks, with members driving the workplan of key areas for learning and development across the implementation of ‘Getting it right for every child’ principles into everyday practice. The Scottish Government will also work with network members to arrange regional learning events to facilitate discussion on GIRFEC implementation within local contexts and strengthen partnership working across local authorities and Health Boards.

Children’s Services Plans

The Scottish Government are currently undertaking the statutory review of Children's Services Plans. This includes a statutory review criteria which considers the extent to which each Children’s Services Plan has detailed how partners in adult and children's services are working collaboratively to create and maintain effective Getting it Right for Every Child practice for individual children, young people and their families through local GIRFEC arrangements – the analysis and review will be completed with feedback provided to CSPP areas by April 2024 and a national report of themes and findings published by October 2024.

Children’s Services Planning Partnerships and the Kinship Care Collaborative

As part of the ongoing work to support pregnancy and maternal health development the guidance for schools on how to support young pregnant women/young parents to stay in school; and guidance on Healthy Relationships and Consent for young people have been implemented. This is part of the wider work to support young pregnant parents through the Pregnancy and Parenthood in Young People Strategy. The information leaflet aimed at young pregnant women/young parents in school was published in March 2023, on gov.scot and Young Scot. The leaflet was circulated round a range of stakeholders for further dissemination, Education Scotland are uploading it to their resource page shortly.

During 2024 we will continue to strengthen cross-policy links to GIRFEC implementation across the Children and Families Directorate and wider Scottish Government policy areas. This will include highlighting the alignment between the principles of GIRFEC and UNCRC incorporation into Scots Law.

We are also working in partnership with NHS Education for Scotland to support their development of GIRFEC e-learning resources for practitioners to increase confidence and support learning and development around the ‘Getting it right for every child’ multi-agency approach.

Commitment

Growing Up: Improving Health and Wellbeing

Universal Health Visiting Pathway

Every family in Scotland has access to preventative health services, which offer universal prevention, health promotion, and early intervention to families with young children. Available from pregnancy through to 5 years (school entry), with a scale of intensity proportionate to need.

Through the Family Nurse Partnership programme, young, first-time mothers aged 19 and under (and 20-24 in some areas, based on additional need) are entitled to support. We know that younger mothers are more likely to be care experienced or transitioning through care and the targeted home visiting programme building strong relationships with families, starting before the baby is born, provides intensive, relational based support to young mothers across Scotland.

To help support young mothers, and recognising that around 50% of mothers who have repeat child removal have had their first child at a very young age, we have published guidance for schools on how to support young pregnant women/young parents to stay in school; and guidance on Key Messages for Young People on Healthy Relationships and Consent. We are currently working with experts to develop guidance for children under 12, to help them have happy, consensual relationships and to help keep them safe from and to be able to identify abuse.

Ensuring the Universal Health Visitor Pathway is embedded and delivered in all Health Boards for children under 5 to deliver person centred care proportionate to need; and supporting the role of school nurses in improving health

outcomes for school aged children and young people up to 18 years of age as they transition through school.

Our ongoing support to every family across Scotland is continued through our national and universal programmes designed to give children the best possible start, including Baby Box; Bookbug; and our targeted PlayTalkRead programme, supporting parents and carers to develop positive relationships, form attachment and bond with their child from day one.

Play Vision Statement and Action Plan 2024/2030

Play and the developmental benefits that come from social interaction and the importance of access to community facilities is recognised by The Promise. Delivering on children’s right to play and building on our play strategy, we will deliver on our commitment to invest £60 million in renewing play parks across Scotland to ensure that all children have access to quality play in their own community.

Status

Scotland’s Universal Health Visiting Pathway offers support to all of Scotland’s young families from pre-birth until a child starts school. Where additional input is required, the pathway provides a gateway to other levels of Health Visiting provision and referrals to more specialised healthcare services. Health Boards are directed to deploy more health visitors to areas of socioeconomic deprivation. This allows health visitors more capacity to help those most in need. For young, first-time parents, the Family Nurse Partnership programme is provided pre-birth until their child reaches two.

Up to 3,000 families per year are supported by the Family Nurse Partnership (FNP), and over 11,000 have benefitted since the programme began in 2010. We are working with NHS Boards to widen the eligibility criteria so more people can benefit. All first-time mothers aged 21 and under and, where capacity allows, first time mothers under the age of 25, with care experience or from the most deprived communities will be offered FNP services by the end of 2024. This expansion will support up to an additional 500 families per year.

The guidance to support young mothers to remain in education was published in August 2021. This complements the key messages for young people on Healthy Relationships and Consent which were published for practitioners in May 2019. The Healthy Relationships and Consent for children guidance is still in development, with work ongoing to ensuring it is aligned to other Scottish Government work in the area, including the ongoing consultation on relationships, sexual health, and parenting education in schools. The guidance is now being revised to meet a need for parents and carers to have conversations with children.

The Universal Health Visiting Pathway is delivered in all of Scotland’s Health Board Areas. As part of our commitment to ensuring that the Health Visiting service continues to deliver for families, we commissioned an evaluation of the Universal Health Visiting Pathway. The main phase 1 evaluation reports were published between December 2021 and June 2022. We will work with Health Board representatives and wider stakeholders to identify and consider appropriate next steps based on recommendations from the evaluation.

School nurses provide support to the school age population through an integrated care model within Education settings. The school nurse role was transformed in 2018 with a focus

on prevention, early intervention, and health promotion for the school aged population. Where more specialised support is required, school nurses can make referrals into other services ensuring children receive the correct care and support.

The Best Start programme for maternal and neonatal services in Scotland provides a continuity of carer for women with the most complex needs, developing trusting relationships throughout their pregnancy and birth.

Development of a Play Vision Statement and Action Plan 2024-2030 is ongoing, which will include mention of The Promise within the overall narrative of the plan. The draft strategy is due to be published in the course of 2024.

Funding to support the renewal of Play Parks by our local authority partners has been agreed with COSLA Leaders. Funding has been allocated on the following basis: 2021/22 -£5 million; 2022/23 – £5 million ; 2023/24£10 million; 2024/25 – £15 million.

Going forward, the Family Nurse Partnership team will liaise with each board in early 2024 to gain insight what opportunity there is to progress expansion based on available resource and modelling of predicted clients. Although expansion to 21 year olds has paused in most Health Boards, this is due to available capacity being taken up by teenage clients. Boards are still delivering the programme to capacity. Monthly reports are provide to Scottish Government from health boards on the number of clients engaged on the FNP programme, including clients from the expanded age ranges, and available capacity. There is also supplemented by regular review and discussion with boards on projected capacity to support the commitments.

Commitment

Growing Up: Improving Health and Wellbeing

Health Assessment

We will ensure that all children with care experience receive a health assessment within 28 days of the Health Board being notified. Any ongoing care and treatment which is identified is an important first step in the support relationship and we are working with stakeholders to improve the consistency and quality of this initial assessment.

Status

The Scottish Government continue to engage with Health Boards/Health & Social Care Partnerships around the delivery of initial health assessments for looked after children. This work will continue with a view to identifying opportunities for improving health assessment delivery and the health outcomes of care experienced children.

Commitment

Early Learning & Childcare

We will work to expand funded early learning and childcare for children aged 1 and 2, starting with low-income households within this Parliament.

Status

The Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 ensures our children in care are able to access funded early learning and childcare from age two. From August 2021, eligibility for the provision of funded early learning and childcare was expanded to include children of parents with care experience and importantly, once a child qualifies for early learning and childcare, they stay qualified. Building on what we have learned from the 1140 programme for all three and four year olds and eligible two year olds, our work to develop our future funded offers of early learning and childcare will be strongly aligned to whole family wellbeing and holistic family support.

Early insight work around building a robust evidence base to inform the design of a new offer of funded Early Learning & Child Care for younger children was undertaken with reports published in 2022/23.

The focus in 2024/25 will be on building on early insights work including through early adopter community work in six local authorities and Whole Family Wellbeing Fund projects.

Commitment

National Hub for Child Death Reviews

Status

The National Hub for Child Death Reviews (CDR) has been in place since October 2021 and is conducting a review into the deaths of all live born children up to the date of their 18th birthday, or 26th birthday for care leavers who are in receipt of aftercare or continuing care at the time of their death. The aim of the National Hub is to ensure that a review is undertaken following the death of every child in Scotland and identify themes and trends via the use of standardised forms and processes for Health Boards and local authorities. The Hub’s focus is to use evidence to inform practice to reduce the number of child and young people’s deaths in Scotland and to report annually on its findings.

In March 2024 Healthcare Improvement Scotland and the Care Inspectorate published an overview of learning arising from the first year of CDR implementation National Hub overview report: Year 1. The Scottish Government will work with our partners in the National Hub to implement the 5 recommendations and to continue to share learning in order to reduce the number of preventable deaths and harm of children and young people.

Domestic Homicide and Suicide Review

In December 2022, the Scottish Government established a taskforce to provide national leadership for the development and implementation of a multi-agency domestic homicide and suicide review model for Scotland.

The domestic homicide and suicide review model aims to learn lessons following a death where abuse is suspected and to ensure a voice is given to those who have died and their family. The model will cover all children including those directly related to the victim of domestic abuse. Consultation and targeted engagement to inform the development of the model for took place between 1 September – 30 October 2023. The outcomes of the consultation were published in December 2023, and the findings will be used to inform the next steps.

Commitment

A Good Childhood

Intandem Mentoring Programme

We continue to fund the Intandem mentoring programme £750,000 each year to provide mentoring support to children and young people with care experience.

Status

The eligibility for the Intandem Mentoring Programme has been extended to include children and young people in kinship care and those at risk of becoming subject to a Compulsory Supervision Order. The programme aims to reduce the need for crisis intervention by investing in ‘preventative spend’ on mentoring for children and young people.

Commitment

School Age Childcare (formerly Wraparound Support)

We will work with Local Government and other partners to develop the local infrastructure and services needed to deliver innovative School Age Childcare services in specific communities in six local authority areas through our Early Adopter Community work, as well as through our existing service level delivery models.

Alongside this work, we will start to design and prototype a digital childcare service which will reduce the access and financial barriers target families experience when navigating the childcare system. Additionally, we will expand our ‘Extra Time’ programme delivered in partnership with the Scottish Football Association, providing funded breakfast, after school and holiday clubs for target families across Scotland.

We will continue to engage and co-design with groups who are under-represented, to ensure a future system of school age childcare helps tackle child poverty, promotes family wellbeing, drives greater gender equality, and keeps The Promise to our children with care experience.

Status

School Age Childcare (SACC) is currently being delivered across 6 Early Adopter Communities (EACs), 8 Access to Childcare fund projects, and 31 football clubs ( through the Scottish Football Association Extra Time Programme). Across all of our School Age Childcare Programme tests of change, we are currently supporting 4,200 children from low income families to access services, which includes 2,700 from our Extra

Time programme; 900 from our Access to Childcare fund projects (ACF), and over 600 from the EACs. These services are specifically targeted at the priority family types as set out in Best Start Bright Futures.

There is continued work across critical projects across multiple action areas including regulation, workforce qualifications, and maximising uptake of existing benefits which will improve the national infrastructure that supports the existing SACC sector and improve accessibility and affordability of SACC.

In October 2022, we asked four Early Adopter Communities across Scotland to provide school age childcare that is targeted to support families most at risk of poverty. These projects in communities in Clackmannanshire, Dundee, Glasgow and Inverclyde are all supported by existing tackling child poverty initiatives, combining provision of school age childcare with wider supports for families to maximise benefits.

The Scottish Government are supporting these projects to collaborate with community-led organisations on the ground. This is key to reaching the right families at the right time to understand the challenges families are facing at a local level. The Early Adopter Communities work has been specifically targeted at the six priority family types who are most at risk of living in poverty, with access to childcare to support families to take up or sustain employment or for carers to have a break from caring responsibilities, where that’s needed. These projects are taking a place-based, and people-centred approach, building trusted relationships and strong partnerships. Local intelligence gathering and community engagement has identified other families who may benefit from subsidised or funded school age childcare, particularly the care experienced community. A key priority of the work is being able to access whole family supports, creating supports around children and families.

Currently, the four first early adopter community projects are supporting around 20 families from the care experienced community to access fully funded school age childcare before and after school, and during the holidays.

We are beginning to see the impact of this work on these families with projects witnessing improved family relationships, stress reduction, and improved outcomes for children who have experienced high levels of trauma and adverse childhood experiences. There has also been reports that financial pressures have been relieved, allowing carers to do activities with the children under their care. Areas of focus across the Early Adopter Communities have been to alleviate pressure on families, giving carers time to promote their own health and wellbeing, attend appointments or spend time with other family members, while secure in the knowledge children have access to the specialist support needed to help them build trusted relationships with adults and children.

The children who have attended out of school childcare services are likely to have current or previous Social Work involvement and many have complex needs that can result in challenging behaviour in the childcare setting. This has resulted in extensive support and training, given to the childcare provider in order to support the families, children and staff, including trauma-informed training and increasing staff/child ratios, helping staff use de-escalation and trauma-informed practice.

Close working with carers and agencies has helped to understand triggers and provide ways for children to self-regulate. The changes implemented have meant that the children are much more settled with less instances of challenging behaviours and are provided with structure and consistency.

However, we know that we need to capture more learning, and gather more evidence from children and families, to further understand the impact and the potential of this work. This will be a focus of the monitoring and evaluation of the Early Adopter Communities as they continue to develop.

As part of the monitoring and evaluation of the Early Adopters Community project we have asked each local authority to report on the number of kinship and care experienced families that they are supporting. We have also asked for detail to better understand what impact they have are having on these families.

We will continue to support the EAC projects to gather stories from families and maximise learning to understand the dynamics and challenges families are facing. The knowledge and learning that we are capturing will help inform policy decisions at a national level to ensure we are supporting children and families with care experience as best we can.

Commitment

Community Learning and Development: Adult Learning Strategy for Scotland

We will take a holistic approach to learning through The Adult Learning Strategy for Scotland, to be published in May 2022. This strategy will help tackle the wider structural and social inequalities that impact families’ abilities to stay together and thrive. It will increase the availability of, access to, and support for family learning, encouraging families to learn together and helping adults learn how to support their children’s learning.

Status

The Adult Learning Strategy for Scotland was published in May 2022. The Minister for Higher and Further Education and Minister for Veterans announced on 5 December 2023 an Independent Review of Community Learning and Development (CLD) provision across Scotland, with the Adult Learning strategy in turn being paused. The review report was published on the 17 July 2024 and the recommendations are now being considered by the Scottish Government and COSLA.

The independent review report of CLD is expected to support the future shape and strategic orientation of CLD, including the future of the Adult Learning Strategy as work continues towards reforming Scotland’s education and skills system.

Commitment

Supporting Attendance and Addressing Exclusion in Educational Settings

Our national guidance, Included, Engaged and Involved Part 1, is clear that exclusion should be the last resort and where exclusion is used, it should be a proportionate response where there is no appropriate alternative. The guidance places importance on preventative approaches, including good behavior management and behavior support. In working towards the commitment to reduce the exclusion of children and young people with care experience, we will maintain and further embed our approaches of promoting positive relationships and behavior.

Status

The Promise called for an end to the exclusion of children with care experience. Whilst this action will need to be carefully considered with partners, our position continues to be that exclusion should be a last resort.

In June 2023, the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills convened the first meeting of a Headteacher Taskforce which focused on school exclusions. The topic of school exclusions was also discussed by a wide range of stakeholders, including local authorities, at the series of behaviour summits held between September and November last year. The final summit coincided with the publication of the Behaviour in Scottish Schools Research (BISSR) which provides a robust national picture in relation to behaviour in Scotland’s schools. The Cabinet Secretary made a statement to Parliament in November 2023 confirming that a multi-year plan is in development to tackle instances of challenging behaviour, working with local authorities, trade unions and others.

We are working with the Scottish Advisory Group on Relationships and Behaviour in Schools (SAGRABIS) to establish what actions are required to respond to the findings of the summit process and BISSR. It is intended that the plan will include actions relating to supporting attendance, and towards creating safe and consistent environments in schools, through improved guidance and support on relationship approaches, consequences, and exclusion. The national action plan was published in August.

Commitment

Restraint (Education)

Consultation on draft guidance on the use of physical intervention in educational settings concluded in October 2022. The physical intervention working group is reconvening to consider amendments to the final guidance to allow it to be published as soon as possible.

Status

Following the conclusion of the consultation on the draft guidance on the use of physical intervention in educational settings in October 2022 the guidance is being revised, with a target date for publishing the final guidance of summer 2024, and a review taking place 12 months later. Alongside this, we are exploring opportunities to strengthen the legal framework governing this area which will include consideration of the robustness of recording procedures.

A review of effectiveness of guidance will be conducted in early summer 2025. Evaluation criteria for the review of the guidance will be developed by the physical intervention working group.

Commitment

Education Scotland

We will create the conditions for change in our approach to education through raising awareness by:

• engagement to raise the profile and understanding of The Promise within education settings.
• provision of resources to support relationship based approaches across the educational workforce including through the National Improvement Hub and support for working with Realising the Ambition.

Status

The Scottish Government has been engaging with partners, including Education Scotland, COSLA, the Association of Directors of Education in Scotland, Virtual School Head Teachers, and CELCIS to consider the calls for action made by The Promise in the context of education in order to develop these into meaningful, measurable outcomes. These outcomes will form part of a framework which aims to focus on improving the educational outcomes of children and young people with care experience. Educational outcomes include increased attendance and reduced exclusion, improved staying on, improving achievement and attainment, and sustaining positive destinations upon leaving school. The framework aims to build on actions already being taken across Scotland’s education system to keep The Promise. The Promise in education framework and outcomes underpin wider work underway jointly between the Scottish Government, Local Government and The Promise Scotland to develop a national Promise Progress Framework.

As part of this engagement, we have been keen to capture current and developing practice in a number of areas. Case studies will help articulate the breadth of work underway across educational authorities and share learning.

Education Scotland are working across the wider education system to identify the actions required for practitioners, settings and local authorities to implement The Promise, the Additional Support for Learning Implementation Review, and incorporation of the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child, within the framework of Getting it right for every child.

We are undertaking a Programme of Awareness raising through the Association of Directors of Education in Scotland (ADES), Regional Improvement Collaborative Leadership Teams, the Family Learning Network, the Virtual Schools and Head Teachers Network, and local authority Head Teacher Development Days.

We have co-developed a keeping The Promise Award Programme for individual practitioners and educational establishments. This Professional Learning Programme has been designed at 3 levels: individuals (I Promise Badge), and Educational Establishments (We Promise Award) and keeping The Promise Award when settings can demonstrate that their actions and approaches are having a positive impact on the educational experiences and outcomes of children with care experience and their families (linked to above The Promise in Education Framework).

The Award Programme was formally launched in March 2024. The full Award requires Educational Establishments and local authorities to provide evidence of impact of any changes they have made that supports the educational experience and outcomes of learners with care experience. In 2024/25 we will begin to collate this evidence, both qualitative and quantitative, to provide ‘Stories of Change’.

The keeping The Promise Award resources are now published on the Education Scotland website:

https://education.gov.scot/resources/keeping-the-promise-award-programme/

Although intended for inclusion in local authorities and School Improvement Plans for 2024/25, two regions (Northern Alliance and SWEIC) and 6-7 local authorities have become early adopters of the Programme and are either providing professional learning for trainers or are delivering directly in educational establishments. Feedback from early adopters is very positive.

In collaboration with partners, we are developing a set of educational outcomes for children and young people with care experience. The outcomes will seek to improve the engagement, achievement, attendance and attainment of those with care experience and support their transition from education. This framework will be tested in a number of local authorities from spring 2024.

Commitment

Creating the Conditions for Change

Education Reform

The Scottish Government is taking forward sweeping reform, which will result in the creation of new qualifications and national education agencies and will deliver a world class education system that supports learners to thrive, providing them with the best opportunities to succeed.

Education reform will deliver real change and benefits for learners, teachers and the wider education workforce, and our economy and society.

The voices of learners and all those who support them will be at the heart of education reform.

The needs of young people with care experience will be considered as part of the significant programme of education reform.

Status

The Scottish Government are working to establish a new agency for Scottish education, a new independent inspectorate, and a new qualifications body.

Education reform also includes the reform of the approach to assessment and qualifications, and the overall delivery of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Implementation Framework, including re-assessing the vision for Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) and improvements to curriculum delivery and measurement of impact.

The Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills gave an update to Parliament in November 2023, and set out the priority of ensuring reform is right for our system and creates change in practice and culture. They also highlighted the importance of a holistic approach to reform across the Education and Skills system and the creation of a new Centre for Teaching Excellence.

We are making progress on reform work with a revised governance and delivery model now implemented for reform across the Education and Skills portfolio. We are taking the opportunity to get reform right while working with teachers, practitioners, and others involved in delivering education day in, day out across the full range of settings, listening to the voices and views of children, young people and all those experiencing education.

The next steps are:

• Transitional governance arrangements to be agreed for the new Qualifications Body the New Agency and New Inspectorate.
• The analysis of the consultation on the proposed Education Bill for New Qualifications Body and Independent Inspectorate was published in June 2024.
• Debate in parliament on Qualifications review, followed by Scottish Government’s Response (expected spring 2024).
• Curriculum Improvement Cycle to commence.
• Co Design work for Centre for Teaching Excellence to commence (spring 2024)
• School Education Digital Strategy to be developed (late 2024).

Commitment

Removing Barriers

Education Scotland

Education Scotland are developing two resources to support relationship based approaches across the educational workforce. These resources are designed to support an informed level of practice and will be accessible to a wide range of practitioners.

Work has begun to share with other services, such as, Children’s Hearings Scotland, Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration, Police, and Community Learning and Development to promote shared values and language across all services supporting children and young people.

Status

Resources to support relationship based approaches across the educational workforce have been completed:

https://education.gov.scot/improvement/learning-resources/promoting-positive-relationships-and-behaviour-in-educational-settings/

https://education.gov.scot/improvement/learning-resources/Restorative-approaches-to-support-positive-relationships-and-behaviour

A suite of informed level professional learning modules in the area of Relationships and Behaviour have been included in the new Inclusion, Wellbeing and Equalities Professional learning Framework:

https://education.gov.scot/resources/inclusion-wellbeing-equalities-professional-learning-framework/

Modules include: Active Listening, Attunement, Co-regulation and De-escalation, Expectations and Consequences, Regulate-relate-reason-restore, Relational approaches, Relationships matter, Self-Regulation, The Brain and Emotional Regulation, and Window of Tolerance.

The next step is development of Modularised Skilled level resources to complement the informed level resources. These new resources are designed to be more accessible for practitioners and educational establishments providing them more flexibility in how they use the resources in their own context.

National Improvement Hub

Education Scotland, working in partnership, have developed a National Improvement Hub of resources to increase awareness for practitioners on how to support children and young people on the edges of care, in care and those at risk of being criminalised:

https://education.gov.scot/improvement/learning-resources/summary-information-relating-to-corporate-parenting/

https://education.gov.scot/improvement/learning-resources/disclosure-what-educational-practitioners-should-know/

https://education.gov.scot/improvement/learning-resources/the-children-s-hearing-what-educational-practitioners-should-know/

https://education.gov.scot/improvement/learning-resources/supporting-learners-who-offend-or-who-are-at-risk-of-offending/

Education Scotland supports the Childrens Hearings Improvement Partnership and Youth Justice Improvement Board (CHIP and YJIB), Kinship Collaborative and subgroups looking at aspects of implementation of the Care and Justice Bill such as the age of criminal responsibility. As information becomes available the educational resources to support practitioners are updated.

Commitment

Removing Barriers:

Education Scotland Review of CECYP Fund

Education Scotland has supported Scottish Government in reviewing reports from local authorities on the use of the Care Experienced Children and Young People’s (CECYP) Fund. From these reviews information about interventions and approaches used, measures and planned impact, and thinking about data mapping and collection has been fed back annually into the wider education system.

Status

Education Scotland Attainment Advisers, who support local authorities with Scottish Attainment Challenge Programmes, are updated annually on the Care Experienced Children and Young People’s Fund in terms of good practice and challenges. Similar sessions have been held specifically for the Virtual Schools Head Teachers (VSHT) Network, and the CELCIS Education Forum.

A series of engagement events are underway through the Regional Improvement Collaboratives to explore and promote further ways to improve service integration and multi-agency working and the impact of this funding. So far one Regional Improvement Collaborative strategic level engagement event has focused specifically on how to improve data collection, collation, and sharing between social work and education and across local authority boundaries.Education Scotland Attainment Advisers now have a responsibility to report, through their tri-annual reports, on progress towards improving attainment of children and young people with care experience. Attainment Advisers also provide advice and support to local authorities in terms of interventions and practice to improve educational outcomes.

Commitment

Place-based Social Justice

Scottish Mentoring & Leadership Programme

The Scottish Mentoring & Leadership programme will reach up to 15,000 care experienced and disadvantaged young people across 300 schools over the next five years. As a core offering, the programme will see the MCR Pathways mentoring programme rolled out to schools that want it. The programme is currently being rolled out across Scotland, initially targeting a number of priority local authority areas.

Status

The Scottish Government continue to support the MCR Pathways element of the programme. The programme is currently reaching 3,000 young people and young people with care experience on the edges of care. The first schools that onboarded are at the end of their funding cycle, which means it is for local authorities to consider the programme in the longer-term based on local circumstances. An evaluation is in place and the first substantial outputs are expected later in 2024.

This will support longer-term thinking around the programme. We will continue to support MCR Pathways in 2024/25 as it delivers for schools already on the programme and assess ongoing demand and the extent to which local authorities are sustaining the programme longer-term.

Commitment

Scottish Attainment Challenge

Scottish Attainment Challenge Actions including:

• Over the period to 2025/26 we will distribute around £11.5 million each year to local authorities to further support attainment.

Status

In 2022/23, £10.9m was provided to local authorities through the Care Experienced Children and Young People Fund to help them improve the wellbeing and educational outcomes for children and young people with care experience aged 0-26.

In January 2024, the first tranche of funding for the 2023/24 academic term was paid to local authorities totalling £7m, enabling additional support to be provided to children and young people with care experience. The second tranche of payments covering the 2023/24 academic term will be paid in June bringing the total across the year to £10.5m.

Allocations for 2024/25 will be calculated following the publication of the Childrens Social Work Statistics Scotland: 2022 to 2023. They will be communicated to local authorities in the summer.

Commitment

Virtual School Head Teachers

The implementation of a Virtual School Head Teacher (VSHT) role in 17 local authorities in Scotland has ensured a strong continued focus on meeting the particular needs of children and young people with care experience and this will be extended to a further two local authorities as of April 2022.

Status

The Scottish Government continues to provide £100,000 annual funding to enable CELCIS to support the continued facilitation of a Virtual School Head Teacher network. There are currently 18 Virtual Head Teachers (or equivalent) who are members of the network with a standing offer of support to other local authorities who are considering implementing the role. The network has also been expanded to include two Attainment Advisers from Education Scotland to offer additional support to the network and virtual head teachers.

Funding is provided to CELCIS to facilitate, support, and manage a network of Virtual Head Teachers. This includes undertaking research and evaluation around the development of the role in Scotland, and how it can help improve the lives and education outcomes of young people with care experience. Decisions around the introduction of the role remain with each individual local authority.

Commitment

Lifetime Skills and Apprenticeships

Supporting Access to Further & Higher Education

Skills Development Scotland offer enhanced contribution rates for Modern Apprentices up to the age of 29 for young people with care experience.

Status

Since 2015/16, published statistics show that In 2015/15, 0.9% of Modern Apprentices self-reported as having care experience, and this has increased to 2.3% in 2023/24. Skills Development Scotland continue to work with training providers and stakeholders to improve self-reporting and to simplify the eligibility criteria and process for claiming Enhanced Funding.

Uptake of the number of Modern Apprentices (MA) with care experience can be monitored through the official Modern Apprenticeship Statistics which are published quarterly by Skills Development Scotland. Modern Apprenticeships statistics – Skills Development Scotland.

Commitment

FE and HE Student Financial Support

Supporting Access to Further & Higher Education

We are committed to an ambitious programme of reform to our student support package over this Parliamentary term. We have committed that the total student support package reaches the equivalent of the Living Wage over the next three years, including for estranged students; we will also introduce a special support payment so that students on benefits do not lose out because they are in receipt of, or entitled to, student support; and we will undertake a review of postgraduate funding and take measures to halt student loan interest during maternity leave.

Status

To support learning and address potential unfairness in the system, our people with care experience who meet the access threshold are now guaranteed offer of an undergraduate place at a Scottish university.

The Care Experienced Bursary (CEB) is a non-income assessed, non-repayable grant available to eligible Scottish domiciled students in full-time Further or Higher Education at college or university who have been in care by a local authority in the UK, before turning 18. It was introduced in the 2017/18 academic year and increased in 2023/24 academic year to £9,000. From 2022/23 academic year, a 12 monthly payment option was introduced to all eligible students in receipt of the higher education CEB. This is an opportunity for students to choose whether to receive their bursary payments over the current term time of nine months, or to spread

these payments over the full year. The total bursary of £9,000 will remain the same. The 12 month option offers the added benefit for students to have their financial support spread evenly throughout the year to help them budget over the summer months.

From academic year 2024/25 we will be introducing a £2,400 increase to the main undergraduate student support package in the form of a Special Support Loan. This uplift will bring the support we offer students in line with the living wage. This also means that students with care experience, estranged students and those from the lowest household incomes can access funds up to £11,400. Introducing this uplift as a Special Support Loan will mean that those students who remain entitled to welfare benefits whilst they study can access this additional support without any further reduction in their benefit entitlement.

Students with care experience in Higher Education needing help with their accommodation costs during the summer period may be eligible to apply for the Summer Accommodation Grant.

The Scottish Funding Council (SFC) chair The Care-Experienced National Policy Group (CENPG). The group meets three times a year to ensure that SFC achieves its targets as set out in the National Ambition for Care-Experienced Students.

The CENPG’s remit includes:

• Evaluating and driving progress on the National Ambition.
• Advising on interventions required to achieve the National Ambition.
• Advising on the current interventions in place to support the national ambition including the SFC Care-Experience Bursary.
• Making recommendations for 2023 onwards.
• Sharing information, updates and feedback both into and out of the Care- Experience Community of Practice.

Group membership includes representatives from stakeholder groups like Who Cares? Scotland, CELCIS and SAAS, Care-Experienced Regional Forum Leads, and college Care-Experienced practitioners.

Commitment

Health and Wellbeing, Corporate Parenting

sportscotland

sportscotland continue to share good practice and learning through the national corporate parenting collaborative group. Engagement also continues with Who Cares? Scotland on a new collaborative network that they are leading to share ideas and good practice.

Status

The National Corporate Parenting Collaborative Group met for the first time in January 2023. sportscotland worked with Who Cares? Scotland to deliver an introduction to corporate parenting session to the Scottish Governing Bodies of Sport (SGBS). Although SGBS are not corporate parents, the aim was to further their understanding of the needs of young people with care experience in sport and actions that they can take to reduce barriers. The session had attendees from 11 different sports organisations. sportscotland continue to engage with the Who Cares? Scotland Group on a quarterly basis. In March 2023, they presented the progress made on their journey as a Corporate Parent. This included updates on the support to young people with care experience and the development of their new Corporate Parenting plan, which they consulted with young people with care experience on. sportscotland published their 2024-27 Corporate Parenting Plan in March 2024.

In July 2024, the SFA held a consultation event to seek the views of young people with Care Experience on their participation in Football, offering tickets to a Scottish National Women’s Team game to those who attended. sportscotland provided support to the SFA, connecting them with young people to attend the event.

In July 2024, the sportscotland communications theme was ‘Care experience in sport #TimeToCare’. During the month they worked with a young person with care experience to share their journey in the sporting system. The article can be found here: Care experience and sport: Kira Henry – Sport First (sportscotland.org.uk)

sportscotland also hosted an episode of their Young People's Sport (YPSP) Panel Podcast profiling care experience in sport. Hosts from the YPSP were joined by Kira, a former YPSP member, and Callum from Who Cares? Scotland to help to shine a light on this topic and shared some tips for anyone involved in sport to play their part in making sport more inclusive for people with care experience.

sportscotland will continue to engage with the Who Cares? Scotland National Corporate Parenting Collaborative Group to share learning, ideas and best practice with other Corporate Parents. They also plan to work with Who Cares? Scotland to develop further training opportunities for internal staff and external partners in the sporting system on the needs and barriers of young people with care experience.

Who Cares? Scotland profiled sportscotland in their Promising Practice Newsletter in October 2023. The newsletter highlighted examples of good practice and learning. This included progress around research in care experience in sport and a local example of the support provided to young people with care experience in North Ayrshire through sportscotland’s Active Schools Programme. The newsletter can be found here: Newsletter and Promising Practice Summer/Autumn 2023.

They also worked with Who Cares? Scotland to deliver an introduction to Corporate Parenting session to Active Schools co-ordinators and managers in November 2023. Over 120 individuals attended this online session. sportscotland met with the Scottish Football Association (SFA) and Who Cares? Scotland to discuss the barriers to participation, and how the SFA could develop their own support for young people with care experience in football.

Sportscotland will continue to engage with the Who Cares? Scotland National Corporate Parenting Collaborative Group to share learning, ideas and best practice with other Corporate Parents. They also plan to work with Who Cares? Scotland to develop further training opportunities for internal staff and external partners in the sporting system on the needs and barriers of young people with care experience.

Commitment

Fair Employment: Labour Market Strategy

We will promote payment of the real Living Wage Rate to all employees aged 18 and above. This measure will target support to low income groups like our young people with care experience.

We are committed to commencing work to develop a Minimum Income Guarantee for Scotland. We have established a Steering Group to explore how this can be delivered within existing powers. Comprised of an independent expert group and a cross party strategy group this work will look at how a Minimum Income Guarantee should work for different priority households, including people with care experience and families. The Expert Group published an interim report 2023 and is due to present its final report to The Scottish Government in 2024.

Status

The Cabinet Secretary for Wellbeing Economy, Fair Work and Energy has committed by 2025 to: increasing the number of people earning at least the real living wage, and working in jobs that meet fair work principles, contributing to society through fulfilling and increasingly productive work, with a narrower gender pay gap.

Work is ongoing to support the Minimum Income Guarantee Expert Group make its recommendations and publish its final report in 2024. The Group are considering a draft position for care leavers which will be developed with organisations representing those with care experience.

Commitment

Access & Support in Employment

No One Left Behind

We will significantly increase investment in our No One Left Behind approach to support parents to access and progress in work through a new offer for parents experiencing poverty which brings together a range of services and support including employability, childcare, health, transport and family wellbeing, with the aim of reducing poverty by increasing household income through employment. The menu of support would be the same for every parent, but applied based on the need and circumstances of the individual parent/family.

We will also work to ensure that employability and skills support is matched with fair work opportunities, and will work in partnership with public, private and third sector employers to identify and overcome barriers to parental employment. This includes progressing fair work actions in low paid sectors.

Status

The Scottish Government made available up to £90m for devolved employability services in 2024/25, enabling investment in front line services to be protected at 2023/24 levels. Work is ongoing to develop an strategic plan, with a view to publishing in autumn 2024.

We are working with employers and trade unions in sectors where low pay and precarious work can be most prevalent to promote sectoral fair work agreements, concordats and charters, and collective bargaining to achieve higher standards of pay, better security of work, and greater union

representation. Existing commitments to sectoral agreements are being pursued in several sectors including Social Care and National Care Service, Construction including responding to the Fair Work Convention’s inquiry recommendations and an Industry Leadership Group (ILG), will drive and support delivery of the actions set out in the Retail Strategy, in particular on improving fair work across the sector.

While the legal powers governing flexible working are reserved to the UK Government, we remain committed to improving access to flexible working for all sectors of the economy. This supports people, including those managing care commitments, to enter or remain in paid work and enables businesses to recruit and retain talent, skills and experience.

Employability is a key pillar in Best Start, Bright Futures, with commitments made over the lifetime of the plan to ensure that our services support parents into work as an effective and sustainable route out of poverty for families. In recognition that income from employment is a key driver for reducing poverty, Best Starts, Bright Futures sets out ambitious commitments to build on current employability interventions to enhance the reach and effectiveness of our services for parents.

The commitment to support parents to increase income is also detailed in the National Strategy for Economic Transformation, as part of the wider commitment to eradicate structural barriers to participation in the labour market.

In 2023/24 we provided £67,575 in funding to flexible working experts, Flexibility Works, to promote and support employers across Scotland to adopt flexible workplaces. This activity has primarily focused on awareness raising via webinars and talks to employers; work on the change agent network and the production of a Flex for Life report.

Assessment is currently being made of a different

option for provision of up to £100k to support flexible working during 2024/25. This will in turn support a number of key priorities across government such as economic inactivity, labour shortages, reducing poverty (including child poverty), gender pay gap, disability employment and more.

Health and Work

Health and employment have a bidirectional relationship, with good health supporting high levels of employment, and good quality jobs contributing to supporting good population health. In recent years economic inactivity due to ill health has been increasing in Scotland, with ill health the largest single reason given for people being economically inactive. It is clear that supporting people to sustain, or to re-enter employment, who have ill health contributes to improving population health, diversifying the labour market and income maximisation.

Joint leadership of work to address this across DG Health and Social Care and DG Economy has been underway, with a programme of activity including a number of short-term actions under way that aim to improve effects and outcomes of current health-related services and programmes that provide support to employers and employees or people seeking employment including:

• creating a single point of access for employers, workers and other users to access advice and support relating to physical and mental health and work;
• supporting changes to Working Health Services Scotland to; improve access and reach through increased awareness via the Healthy Working Lives branding, adjusting its remit to encourage individuals to link their employer to the available advice and support and promote an employer offer through Healthy Working Lives;
• support NHS Boards, local authorities and public agencies taking purposeful action through the NHS Anchors Workforce Strategic Group.

Advice and recommendations on potential deliverables for the 2024/2025 financial year, as well as the longer term strategic plan for health and economic inactivity were provided to Ministers on 1 July 2024.

The advice was the culmination of work between Population Health Strategy and Improvement Division and Labour Market Strategy to identify the next phase of activity to mitigate the trend in increasing levels of economic inactivity due to ill health. That work initially came out of the previous Public Services and Economy Ministerial Group in 2023-24 that commissioned all portfolios to identify contributions to reducing economic inactivity.

The health contribution suggested for the economic inactivity plan contained five actions focused on near term deliverables to refine the existing framework of services and the evidence base. This 5-part action plan for 2023/24 has been completed for the most part, and has supported developing capacity to deliver the medium-term plan recommended to Ministers for 2024/25.

Commitment

Access & Support in Employment:

Fair Start Scotland

We are investing almost £24 million in 2022/23 in Fair Start Scotland (FSS), our first iteration of devolved employability provision. The person-centred approach to all Scottish Government funded employability delivery including Fair Start Scotland ensures people are treated with dignity and respect by providing flexible support, taking into account personal circumstances and removing barriers to accessing work.

Status

The Fair Start Scotland (FSS) programme was backed by £23.5m funding from the overall £82.9m employability budget for 2022/23. We will invested £21.5m in its final year (2023/24) to provide support to those at risk of long-term unemployment and to disabled people. Although new referrals ended in March 2024 £90m will be assigned for devolved employability services in 2024/25, ensuring participants who remain on the live caseload continue to receive the full FSS service until they exit or start work. Of this we will invest £13.3m in FSS.

Commitment

Access & Support in Employment:

Young Person’s Guarantee

The Young Person’s Guarantee aims to connect every 16 to 24 year old to the opportunity of a job, apprenticeship, further or higher education, training programme or volunteering placement.

Status

Young Persons Guarantee: between November 2020 and March 2023, we provided more than £175 million, with the aim of supporting new and enhanced opportunities for young people. Over 830 employers have signed up to the Young Persons Guarantee, offering over 22,000 opportunities, many of which focus on care experienced young people.

The Young Person’s Guarantee ceased being a live policy from April 2023 when the UK Government funding stopped. Activity has been mainstreamed and continues to support young care experienced young people through No One Left Behind and our Third Sector programmes into positive post school destinations. This activity is now funded through the core skills budget.

The Developing the Young Workforce programme enhances provision for care experienced young people in schools. This includes via School Coordinators supporting every mainstream secondary school in Scotland and via our partnership with MCR Pathways and Career Ready, to provide mentors for young people across Scotland.

Many Local Employability Partnerships are prioritising supported employment, education and training programmes for care experienced young people, which includes strengthening the voice of care leavers in local service design. Employer Recruitment Incentives are available to support those furthest away from the labour market, including those who have been in the care system.

The Discovering Your Potential employability programme provides flexible and intensive support for care leavers, who face multiple barriers to accessing positive destinations.

Additional funding is provided to Inspiring Scotland to deliver Our Future Now, an employability programme aimed at vulnerable young people who are facing significant barriers, including those with care experience.

Commitment

Access & Support in Employment

Community Learning and Development

We are developing a Scottish Youth Work Strategy, where youth work outcomes are based on a foundation of trust, respect and values that puts each young person at the centre of their learning journey. The Youth Work Strategy is due to be published in spring 2023.

Status

The Minister for Higher and Further Education and Minister for Veterans announced an independent review of Community Learning and Development (CLD) provision across Scotland in December 2023 with the development of the Youth Work Strategy in turn being paused for the duration of the review. The review report was published on the 17 July 2024 and the recommendations are now being considered by the Scottish Government and CoSLA.

The independent review report of CLD is expected to support the future shape and strategic orientation of CLD, including the future of the Youth Work Strategy as work continues towards reforming Scotland’s education and skills system.

Commitment

Supporting Those Not in Work

Benefit Take-up Strategy

We are committed to increasing benefit take-up by ensuring people are aware of, and enabled to access, the financial support that they are eligible for and entitled to. People with care experience are identified within our second Benefit Take-up Strategy, published in October 2021, as one of our Seldom Heard groups. We are currently expanding the membership of our Stakeholder Take-up Reference Group and going forward, we will engage with Who Cares? Scotland to make sure the voices of our Care Experienced population are represented in all future policy work.

Status

The second Benefit Take-Up Strategy was published in October 2021. Whilst the next Strategy is not due until October 2026, we have committed to a new annual publication which provides updated estimates of take-up for relevant benefits, as well as setting out policy progress and next steps. The most recent iteration of this document was published in November 2023.

We have commissioned independent research, undertaken by the Scottish Centre for Social Research, to review and refine our understanding of key seldom-heard population groups, including care experience, in light of the socio-economic impacts associated with the COVID-19 pandemic and cost-of-living crisis, as well as significant developments within the Scottish social security system. This independent evidence review will be published in spring 2024, however, early findings suggest that people with care experience remain a seldom-heard group across the Scottish social security system. Findings from this research will be used to provide an analytical basis to inform future policy development to support seldom-heard groups, including people with care experience, to access their social security entitlements.

Furthermore, Social Security Scotland’s External Communications Team will be undertaking market research, based on the evidence review findings, to understand how to effectively market devolved payments to the identified groups. This work is anticipated to conclude by summer 2024 and will be used to support Social Security Scotland to design marketing materials and implement additional support to address the challenges particular groups face in accessing their entitlements.

Commitment

Human Rights Strategy and Legislation

Human Rights Bill

A new Human Rights Bill will be introduced to Parliament during this parliamentary year. This Bill, which follows on from the work of the National Taskforce for Human Rights Leadership report, proposes to incorporate four UN human rights treaties into Scots law, within the limits of devolved competence.

As part of our lived experience work, we have worked with partners to ensure children and young people and the voices of our people with care experience are heard. Further information on the Lived Experience Board work can be found here.

We consulted on proposals for the Bill between June and October 2023 and received almost 400 responses from a wide range of stakeholders and published an independent analysis of responses in January 2024 alongside an Easy Read version. Responses included submissions from children and young people using child-friendly consultation materials. Working with the organisation Together we are developing a child-friendly version of the independent analysis of consultation responses. There was a strong call from respondents for the equality provision in the Bill (which aims to promote equal access to Bill rights) to explicitly include care experience.

Commitment

Equality, Inclusion and Human Rights

We will consult on a draft strategy for consultation to better mainstream equality, inclusion and human rights across Government and the wider public sector, which will look at how we improve leadership and accountability, build greater policy coherence, strengthen capability and skills, and improve how we centre evidence and lived experience in policy making.

The initial consultation and engagement exercise for the Mainstreaming Strategy was completed at the end of 2022. A draft strategy (together with a supporting action plan and toolkit to support achievement of mainstreaming equality and human rights operationally across Scottish Government and the wider public sector) is in preparation, using the feedback from the initial engagement exercise. A strategy and supporting action plan and toolkit have been drafted using the feedback from the initial engagement exercise. Further engagement with stakeholders, including a written consultation exercise, will commence in 2024, with publication of the strategy planned for 2025.

Next steps: Work will continue to seek to strengthen implementation of human rights, including further development and engagement on ambitious proposals for a new Human Rights Bill.

Mainstreaming Strategy next steps: further engagement with stakeholders (including written consultation exercise) later in 2024; analysis of responses and subsequent drafting amendments over the autumn/winter; publication of the strategy in 2025.

Commitment

Social Justice and Health

Place-based Activity

We are committed, with COSLA, to delivering the Place Principle. This is a 5 year programme to accelerate our policy ambitions through 20 minute neighbourhoods, community-led regeneration and town centre revitalisation.

The scaffolding to deliver this includes:

• a Place Based Investment Programme designed to take a whole system approach to the use of resources for shared outcome;
• the Place Framework which sets out common questions to consider when determining local change; and
• the setting up of a Place Action Group which is addressing coordination across portfolios and localities.

Status

Work to deliver the Place Based Investment Programme (PIPB) is ongoing. This includes allocated funding directly to all 32 local authorities, the Regeneration Capital Grant Fund which is a competitive fund, funding for Clyde Gateway, and in 2022-23, funding for demonstrator projects and community-led regeneration capital projects. The Place Action Group has been set up, resulting in a short-term programme of action which is now being progressed with partners. Since 2021, over

£225m capital investment has been delivered, which has aligned with other place-based funding initiatives and helps to tackle inequalities and support delivery of a sustainable and inclusive wellbeing economy in disadvantaged communities across Scotland. This includes funding of £94m to date, delivered directly to local authorities to allocate and support shared local place plans.

In December 2021, we launched consultations on Open Space Strategies, Play Sufficiency Assessments and Local Development Plan Regulations which will benefit physical and cognitive development, and uphold children’s right to engage in play and recreational activities as well as ensuring access to greenspace to ensure the best possible play experience.

National Planning Framework (NPF4) was adopted in February 2023. The Play Sufficiency Assessment Regulations 2023 and the Development Plan Regulations were enacted in May 2023. Planning guidance to support the Development Plan Regulations and Play Sufficiency Assessment Regulations was published in May and Dec 2023 respectively. The Place Standard tool Children’s Version and Young People’s Versions were launched in 2022.

Work continues with Place Standard partners in promoting wider use of the tools as part of place-based working and enabling positive engagement with children and young people, including in support of NPF4.It is anticipated the Open Space Strategies Regulations will be brought forward during 2024/25.

Commitment

Place-based Activity

Social Innovation Partnership (SIP)

We will scale the Social Innovation Partnership to promote and embed wellbeing and capability approaches across different service settings to create most holistic and person-centred practice.

We will publish the initial findings from our learning partner (I-Sphere) by June 2022. Going forward we will scale the SIP’s wellbeing and capabilities approach at two key levels:

• Firstly, by continuing to work with social entrepreneurs to test, scale and bring together innovative and person-centred approaches that support flourishing lives.
• Secondly, by working to remove systemic barriers that get in the way of delivering person-centred and relational approaches.

The SIP already supports a small number of local authority partnership (Tayside Collaborative and the Clackmannanshire Family Wellbeing Partnership) to help facilitate this. We plan to establish a further three such partnerships over the next four years.

By using a place-based approach, working locally with all partners to identify and overcome barriers to delivering effective child poverty interventions, we will enable our partners across the public, private and third sector to align services to make them work for people who need it most.

Status

Work of the Social Innovation Partnership (SIP) is ongoing. Delivery partners continue to provide vital support to families across the country, reaching up to 3,000 people each year through a range of supports, including care experienced young people.

We continue to make progress with our Clackmannanshire Family Wellbeing Partnership (FWP), which the local authority is articulating as a coherent overall vision for how it designs and delivers services so that they are more person-centred and enabling. We are seeing greater integration of local services which is supporting improved outcomes for families, including children and young people. Work is underway to enhance employability, further deepen service integration, develop local partnerships with the third sector, and to create holistic support pathways for children, young people and their families through school hubs.

Pathfinder work in Dundee and Glasgow is ongoing with discussions locally about the scale and spread. Consideration also being given to more pathfinder locations. The Dundee pathfinder is progressing well, with increased engagement with families which has led to positive outcomes for including employment, further education, and financial gains. The Glasgow pathfinder is also progressing well, with expansion plans in place and more than 100 partner organisations now signed up to the pathfinder.

Pathfinder work in Dundee and Glasgow is progressing well, with discussions locally about the scale and spread. The Pathfinders have adopted a no wrong door approach to provide wrap-around, whole family support. By engaging with families before they reach crisis point and providing holistic support, the Pathfinders are working in a preventative space with the aim of

improving services for families and improving the lives of children in Scotland. The Pathfinders do not specifically target care experienced young people but support a range of families and individuals, including the 6 priority family groups, some of whom have had contact with the care system.

Work is also ongoing to draw together key points of learning and characteristics for place-based approaches to tackle deep poverty, based on the partnership work in Dundee, as well as projects in Clackmannanshire and Glasgow.

All of this work is underpinned by a learning network which is open to all local authorities and includes annual national learning events and a set of delivery-focussed Communities of Practice supported by the Scottish Poverty Information and Research Unit. Formal evaluation of the Dundee and Glasgow pathfinders is underway, similarly for the Clacks Family Wellbeing Partnership, due to report in early 2025. The ongoing learning and evaluation of this work is informing plans to expand the number of partnerships over the course of 2024/25.

• Identify and explore new partnerships with more local authorities as part of the expansion of this programme (Jan-March)
• The Child Poverty Pathfinders are undergoing a formal evaluation which will consider impact of the work on a range of family types. Interim findings will be published March 2025. The evaluation will also provide ongoing learning and partners will utilise local data to adapt delivery to better support families in poverty.

Commitment

Place and Wellbeing Programme

Our Place & Wellbeing Programme: We are focusing on two key areas where we believe there is already momentum for change:

• Anchors: we will support our health and social care providers, with an initial focus on NHS Boards to be effective ‘anchor institutions’ to prevent some causes of health inequalities by building wealth in their communities.
• Communities: we will cultivate community-led health improvement activity and look to embed this into local public services.

Status

Key updates include:

Anchors: We are committed to supporting the local delivery of Anchor Strategic Plans and strengthening NHS Scotland’s contribution to The Promise as Scotland’s largest corporate parent. All NHS Boards have submitted Anchor Strategic Plans and baselines of their Anchor activity, which include reference to any priority groups that are currently being targeted through Boards’ employability programmes and outline how fair work opportunities will target particular groups including care experienced. Through the Anchors Workforce Strategic Group we are working alongside the NHS and key partners, to improve the collaboration between Local Employability Partnerships and Health Boards, reduce barriers to widening access, and drive the development of earn as you learn access and progression opportunities.

In April 2024, an updated equality and diversity monitoring form was implemented for NHS Scotland recruitment and workforce. For the first time we are gathering data on whether someone has ever been in care, their socioeconomic background, and caring responsibilities. This evidence will be used to inform and evaluate purposeful action to widen access and tackle inequity.

We have undertaken a review of the baseline data submitted by NHS Boards in March 2024 on their Anchor activity, including which priority groups (including child poverty priority groups and those with care experience) they are targeting as part of their employability strategies, as well as meeting with NHS territorial Boards in May to discuss their Anchor Strategic Plans, including their employability strategies.

Communities: We will be undertaking further engagement with Community Health Exchange member organisations and their public sector partners in order to look at tangible actions which would increase the capacity and influence of community organisations in tackling health inequalities.

Key next steps include:

Anchors: A review of the anchor metrics is currently underway, to ensure that we are gathering the most useful data to measure change.

Communities: By the end of 2024, we will develop specific recommendations on how we can increase the influence and capability of local community organisations in the decision.

Commitment

Health & Wellbeing: Active Scotland

We want Scotland’s young people with care experience, to feel welcome and involved in sport and we are working to ensure sportscotland and the sports sector have a better understanding of the needs of our young people with care experience. This includes improved access to sports coaching, sports leadership opportunities and improved access to career and development with sportscotland.

Status

sportscotland’s commitment to inclusion means we want to support Scotland’s young people with care experience to feel welcome and involved in sport. As inclusion underpins everything it does, sportscotland will continue to provide leadership to the sporting sector, to influence and drive the changes needed to address inequalities and ensure everyone can take part.

A new coaching qualification and subsidy approach has been implemented. The cost of and access to a course can often be seen as a barrier to coaches participating in learning and development. This subsidy approach is aimed at ensuring that our funding is targeted where it is needed most, with young people with care experience specified as a priority group.

sportscotland consulted with young people with care experience in the development of its new Corporate Parenting Plan. This included engagement with young people with care experience in North Ayrshire and Stirling. sportscotland listened to their views on the sporting system, what barriers they face, and what support they would need to participate in sport more.

They continue to provide support to Young People’s Sport Panel applicants and members selected to be on the panel. This includes making travel arrangements, prepaying travel expenses and ensuring panel commitments are not impacting other aspects of the members’ lives. This support helps remove some of the challenges that young people with care experience and other underrepresented groups face.

In 2023, sportscotland worked with the Robertson Trust to facilitate an internship opportunity to a young person with care experience within its Sports Development team. sportscotland also engaged with Who Cares? Scotland on best practice for recruitment and ongoing support to care experienced young people. This may, for example, include advertising future vacancies through the Who Cares? Scotland network to ensure young people with care experience are aware of the opportunities and support available.

sportscotland also launched an equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) online toolbox. The toolbox aims to help people working in the sporting sector to learn the basics about EDI in sport. This includes evidence on young people’s with care experience participation in sport as well as the sporting professional workforce understanding of care experience.

sportscotland continues to work with local authority partners to support young people with care experience in sport. With support from the Active Schools team, over 200 young people with care experienced from North Ayrshire have been supported to attend inclusive residential opportunities at sportscotland’s National Sport Centre in Inverclyde. Through targeted work in West Lothian, sportscotland are supporting three clubs to offer activities to young people with care experience. The clubs will offer opportunities for participation, with further support provided to the young people through the invested Active Schools Coordinator post.

Commitment

Building Safer Communities

Violence Reduction Policy

Publication of the first ever national Violence Prevention Framework is expected in spring 2023.

The Framework will consider all the available evidence and identify policy priorities for all partners to work to, as we seek to prevent violence and make Scotland’s communities safer. Including that our people with care experience are overrepresented in the criminal justice system and highlighting the work to tackle the links between Adverse Childhood Experiences and future victimisation or offending behaviour.

Status

The Violence Prevention Framework was published in May 2023 with a launch at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow where the Minister for Victims and Community Safety met Medics Against Violence Hospital Navigators.

Scottish Government and violence reduction partners have been working towards achieving the 15 actions contained within the Framework including developing a measurement framework. The Framework sets the strategic direction going forward, and is supported by an evidence supplement with implementation of the Framework’s Action Plan agreed through annual stakeholder business plans for 2023/2024. Implementation of the Framework includes activity to identify opportunities to intervene earlier to reduce and prevent harm by those who have been, or are at risk of being, care experienced.

We will shortly be publishing a progress report covering the first year of the Framework’s implementation (2023/24) highlighting the progress towards the Framework actions so far and some of the activity being undertaken with funded partner organisations in the coming year.

Commitment

Building Safer Communities

Cashback For Communities

We have adjusted the scope of the evaluation for Phase 5 to include analysis of the effectiveness in delivering support for care experienced children, children on the edge of care and their families. The evaluation will be undertaken after Phase 5 concludes in March 2023.

Status

Cashback for Communities – Phase 5 (2020-23)

The Phase 5 Evaluation was published in December 2023. The evaluation included evidence of staff training on trauma and adverse childhood experiences (ACEs); provision of trauma counselling; collaborative working with care related agencies and services; and the Cyrenians “Keeping Families Together” project that works in partnership with young people, their families and Scotland’s five secure units.

The Cashback team is engaging with key stakeholders to discuss the findings of the report, consider impact on shared policy areas, and potential for further work on shared policy aims.

Cashback for Communities – Phase 6 (2023-26)

CashBack for Communities supports the Scottish Government’s Vision For Justice, helping to build a just, safe and resilient Scotland. The fund focuses on young people at risk of entering the criminal justice system and the communities most affected by crime.

Phase 6 of Cashback launched on the 1st April 2023. During Phase 6 of CashBack for Communities, 29 projects are to receive up to a

total of £20 million of funding. Phase 6 will deliver a range of trauma-informed and person-centred services and activities for young people between the ages of 10-25 that:

• Support young people most at risk of being involved in antisocial behaviour offending or reoffending towards or into positive destinations
• Provide person-centred support for young people, parents and families impacted by Adverse Childhood Experiences and trauma
• Support young people to improve their health, mental health and wellbeing
• Support people, families and communities most affected by crime

Best Start – Bright Future links with Cashback

In September 2023 the Cashback team hosted a roundtable event between the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs and Cashback partners to discuss child poverty and the Best Start, Bright Futures programme.

Evidencing Impact

Each organisation funded through the Cashback for Communities programme collects data and evidence against the programme outcomes. An annual impact report is published and a full independent evaluation completed at the end of each three year programme phase.

There is overlap between the objectives of The Promise and the Cashback for Communities programme. However, specific data is not routinely captured on the number of young people with care experience or the outcomes for this group.

The most recent published reports are:

• Phase 5 year three Impact Report (2023-24) – Published November 2023
• Phase 5 full evaluation – Published December 2023

Further information on the evaluation framework for Phase 6 can be found on the Cashback website.

The next report due to be published will be the year 1 Impact Report for Phase 6. This will be published autumn 2024.

Case study – Whole Family Support

Cashback for Communities Phase 5, Whole Family Support – Cyrenians

Cyrenians provided whole family support for young people leaving secure care, an approach which is well aligned to The Promise. It worked across secure care centres, with young people and families. It also provided support to families to help them prepare for and attend meetings about their child, as well as spending time with siblings to ensure their voices were heard before the young person moved back home.

Cyrenians worked alongside Scotland’s five secure units, supporting young people and families to rebuild their relationships with the aim of enabling young people to return to the family home – where possible. It offered mediation between young people and their care givers, siblings or other relevant family members; outreach support breaking down barriers to education, wellbeing, employment and training; and group workshops to build resilience, conflict resolution skills and emotional regulation.

Through mediation, families were supported to negotiate rules and guidelines, set boundaries, communicate and move on from specific issues. Family outreach workers supported young people and the wider family, listening, building trusted relationships and helping young people develop their confidence and skills.

Commitment

Tackling Violence Against Women & Girls

Working with COSLA we will publish a new 2 year Equally Safe Delivery Plan by the end of June 2022 that will run until autumn 2023. This plan will build on the many achievements of its predecessor, consolidate existing priorities and commitments, and consider what needs to be achieved for the Violence Against Women and Girls sector to fully recover from the pandemic. Longer term, we will be conducting a wider refresh of Equally Safe for commencement in autumn 2023.

Status

The Delivery Plan was published in June 2022 and the strategy was refreshed in December 2023. Work is now underway to develop a new delivery plan in partnership with COSLA.

We are also maintaining our Delivering Equally Safe Fund, which is providing support to a number of organisations working with children and young people affected by gender-based violence. Over the 2 year life-span of the fund, we are providing over £3.4 million to 12 organisations solely working with children and young people. We are providing a further £15 million to groups providing support to women and children.

Delivering Equally Safe funding will run until March 2025, which is an extension to the original timelines to enable stability to services whilst an independent review of funding is undertaken. We have established a Sustainable Funding Project Board, to consider the key recommendations of the Independent Review of Violence Against Women and Girls, funding, and procurement, which published its report in June 2023. The

Project Board met for the first time in March 2024 to agree its terms of reference and key priorities for its initial 12 month workplan.

Progress is monitored by the Joint Strategic Board, the COSLA leadership board and the Equally Safe Ministerial Group. The new Equally Safe Delivery Plan is due to be published in late spring 2024.

Commitment

Community Safety

Missing People

We will continue to reduce the number of care experienced young people who go missing through implementation of our Missing Persons Framework and our link up across Justice partners, health services and Missing People UK.

Status

The Scottish Government are funding two National Coordinators to develop local multi-agency partnerships across Scotland and provide Return Discussion training for individuals and organisations to limit the likelihood of people going missing repeatedly.

We will provide £145,000 to Missing People charity (2024-25) to ensure the two National Coordinators can continue to take forward and embed the Framework Implementation plan. They will work with partners in local authority areas to map current procedures, identify and build on good practice, develop multi-agency practice and protocols and provide training where required. We aim to reach engagement with all 32 local authority areas by April 2025.

The National Co-ordinators are working closely with Police Scotland to promote the implementation of the ‘Not at Home’ protocol following the launch in 2021. All local authority areas have indicated usage of the protocol but work continues to embed the protocol in everyday practice and build confidence of care staff to assess risk of care experienced young people who may be missing. Police Scotland missing person operational coordinators continue spend time with partners in the care sector to provide training, build relationships and ensure the protocol is being used appropriately.

The number of missing person investigations for care experienced young people has reduced from 4,255 in 2022-23 to 4,085 in 2023-24 and this has included a drop in high risk missing young people from 123 in 2022-23 to 87 in 2023-24. It is important that we support young people most at risk and the ‘Not at Home’ protocol can help to do that where appropriate. We continue to see local areas of good practice such as South Ayrshire where there has been a 40% reduction in missing persons episodes in 2023-24 from 41 in 2022-23 for care experienced young people.

Police Scotland have also been working to build usage of the Philomena protocol, a standardised form that carers use to collate relevant information in relation to and with each individual young person who has or may go missing. Key information being available can assist police in the event of a missing episode and cut down on the time a person is missing before they are located, particularly for those who have been missing previously. The protocol was piloted in three local authority areas and launched across Scotland in May 2023. Awareness of the protocol form will continue to be raised by National Coordinators and Police Scotland to partners to improve use by carers.

We are continuing to engage with third sector partners such as Barnardo’s Scotland and Missing People charity to explore their experience of delivery, increase understanding of the return journey and build best practice to deliver more meaningful return home discussions after a missing episode. Our ambition is to establish multi agency partnerships for missing people in every local area in Scotland by 2025 that can focus on the specific missing issues in their locality.

The Missing Persons Framework supports the Scottish Government's Vision for Justice to have a society where people feel safe, and are, safer in their communities. Missing persons investigations have increased in the last two years following reductions during Covid-19 lockdowns but remain lower than pre-Covid figures. We will continue to work closely with Police Scotland to monitor and analyse the data from missing persons investigations across Scotland. This will allow us to build a picture of need and target the work of the National Coordinators, inform next steps in the development of missing policy and practice to help reduce repeat missing episodes and limit the harm people who are vulnerable may be exposed to.

Commitment

Place and Wellbeing

Link Up are seeking to implement a new model of support for vulnerable families (many care experienced or at risk) in the Gallatown, Kirkcaldy. Their aim is to embed a new worker in the Link Up team to serve as a bridge to connect vulnerable families already involved in Link Up activities with the specialist assistance offered through the local Health Visitor, Community Social Work and Criminal Justice Teams.

Status

Link Up was co-funded in 2023-24 by Population Health and Community-led Regeneration teams. Alongside the impact the three Link Up projects have in each place (Muirhouse, Gallatown and Saltcoats), the overall aim of this funding is to contribute to our understanding of what is needed to create an environment for positive change in local areas using place-based approaches. A final report and case studies are due to be published in May 2024.

Commitment

Community Justice

Custody

We will shift the balance to ensure the role of custody will be reserved only when no alternative is appropriate and begin a debate on who and what prison is for, including how to better accommodate individuals in the system from a trauma-informed perspective. A loss of liberty through custody should only be used as a last resort especially for young people and only where there is clear justification, for example, a risk of serious harm.

Status

In 2024-25, a total of £148 million will be invested in community justice. This includes an additional £14 million to encourage wider use of community-based interventions where appropriate.

This additional investment reflects the evidence that such interventions, including Community Payback Orders, can be more effective than short-term imprisonment at reducing reoffending, assisting with rehabilitation and ultimately ensuring there are fewer victims of crime.

Legislation

The Bail and Release from Custody (Scotland) Act 2023 refocuses how remand is used so that it is reserved for those who pose a risk to victim/public safety. It also intends to improve support for people leaving prison. While the Act does not have a specific focus on reducing the use of custody for young people, we do know that there are an estimated 27,000 children affected by parental imprisonment which is a recognised ACE. Refocusing how imprisonment is used, and improving support for people leaving custody can also support their children and families.

Transformational change

A Transformational Change Programme (TCP) has been established with the aim of promoting a shift in how we address offending and reoffending, through reduced use of custody and greater use of justice in the community. This TCP, “Shifting the balance between custody and justice in the community”, will support the implementation of the revised National Strategy for Community Justice and its accompanying Delivery Plan, published in June 2023.

Review of sentencing and penal policy

In February 2024, the Scottish Government announced its intention to establish an independent review of sentencing and penal policy. This will examine how and when custodial sentences and community interventions are used, how effective these are and what more can be done to prevent crime and reduce reoffending.

Children in Young Offenders Institutions (YOI)

The Policy position through the whole system approach to preventing offending by children and young people, rolled out since 2011, has been that children should be kept out of the criminal justice system, as far as possible. This includes children in YOI. This is based on early intervention and diversion approaches. Encouraging the use of children’s hearings measures where they come in to conflict with the law and using alternatives such as secure accommodation where a period of detention is required. That policy position remains unchanged. Provisions of the Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Act 2024 to end the detention of under 18s in YOI came into force on 28 August 2024. Small, trauma-informed and child-friendly facilities such as secure accommodation will now be used instead.

The Transformational Change Programme will be used to drive and monitor progress, including with regard to the National Strategy for Community Justice and its accompanying Delivery Plan.

Consideration of implementation of the Bail and Release from Custody (Scotland) Act 2023 is underway with partners, with commencement expected to begin during the first half of 2024.

Commitment

Trauma Informed: Prisons Unit

Where young people with care experience are in prison, we will take a trauma informed approach to support them. The Scottish Prison Service (SPS) refreshed the Vision for Young People in Custody in March 2021, recognising the need to adopt an approach to delivery for increasingly complex needs and risk.

Status

The Scottish Prison Service (SPS) has developed an overarching Mental Health Strategy with a series of outcomes that reflect the needs of the whole population with the specific needs of young people referenced where relevant. The Young People’s Strategy Group oversee a plan to ensure that actions are taken to implement the refreshed Vision. This has included:

• Preparing for the incorporation of United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child Legislation into Scottish Law, notably developing a new physical interventions framework. This has been developed taking a human rights based and more trauma informed approach to managing young people in our care, in line with the refreshed Vision and Strategy for women in custody. This will increase the safety for all involved in an episode of restraint.
• Development of specialised training modules for staff recruited directly to residential areas working with and caring for young people and women which has a central emphasis on trauma informed care. Staff are encouraged to reflect and contextualise trauma informed care for both the young people and female populations.
• A workshop with a focus on trauma informed care and mental health care for young people has also been developed to enhance the skills of existing staff.
• Undertaking self-evaluation at HMP & YOI Polmont and an adult establishment to find out about young people and women's wellbeing and the transition from YOI to the adult estate respectively.

Workshops for new and existing staff working with young people were well received by staff who engaged in the learning in a positive manner. The content of all youth products is currently being reviewed by SPS College to ensure they are up to date and relevant to the population.

Four NHS Education for Scotland (NES) modules are now available covering the following areas in developing trauma skilled practice:

• Developing your trauma skilled practice 1: understanding the impact of trauma and responding in a trauma informed way
• Developing your trauma skilled practice 2: trauma in children and young people
• Developing your trauma skilled practice 3: understanding the impact on mental health and evidence-based pathways to recovery
• Developing your trauma skilled practice 4: understanding the use of substances to cope with the impact of trauma

NES Scottish Trauma Informed Leaders Training was delivered to senior leaders covering aspects of trauma informed care and approaches. Next steps are rolling out training to senior management teams across the prison estate.

The SPS Mental Health Strategy, which outlines the support to be provided and the interface with key partners to ensure holistic, whole person approach to care, will be published in 2024. It details how various aspects of prison life can aid prevention, promotion, and recovery in mental health being cognisant of the impact of other policies and strategies on mental health in custody, including the Scottish Government’s review of the Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Strategies. Following publication there will be further engagement with key partners to inform the development of an implementation plan.

Commitment

Children & The Justice System

We are committed to funding the National Joint Investigative Interviewing Programme to support a three year national roll out of the new Scottish Child Interview Model (SCIM) for Joint Investigative Interviews (JIIs), which commenced on 1 April 2021.

Status

We are continuing to support the implementation of national roll out of the Scottish Child Interview Model (SCIM) for Joint Investigative Interviews (JIIs) as part of the Bairns’ Hoose Pathfinder Phase. Funding for the National SCIM JII Training Team has been confirmed until March 2025.

The Scottish Child Interview Model is now live in all policing divisions and in 30 local authorities, with the majority of the child population now able to access this trauma-informed approach to joint investigative interviewing. Orkney and Shetland are the only remaining areas to install the new model of practice, with Orkney expected to be live by the end of 2024 and Shetland in 2025. Local multi-agency partnerships, jointly led by social work and police, are leading on making the necessary adaptations to local child protection systems to accommodate the new approach. Supported by child protection partners such as health, education, third sector, SCRA and COPFS, many of these partnerships are cross-authority partnerships, working collaboratively across regions to deliver the Scottish Child Interview Model.

The Scottish Government has provided grant funding to the Children and Young People Centre for Justice (CYCJ) to evaluate the impact of the Scottish Child Interview Model on the experiences and outcomes for children and young people. The evaluation will also look at the impact this new form of Joint Investigative Interviews has had on pre-recorded evidence being used as evidence-in-chief when cases go to court.

Commitment

Supporting Families: Prisons Unit

We aim to reduce the impact of family imprisonment through a range of ongoing work, including support for families of prisoners led through the Scottish Prison Service’s family strategy.

Status

The Scottish Government provides support for families impacted by imprisonment through its cross-portfolio grant funding of Prison Visitor Centres. In 2024-25 this will be £807,000.

Prison Visitor Centres work with the families of those in custody, enabling families to access independent and impartial advice, information and support, which meets their needs whilst providing them with practical and emotional help with issues like prison visiting, food poverty and child-focussed support. Visitor Centres also run a range of activities aimed at health awareness campaigns to families who are often hard-to-reach and suffer health inequalities.

The Scottish Government also provides core funding to Families Outside through the CYPFEI & ALEC fund, in 2024-35 this will be £141,750. Additionally, the Community Justice Division of Scottish Government also provide grant funding of £141,773 to Families Outside. Families Outside is a national charity working to improve outcomes for children and families affected by imprisonment through support and information for families and for the people who work with them. Families Outside and The Promise worked together on the “Staying Connected” project focusing on children, including care-experienced children, with a sibling in prison recognising the importance of adult siblings within a child’s life. Families Outside are now taking forward the outcomes and recommendations from this work.

The SPS Family and Parenting strategy 2024-2029 was internally published for establishments on the 15th of March 2024 and has been published externally on the SPS website. To highlight the release of this important strategy SPS are exploring bringing together SPS Staff and external partners to improve understanding of the impact of imprisonment on families delivering a seminar at the SPS College in October 2024.

SPS has released its corporate parenting strategy and plan in June 2024, both internally to establishments and externally on the website, this aligns with the family and parenting strategy whilst fulfilling SPS responsibilities to care experienced people in our care.

An easy-to-read version of the family and parenting strategy is being developed and will be accessible at establishments and will be made available online at the SPS website.

Support Mothers and Babies in custody: The Scottish Prison Service Mother & baby policy takes a multi-agency approach to the decision-making process of actively promoting the wellbeing and positive life outcomes for babies whose mothers are held in their care. A new national custodial facility for women at HMP & YOI Stirling was opened in 2023 along with two community custody units in Dundee and Glasgow offering support for women who benefit from closer community contact. These new facilities take into consideration the specific needs of women, including multi agency support for mothers and babies in custody and visit arrangements. Consultation with staff and females who have given birth whilst in custody or in the community prior to entering custody has begun and early feedback discusses the importance of transition points for females with babies in custody.

Commitment

Community Justice Division

We continue to invest £3.7 million per annum in third sector voluntary through care services which support short term prisoners leaving prison by providing flexible, practical support to help them reintegrate successfully into their communities.

We will develop and launch a new National Community Justice Strategy, building on progress to date and setting out clear aims with an emphasis on early intervention and encouraging a further shift away from the use of custody.

Status

A revised National Strategy for Community Justice was published in June 2022, followed by the publication of a delivery plan in June 2023, which sets out deliverables to drive improvement nationally towards the aims of the National Strategy for Community Justice.

A Transformational Change Programme (TCP) has been established with the aim of promoting a shift in how we address offending and reoffending, through reduced use of custody and greater use of justice in the community. This TCP, “Shifting the balance between custody and justice in the community”, will support the implementation of the revised National Strategy for Community Justice and its accompanying Delivery Plan.

The change programme will be used to drive and monitor progress in relation to the implementation of the National Strategy for Community Justice and its accompanying delivery plan.

Commitment

Childrens Rights, Protection and Justice

We will implement Bairns’ Hoose by 2025, bringing together child protection, health, justice and recovery services in one setting.

• Children and Young People Participation and Engagement Plan to be published.
• Annual Progress Report for Bairns’ Hoose Project Plan to be published spring 2023.
• First Phase of Bairns’ Hoose development – The Pathfinder Phase to be launched in summer 2023.

Status

Following the publication of Scotland-specific Bairns' Hoose Standards on 31 May 2023, we published a suite of documents on 1 June 2023: our refreshed vision, values and approach, Children and young people: participation and engagement plan and Bairns' Hoose – project plan: progress report and pathfinder delivery plan, which sets out the action taken to date and how we will trial the new Bairns’ Hoose Standards in Pathfinder Partnerships.

The Bairns’ Hoose Pathfinder Phase was launched in October 2023 with the announcement of 6 successful Pathfinder partnerships and 4 Affiliate partnerships. The selected Pathfinder partnerships are Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire, Fife, North Strathclyde, Outer Hebrides and Tayside. The Affiliate Partnerships are Ayrshire, Dumfries and Galloway, Highland, and the Sycamore Partnership (Edinburgh, East Lothian and Midlothian).

To date we have invested £3.7m during 2023-24 to support the Pathfinder phase of Bairns’ Hoose development, with a further £7.23m investment in the Bairns’ Hoose programme during 2024-25.

Supporting partnership learning as we continue to move at pace to successfully implement Bairns’ Hoose in Scotland, we have extended the Pathfinder phase to summer 2027. The Bairns’ Hoose project team is currently developing specific plans for how the programme will be delivered over the new extended timescale. These plans will be informed by discussion with key stakeholders.

The aims of the Pathfinder phase are for partnerships to trial and test the Bairns’ Hoose Standards within each operational and geographical context; learn what works and identify challenges; and produce knowledge about the methods, practices and resources required for implementation.

Supporting these aims, we have developed five workstreams – Analysis, Knowledge Exchange, Quality Improvement and Service Design, Participation of Children and Young People and Funding Support.

The Pathfinder phase analytical approach supports Bairns’ Hoose aims by focusing on implementation and process, in order to document the journey to becoming a Bairns’ Hoose.

One of the strands of the Pathfinder analytical approach is to coproduce a set of Performance Indicators for all Pathfinder areas. The intention is for Pathfinders to collect and report these back to Scottish Government at the end of the Pathfinder phase.

A Standards Self-Assessment and Readiness Tool (StART) has been developed for Bairns’ Hoose Pathfinder partnerships with a dual purpose of starting them on their improvement journey, and to gather evidence to help us understand the position in each partnership area.

The StART was completed by Pathfinder partnerships in February 2024 and will be completed again in August 2025. Information from the StART will help us to learn about the current state of readiness. It will help us to see where work may need to be targeted across the system and what support is required to meet the Standards in full.

In addition to the analysis of the two StART submissions and the development of Bairns’ Hoose Indicators, the analytical approach also includes a qualitative research element, consisting of interviews and/or focus groups with relevant professionals in each Pathfinder area. The aim of the research is to explore in greater depth the Pathfinder starting positions, plans and progress in moving towards operating as a Bairns’ Hoose, as well as the position of Pathfinders at the end of the phase in terms of implementation of planned activities, achievement of Standards and identified outcomes.

Providing partnerships and stakeholders with the opportunity to share learning and knowledge with and between all parties, the Knowledge Exchange workstream has been established to support partnerships and stakeholders as they move to implement and deliver Bairns’ Hoose throughout Scotland.

Our Children and Young People Participation and Engagement Plan sets our approach to participation and engagement and the actions we will take to deliver. Through this approach, we will make sure that Bairns’ Hoose services best reflect the lived experience and views of those who matter most – the children and young people, and families of the children, who have experienced trauma.

We are working closely with Healthcare Improvement Scotland, who will support partnerships to ensure the voice of children and young people is represented in the work and the design of every Bairns’ Hoose programme and plan.

Commitment

Supporting Maternal and Child Wellbeing

We will continue to work with Children’s Services Planning Partnerships and the Kinship Care Collaborative to improve delivery of holistic whole family support including through our work to:

• Support pregnancy and maternal health and development through implementation of the guidance for schools on how to support young pregnant women/young parents to stay in school; and guidance on Healthy Relationships and consent.
• Support families through preventative health and care programmes, including maternity service, Family Nurse Partnership and health visiting, and initiatives designed for families and early years including: Baby Box, Book Bug and Play, Talk, Read.

Status

The guidance for schools about how to support young mothers to remain in education was published in August 2021. This was produced to complement the Key Messages for Young People on Healthy Relationships and Consent which were published for practitioners in May 2019. The information leaflet aimed at young pregnant women/young parents in school was published in March 2023, on gov.scot and Young Scot.

The Healthy Relationships and Consent for children guidance is still in development, with a view to adapting to parents and carers.

(FNP) is a holistic approach which promotes responsive, sensitive and positive parenting to help break down inter-generational cycles of inequality and poor care giving. Up to 3,000 families per year are supported by the Family Nurse Partnership, and over 11,000 have

benefitted since the programme began in 2010.

The Family Nurse Partnership continues to be delivered to young, first-time mums across mainland Scotland. The Health Visiting Service is offered to all families in Scotland with a newborn and support is provided up until a child starts school. Health Visitors promote and monitor child health and development whilst also providing wider holistic support to the family. This includes partnership working or formal referrals to complementary support services depending on a family’s specific needs.

As the core operating model, resource has focused on supporting this age range. 21 and under in particular has a high number of eligible clients. A number of boards have paused or held-off delivering to 21 year olds due to predicted level of demand and increased teenage rates.

Liaising with Health Boards in January/February 2024 to gain insight what capacity is available to progress expansion particularly to 21 year olds based on available resource and modelling of predicted demand. Boards are delivering to capacity, expanding to age ranges was to utilise reduced rates from the core teenage cohort.

Commitment

Supporting Maternal And Child Wellbeing

We will continue our work with Children’s Services Planning Partnerships and the Kinship Care Collaborative to improve delivery of holistic whole family support including through our work to support families to access employment or education through provision of early years childcare; and increase financial assistance through doubling of the Scottish Child Payment and further increasing it to £25 by end 2022 when roll out to 6 – 15 year olds takes place.

Status

The Scottish Child Payment was extended to under 16s and increased to £25 on 14 November 2022. At the same time we introduced auto-award of Best Start Grant Early Learning and School Age payments for people receiving Scottish Child Payment, making it easier for people to receive that they are entitled to. Scottish Child payment was increased to £26.70 from April 2024.

The Scottish Government have removed the income thresholds from Best Start Foods in February 2024, bringing eligibility in line with Best Start Grant and Scottish Child Payment, which have no thresholds.

Commitment

Good Food Nation

Status

The Good Food Nation (Scotland) Act 2022 places duties on local authorities and health boards to produce plans of their policies in relation to food and set out what they will do to make those plans real. These plans will set out the outcomes to be achieved in relation to food-related issues, the policies needed to do this and the measures that will be used to assess progress. It is expected that authorities will consider the provisions that they make for the supply of food in the settings for which they are responsible, including care settings for young people, and how these provisions contribute towards achieving the outcomes.

2. A Good Childhood For Our Children And Young People

Commitment

National Carers Strategy

We will develop and publish a National Carers Strategy with a focus on COVID-19 recovery and improving carer support in a meaningful and sustainable way. The strategy will focus on carers and their needs, setting out how policies across the Scottish Government can work together with other public bodies to support carers as we recover from the pandemic and beyond.

Status

The National Carers Strategy was published in December 2022. We have completed year 1 of the Strategy’s implementation with most of the 40 actions successfully implemented. Actions for year 2 will be prioritised by the Carers Rights and Support Steering Group.

The Carers Rights and Support Steering Group (who oversee the Strategy’s implementation) met in January 2024 to confirm prioritised actions for year 2 and discuss data used for monitoring actions.

Commitment

Definition of Care Experience

We will work with partners across Scotland, including The Promise Scotland, to develop a universal and inclusive definition of Care Experience, we will explore further how this definition can best be reflected in relevant legislation to ensure a consistent and respectful use of language.

Status

The Scottish Government will lead a package of consultation work from summer to the end of 2024 to inform the next stage of policy development and in support of the legislative direction to be included with The Promise Bill.

From summer to the end of 2024, we will take forward a programme of consultation and engagement with the care experienced community, working with partners to deliver a co-ordinated package of participation and engagement with children, young people, adults with care experience, and their families. This package of consultation will include:

• Consideration of a universal definition of Care Experience
• Implementing the outcomes of the work to redesign the Childrens Hearing System
• A package of support for young people transitioning out of children’s care services
• On the future of fostering.

Commitment

Consider Our Language

We will build on the Each and Every Child Initiative and will develop further work to address stigma over the course of 2022/23, with input from local partners and our care experienced young people.

We will use destigmatising language at every opportunity and will use certain terminology only where the use of an alternative may create confusion. We will continue to work with The Promise Scotland to identify and use language, across all of our policies and engagement, which respects the views of our people with care experience.

Status

The Scottish Government provided funding to the Each and Every Child Initiative over a three year period and worked with partners to promote the initiative. Since January 2020, Each and Every Child have been approached by over 130 organisations across Scotland to deliver bespoke training based on Framing Care Experience and the framing toolkit, including local authorities, Scottish Government, Corporate Parents and Third Sector organisations. The initiative has worked alongside ‘voices of experience’ to help shape and drive the delivery of the initiative.

Within Scottish Government, Each and Every Child learning has been provided to over 300 staff working in roles linked to keeping The Promise. Relevant published documents have been frame checked, using the Each and Every Child toolkit to ensure language and terminology is non stigmatising. These documents include: Staying Together and Connected: Getting it Right for Sisters and Brothers National Practice Guidance; GIRFEC Refreshed Guidance; The Promise Implementation Plan and the supporting Child Friendly Plan. We will continue to promote Each and Every Child across Scottish Government and consider the framing toolkit throughout all communications in relation to people with care experience.

Following the success of the initiative, we have committed to continuing our funding of Each and Every Child. The overall purpose of Each and Every Child initiative for Phase 4 (2024-2026) is to build on the foundations of awareness raising from Phase 3, fostering a deeper sense of ownership and understanding across Scotland of the power of framing recommendations to shift public understanding and to tackle stigma and discrimination. The focused and strategic development of the initiative has huge potential to consolidate practice and culture change across organisations, individuals and communities. This culture change at all levels is vital and necessary to ensure Scotland is able to keep The Promise by 2030.

Commitment

Cross border placements:

Some children and young people who cannot live safely at home, come to live in Scotland from other areas of the UK. We are working to deliver solutions to ensure that they are able to experience the same high level of care that we expect for children who start their journey within Scotland, and that their rights are equally upheld.

Status

A refreshed version of The National Practice Model was published in September 2022. It sets out a shared framework and approach to identification, assessment and analysis of a child or young person’s wellbeing needs. Our partners at the Children and Young People’s Centre for Justice are leading work to support local authorities and secure care providers to fully implement the Secure Care Pathway and Standards published in October 2020 in order to deliver a consistent approach. The standards apply to all children in secure care, including those who are placed in to secure accommodation in Scotland from elsewhere in the UK.

The Scottish Government is clear that cross-border placements should only occur in exceptional circumstances where the placement is in the best interests of an individual child.

The Children (Care and Justice) Act 2024 (“The Act”) received Royal Assent on 4th June 2024. A key focus of this Act is to further regulate cross-border placements of children and young people into Scotland from England, Wales and Northern Ireland, to cater for the exceptional circumstances in which these placements are warranted.

Section 28 of the Act focusses on this, by enabling Ministers to prepare and publish standards and outcomes which would apply to care services which host cross-border placements of children. This section also includes powers to ensure that Ministers can prescribe information pertaining to cross-border placements which must be included in an application for care service registration with the Care Inspectorate. Section 29 of the Act extends the power of the Scottish Ministers under section 190(1) of the Children’s Hearings (Scotland) Act 2011 to regulate cross-border placements of children into Scotland which are underpinned by a non-Scottish court order which appears to them to correspond to a compulsory supervision order (CSO).

Section 30 of the Act also includes a new section 33A of the Children (Scotland) Act 1995 for the Scottish Ministers to regulate cross-border placements from England, Wales and Northern Ireland which are legally authorised in that jurisdiction under statute or a court order. Ministers are empowered by this to impose conditions in respect of these placements, to provide for a mechanism for monitoring adherence to these and to set out consequences of breaching them.

We have established a four nations Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) concerning placements involving children who are placed in Scotland whilst subject to a Deprivation of Liberty (DOL) order. This ensures continued focus at national levels to work to meeting the objective of exploring suitable placements in the child’s own country before a child is placed in Scotland, wherever that is in the child’s best interest.

Taken together, the new powers in the Act will enable Ministers to bolster the existing regulatory framework in relation to cross-border placements to protect and uphold the rights of children placed in Scotland. In addition to this, we will look to build on existing work with our partners across the UK as we implement the Act to achieve the intention that cross-border placements into Scotland are only made in exceptional circumstances, and in the best interests of the placed child.

Commitment

A Good Childhood – Children and Young People Vision & Principles

Our vision and principles will inform the development of a comprehensive, evidence based work programme to ensure that the Scottish Government leads and plays its part in delivering the recommendations, ambition and ethos reflected in The Promise’s A Good Childhood. We will establish a stakeholder advisory group, and seek input from people with care experience, to develop and implement this work programme between now and 2030.

We will work with local and national partners to develop a monitoring and evaluation strategy to ensure we can measure the effectiveness of the implementation of the plan and how it feels for, and the experience of, children and young people affected.

Status

We have decided not to establish a stakeholder advisory group for the A Good Childhood elements of the implementation plan. We already have a wide range of well-established stakeholder groups, including the National Leadership Group, with roles and remits which cover our commitments in this area. We will continue to use and collaborate with our existing networks to shape and deliver our work programme. The development of a monitoring and evaluation strategy has been incorporated into work on The Promise Progress Framework being developed jointly by Scottish Government, The Promise Scotland, and COSLA.

Commitment

Keeping Brothers and Sisters Together

The introduction of siblings legislation in 2021 was a vital step in recognising the importance of siblings relationships, and keeping brothers and sisters together and connected. National Practice Guidance was published the same year.

Status

The Scottish Government continues to support implementation of the Brothers & Sisters Practice legislation and guidance by working with partners to consider the recommendations of the National Implementation Group, in order to deliver the wholescale positive change that is needed to keep siblings together and connected.

Following publication of The National Practice Guidance in 2021 a National Implementation Group was convened to consider the opportunities and challenges in realising our collective aspiration to keep siblings together. Who Cares? Scotland engaged with a group of children and young people with lived experience as part of this work to ensure their voices were held on sibling rights and how the legislation is being applied in practice.

The Groups final report and recommendations was published in June 2023. This recognised the high aspirations in the guidance for sibling relationships and that the legislation provides a strong foundation for change. The Group went on to acknowledge that there are factors within the wider environment, such as the recruitment and retention of social workers, and availability of skilled carers, that challenge our collective ambitions to support siblings. A collaborative approach is therefore required to support the change necessary.

It is critical to establish a national picture of the extent to which brothers and sisters are placed together, to understand how the policy is being implemented in practice and where further support is required. As such – and as a direct result of the Group’s work, the information that local authorities collect and report to the Scottish Government now includes, for the first time, four new data categories related to siblings.

The purpose of these four data items is to understand the extent to which children are placed together with their siblings in care. We continue to work with local authorities as the approach to sibling data develops in order to understand more fully the reasons why siblings aren’t placed together. Questions on this will form part of future data returns.

A substantial output from the Group was the development of a Staying Together and Connected: Getting it Right for Sisters and Brothers Learning, Development and Leadership Framework. This set out the required skills and learning outcomes, taking a tiered approach in order to ensure that children’s rights to stay connected with their siblings are realised and the legislation and guidance are embedded in practice. We encourage all organisations who engage with children and young people to consider incorporating this framework into their own learning and development practices, recognising the importance of children and young people maintaining connections for healthy identity, development and emotional wellbeing.

We are engaging with practitioners and professionals across the children and families sector on the STaC Learning, Development and Leadership Framework; and with partners including the Scottish Social Services Council, to consider next steps in relation to embedding the required knowledge, skills and abilities, as set out in the Framework, into social work and wider education.

We will continue to work with stakeholders including Who Cares? Scotland, Education Scotland, Young Scot and others to understand what work is now required to raise siblings’ awareness of their rights to stay connected to their siblings. This includes work underway to consider the advocacy offer to children and young people and the recommendations and proposals recently presented by The Promise Scotland.

In addition, a Siblings Community of Practice, jointly facilitated with The Promise Scotland has now been established. This forum provides a valuable opportunity for practitioners to reflect and learn from existing practice knowledge. The Community of Practice has met on a number of occasions in 2023/24 and has proven to be a supportive and solution focused space. We continue to engage with the Community to provide regular policy updates and to access the expertise and knowledge of the members as they share learning, practice and knowledge.

Commitment

Support Relationships

The Secure Care Pathway and Standards were published in October 2020. When fully implemented standards 25 – 27 will ensure that young people are encouraged and supported to maintain and develop relationships with family, friends and people who are important to them.

Status

Our partners at the Children and Young People’s Centre for Justice are leading work to support local authorities and secure care providers to fully implement the standards to deliver a consistent approach. Resources developed include a self-evaluation, learning and improvement template; a half-day workshop to raise awareness of the Pathways and Standards; and a website with resources and case studies.

The Secure Care Standards Champions Group meets regularly and allows members to share their journeys, learning and challenges in implementing the standards. The Care Inspectorate carried out a review to consider the impact of the standards. The review centred on listening to and understanding the experiences of 30 young people across Scotland and reported in September 2023.

The Cyrenians Keeping Families Together project received continued funding through the Scottish Government’s Cashback for Communities programme. This means they will continue to support children in secure accommodation and their families, offering practical support, mediation and conflict resolution workshops until 2026.

The Scottish Government will engage with the Care Inspectorate in May 2024 to discuss the findings from their review and progress the recommendations for Corporate Parents.

Commitment

Supporting Parents

The Supporting Birth Parents Whose Child(ren) Have Been Permanently Removed from Their Care fund has been established to fund relational, trauma responsive services.

Status

The Scottish Government has made available £800,000 in grant funding to help supporting birth parents whose child(ren) have been permanently removed from their care. The successful applicants were awarded funding in 2022 and 2023.

The participants in the programme will be undertaking tests of change, listening to the voice of the lived experienced of birth parents and using this learning to identify what supports birth parents need when they have had a child removed from them permanently. An evaluation report has shown positive support to birth families.

A third year of funding has been submitted by organisations to continue to deliver services to support Birth parents. The annual report which includes testimonies from birth parents has shown how valuable services have been in supporting parents after child removal.

Commitment

Youth Justice and Reshaping Our Approach to Secure Care

Where a child’s liberty requires to be restricted or deprived, this should be in a setting which is child friendly and rights respecting, with trauma-informed staff. We are committed to safeguarding young people within the Youth Justice system:

We will end the placement of 16 and 17 year olds in young offenders institutions without delay. We will fund care based alternatives to custody and consult on new legislation in spring 2022.

We will continue to explore options around changes to secure care, including working with secure care providers, local authorities and Social Work Scotland to find a sustainable funding model to be implemented over the next 2-4 years,

We will introduce a Children’s Care and Justice Bill this Parliamentary term. A consultation was launched in March 2022 on policy proposals including:

We will ensure that all care experienced children, wherever they live, will be protected from violence and experience the safeguard of equal protection legislation.

We will consult on the need for further appropriate underpinning in legislation or guidance to ensure children’s rights are protected in care settings.

Status

The Scottish Government continues to deliver on vision and consider the implementation of the Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Act 2024. Provisions of the Act to end the detention of under 18s in young offenders institutions were commenced on 28 August 2024.

Work is underway to establish how secure accommodation needs to be reconfigured to meet needs. This includes understanding the current profile of young people in secure and young offenders institutions, how current or alternative services or provision can meet that need, and where there are gaps. We continue to work with partners – COSLA, secure providers, and Scottish Prison Service – to consider the impact on secure accommodation in Scotland. This includes ensuring capacity through on-going funding of Scottish Government paying for up to 16 beds in secure care as they become available until required by a child living in Scotland.

The Youth Justice Improvement Board met in March 2024 to discuss an updated version of the vision to be published in June 2024.

We commissioned the Children and Young People’s Centre for Justice (CYCJ) to undertake a project to understand what is required to support secure care services to meet the needs of all children who are deprived of their liberty in the future. The Scottish Government, COSLA and Social Work Scotland are represented on a Governance Group which oversees delivery of the project.

An interim report was published in December 2023 which summarises what children and young people and other stakeholders have told CYCJ during engagement sessions, combined with previous knowledge and research. The final Reimagining Secure Care report is due in September 2024.

We introduced The Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill (now an Act), which will increase age of referral to the Children’s Hearing System to 18. We have commenced provisions which have brought an end to the detention of 16 and 17 year olds in young offenders institutions. The Reimagining Secure Care Project which the Children and Young People’s Centre for Justice is undertaking on behalf of the government ran in tandem with the Bill.

Discussions with secure care providers about changes required to augment current provision are ongoing. The current secure care contract has been extended until March 2025. Scotland Excel have begun work to consider future commissioning arrangements which will take account of the forthcoming changes.

The Youth Justice Improvement Board and implementation groups are continuing to deliver on the priorities within the Youth Justice Vision published in June 2021, ensuring that children’s rights are respected and that there is reinvigoration of the whole system approach to preventing offending by young people. This includes specific work on community alternatives available across Scotland and the publication of a framework for practitioners on community alternatives to remand.

As well as the Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Act to address legislative transformation, there are practice and cultural

changes which need to take place to further reduce under 18s in young offenders’ institutions and ensure readiness and confidence in alternatives. A range of actions are already underway to address this including:

• Ongoing discussions with key partners including COSLA, Scotland Excel, secure care providers and Social Work Scotland to consider funding of secure care placements from July 2022 onwards, to allow priority capacity for under 18s living in Scotland.
• A workshop with key partners such as secure care providers, Scottish Prison Service, COSLA, the Care Inspectorate and Social Work Scotland to consider alternative options to young offenders’ institutions.
• Continue to support the workforce to ensure a caring, relational and trauma-informed response to any challenging behaviour.
• Continue to work with partners including Scottish Physical Restraint Action Group (‘SPRAG’) to explore all areas which support restraint reduction.

These actions align with ongoing work to develop new human rights-based guidance in the use of physical restraint and seclusion in schools.

Commitment

Youth Justice

A short life working group was set up in December 2021 under the Scottish Government Collective Leadership Group. Four recommendations were agreed:

• undertaking a trauma informed review of an under 18s pathway to young offenders institutions;
• recognising the needs and rights of the young person and supporting their understanding of court processes to ensure meaningful participation;
• assessing and reviewing key policies through the lens of the UNCRC;
• and identifying and removing legal impediments to alternatives to remand and taking immediate actions where possible to remove under 18s from custody.

Status

The short life working group on youth justice concluded in 2022. Four of its recommendations are being addressed through Scottish Government trauma team and Children’s Rights Group and community alternatives group under the Youth Justice Vision.

Trauma informed review is being considered by the Youth Justice Improvement Board. This includes children in police custody, Early and Effective Intervention (EEI) processes, and court support. A blueprint for youth courts offering support to under 18s was published in 2023. Court support is included in the workplan for delivery of the vision for Youth Justice through the two implementation groups Advancing Whole System Approach and Children’s Rights for children in conflict with the law).

The Children’s Rights group is considering UNCRC in respect of children in conflict with the law.

Alternatives to remand and removing under 18s in YOI are covered in the Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Act 2024, with provisions to end the detention of under 18s in YOI coming into force on 28 August 2024.

Implementation groups are due to meet throughout 2024.

Commitment

Use of Restraint- Secure Care and Residential Childcare

We will:

• continue to ensure the use of restraint in residential or secure care is not used unless it is the only practicable means of securing the welfare and safety of that or any other service user and there are exceptional circumstances.
• continue to support the workforce to ensure a caring, relational and trauma-informed response to any challenging behaviour.
• work closely with the Scottish Physical Restraint Action Group which is exploring definitions of restraint, the data that is held and the training and support available for residential care staff

Status

Consideration was given to the legal framework for restraint within wider children’s services in the 2022 Care and Justice Bill consultation. Work is ongoing with partners to reduce, and where possible stop, the use of restraint in respect of children in care.

Secure Care: We continue to work with secure accommodation providers and partners to ensure restraint in such settings is only used as a last resort and for the shortest time possible.

The Children and Young People’s Centre for Justice (CYCJ) are supporting implementation of the secure care standards which include standards around reducing the use of restraint. The Care Inspectorate carried out a review of implementation of the standards, further discussions will take place from April to consider the findings from the review.

Residential Childcare – The Scottish Government is committed to keeping The Promise and to working with key partners in the children’s residential childcare sector to ensure that, together, we implement its aspirations. That includes working with partners to further reduce and, where possible, remove the use of restraint on children and young people in care.

In order for the Scottish Government to understand whether existing supports and tools for the residential care workforce remain fit for purpose, we are seeking to work with partners, such as CELCIS and Scottish Physical Restraint Action Group (‘SPRAG’), to build-up a national picture of learning from the work that is currently underway. This will help us to better understand developing and innovative local approaches taking place in the sector and identify the key values, principles and enabling environments that have been required to successfully embed trauma-informed care approaches which have reduced, and in some instances removed, the need for the use of restraint as the child’s needs are identified and supported appropriately from the earliest possible opportunity.

Residential childcare workers need to be highly skilled to support the frontline work they do with children and young people in their care. In alignment with The Promise, many providers in the residential sector have built on the 2013 Holding Safely Guidance to develop a wider trauma-informed approach to the provision of care within residential child care settings. The aim being for current practice to work within a more blended framework of regulation, guidance, practice support and precise reporting to best serve Scotland’s young people.

We continue to work with partners to support the workforce to develop a wider trauma-informed approach to the provision of care within residential childcare settings.

We have continued to work with partners including Scottish Physical Restraint Action Group (‘SPRAG’) to explore all areas which support restraint reduction. We know that SPRAG have worked with the Care Inspectorate on improved consistency of reporting of restraint and restrictive practices and this has led to improved national data collection by the Care Inspectorate. The Care Inspectorate have also published a restrictive practices self-evaluation tool to support practitioners and services to evaluate how well they are doing in reducing restrictive practices and identifying further areas of improvement. SPRAG are also involved in a variety of activities designed to positively impact efforts to reduce and/or eliminate the use of physical restraint, including responding to Scottish Government consultations and collaborating with the Care Inspectorate on defining restraint.

Residential and secure accommodation both follow Holding Safely Guidance and reporting mechanism with the Care Inspectorate. The Care Inspectorate inspects residential and secure care homes at least once each year. Restraint procedures are part of that inspection process.

The UNCRC Concluding Observations include a range of recommendations about monitoring and restricting the use of restraint and seclusion. These form part of over 190 recommendations that are relevant to Scotland on a wide range of issues. The Scottish Government is carefully considering prioritisation of the Concluding Observations. Resourcing constraints within the public sector mean that it will not be possible to progress all of these simultaneously. We published our initial response to the UN Committee recommendations on 25th March 2024 and are developing our approach to advancing these over the next reporting cycle. In developing our approach, we will engage with children and young people to plan and progress a broader programme of awareness raising.

Commitment

Children’s Hearings Advocacy

Advocacy: The Promise Scotland will scope a national lifelong advocacy service for people with care experience.

Review of Existing Models is underway: There are a number of models in place that support children and young people and many provide valued and different supports at different points.

Partnership Engagement: Maintaining relationships with existing providers in order to support an informed view of existing impact and to develop a revised model remains a risk factor especially if recommendations to develop and implement a revised model may be financially challenging.

Status

Work has been undertaken by The Promise Scotland to scope the need for a lifelong advocacy service for care experienced people and their families. The report was sent to Ministers in December 2023, and the final report published in February 2024.

An external evaluation of children’s advocacy in children’s hearings will provide a final report in October 2024. Scottish Ministers have committed to share the outcomes of this evaluation with the Parliament by end of 2024. In our response to Sheriff Mackie’s Hearings for Children Report, we accepted recommendation 4.1: “There must be changes to the way that advocacy is offered”. The Scottish Government agrees, noting that repeated offers of advocacy support are already enshrined in the practice model governing the current statutory children’s hearings advocacy provision that has operated since November 2020. The review of existing advocacy models is underway, being led by the Children’s Rights team.

On advocacy, urgent work will be required to upskill advocacy workers in eliciting, and then reflecting, voices and experience of infants and babies. This specialist area of work has been acknowledged and it is recognised that significant resource will be required to develop their skills. Non instructed advocacy (NIA) is also of key concern particularly when working with babies and infants, as well as children with complex communication needs. Professionals in the hearings space have mixed views as to the applicability of NIA, and we will work with the Redesign Board to build a consensus on the basis of empirical evidence and practice insights.

There are a number of complexities, including financial challenges that must be considered in relation to developing a revised model for a lifelong advocacy service for people with care experience.

A Hearings Redesign Board has been established, co-chaired with COSLA, to take a co-ordinated approach to redesigning the hearings system across the next 2 years. It will move at pace and met for the first time in January. Any changes need to be properly planned and sequenced with other important work in the child care and justice sectors.

There is further detail on Children’s Hearing Redesign in the Creating The Right Scaffolding section below.

Commitment

Age of Criminal Responsibility:

Scottish Ministers have a duty to consider a future age of criminal responsibility, and to report to the Scottish Parliament by December 2025. The Advisory Group, established to support Ministers with the review, will provide recommendations for a future age of criminal responsibility by December 2024.

Status

The Advisory Group and its four sub-groups continue to meet regularly as we enter the final year of the Age of Criminal Responsibility 3 year Review to take forward matters relating to the review of the Age of Criminal Responsibility (ACR) Act.

The Group has oversight of operation of the Act from January 2022, including consideration and potential delivery of longer-term solutions to implementation matters where interim solutions were put in place for 17 December 2021, including:

• Whether further developments are required for an out of hours service for the provision of court orders authorising certain police investigatory powers with an age of criminal responsibility of 12; and
• Development of health pathways in relation to the taking of forensic samples from children under the age of 12

In addition, the Advisory Group is responsible for:

• Learnings from the ongoing operation of the Act during the review period; and
• Reflecting on the lessons learned from delivery of the Act (valuable contributions and lessons learned have come from the multi-agency learning events which were held in January 2023 and January 2024, therefore, this type of event will take place each year of the review period).

The Group held a second Learning Event in January 2024 where over 80 delegates discussed the learning that could be taken from the first two years of implementation of the Act. A full report was presented to the Advisory Group to inform the next steps going forward as part of the review period. The Advisory group sub-groups are looking at capacity and capability enhancements for any future increase in the age of criminal responsibility.

The Advisory Group in March 2024 focused on the work of two of the sub-groups – Data and Research, and Community Confidence. Work began following this meeting on drafting the Report which will be presented to Ministers in December 2024 allowing informed consideration as to whether the age of criminal responsibility should be increased.

Commitment

Care Experience Transitions, Rights and Wellbeing Team

Care Leaver Payment.

We will invest £10 million per annum to support young people moving on from care through the introduction of a Care Leaver Payment (previously known as the Care Experience Grant): a new one-off payment of £2000 for 16-25 year olds which aims to provide additional financial support to those moving on from care into adulthood and more independent living.

Status

Work is underway to develop a payment to provide young people leaving care with additional financial security. This is proposed as a Care Leaver Payment. A regulation-making power has been taken in the Social Security (Amendment) (Scotland) Bill, which was introduced to Parliament on 31 October 2023. The power taken will allow the Scottish Ministers to create one or more schemes to give financial assistance to individuals who have had experience of being in the care system. This is named ‘care experience assistance’ in the Bill. In the first instance, this power will be used to establish the Care Leaver Payment by way of regulations.

The intention of the Care Leaver Payment is to provide additional financial support for young people leaving care by helping reduce some of the financial barriers that young people face whilst moving on from care and into adulthood. The proposal is to deliver a one-off payment of £2,000 to those leaving care at the point of transition into adulthood.

Details on the eligibility criteria, processes and delivery model of the payment are still to be determined and will be set out in regulations in due course. The policy will be developed through engagement and consultation with people with care experience and those with experience of delivering similar support. A public consultation on the payment opened on 3 November 2023 and closed on 26 January 2024. An independent analysis of consultation responses was published on 18 June 2024. The outputs of the consultation will inform ongoing policy development and decision-making in relation to the payment.

Commitment

Care Leavers Housing Pathways

We will continue to work with partners to implement the ‘Improving Care Leavers Housing Pathways’ report recommendations.

We will continue to employ a multiagency approach to ensure that all care leavers are supported through Continuing Care or transition support to independent living. The Care Leavers Pathway sets out sensible, evidence based next steps to ensure corporate parents act on their legal and moral duties to prevent care leavers experiencing homelessness, at the point of leaving care and later, by fully implementing existing policy and legislative frameworks.

We will continue to ensure people under 26 years old who have previously been in the care of a local authority are exempt from Council Tax.

Status

The Improving Care Leavers Housing Pathways sets out a number of recommendations designed to protect young people moving on from care, including ensuring consistent implementation of both Continuing Care and Aftercare policy.

Work is progressing on policies such as the homelessness prevention duties and Continuing Care and Aftercare for care leavers, which directly link to the recommendations in the pathway.

We updated the Continuing Care guidance to provide clarity and improve accessibility for all who support young people in accessing the help they are entitled to. This was published on 30th July 2024.

We are carefully considering the current support offer available to young people moving on from care. This includes Continuing Care, Aftercare and broader supports and services. A public consultation on the support required to positively support young people moving on from care went live on the 11th July 2024, and runs until 3rd October.

The Care Inspectorate (CI) is undertaking a Thematic Review of Care Leavers transition services, which will implement recommendation 3 of the Care Leavers’ pathway. The review is scheduled to provide a final report in November 2024. We are also working with local authorities to improve the annual Care Leaver data collection. These workstreams will help us to understand our progress in helping young people as they transition out of the care system, and will inform The Promise Progress Framework.

We recognise that youth homelessness is more than a housing issue and that the pathways call for change across youth, welfare, health, justice, housing, homelessness and the children and families’ sectors. This cross-sector approach and recognition that opportunities for early intervention can help prevent homelessness underpins the approach to the Ministerial Oversight Group on Homelessness which was recently convened by the Minister for Housing. It brings together ministers from across the Scottish Government to identify the actions required to end homelessness in a range of policy areas including children, young people, care leavers and The Promise.

Commitment

Rented Housing

We will seek to improve accessibility, affordability choices and standards across the whole rented sector in Scotland through A New Deal for Tenants – our rented housing strategy to be published by 2023.

Status

The New Deal for Tenants consultation was published in Dec 2021. The timeline for preparing the final strategy will be considered in spring 2024.

3. Creating the Right Scaffolding

Commitment

Children’s Hearings Re-design

We will take forward a redesign of the Children’s Hearings System, building on the recommendations from the review led by Sheriff Mackie, with the aim to bring forward any required legislation by the end of the Parliamentary session.

Status

The Hearings System Working Group (HSWG) was established by The Promise Scotland in the summer of 2021 to consider the redesign of the current Children’s Hearings System in order to keep The Promise. The group was independent of the Scottish Government, chaired by Sheriff David Mackie and with membership from Children’s Hearings Scotland, The Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration, and The Promise Scotland.

The Group reported their recommendations in May 2023. The report contains more than 130 recommendations covering a broad range of policy areas relating to care systems, children’s hearings, youth justice, legal representation, access to justice and preventative support for families amongst others. The Scottish Government published its response to Sheriff Mackie’s review in December 2023. This accepts the majority of recommendations made in the report.

Key emerging themes include: that proposals should be rights focused; highlighting the potential role of family group decision making and restorative practices; consideration of alternatives to a solely volunteer based model of hearings; consideration of the role scopes of various professionals currently in the system and thoughts on what should happen after a redesigned hearing takes place.

A Children’s Hearings Redesign Board has now been established, consisting of senior leadership from the key statutory organisations responsible for the delivery of the children’s hearings system. This group will be responsible for the governance and oversight of all non-legislative aspects of the redesign of the children’s hearings system. The group met for the first time in January 2024, and is progressing work to develop plans and priorities across 2024 and 2025. A public consultation on legislative aspects of Children's Hearings Redesign was launched on 26 July 2024. A planning sub-group consisting of operational leads from the statutory bodies has also been established to take forward actions emanating from the Children’s Hearings Redesign Board.

Commitment

Care Inspectorate

We will collaborate with The Promise Scotland to scope a new, holistic framework for governance and accountability of social care services.

Status

The establishment of a National Care Service (NCS) is the most ambitious reform of public services in Scotland since devolution. It is necessary to deliver the consistency and quality of care and support across Scotland that people deserve.

As part of the tripartite discussions with COSLA and the NHS, it was agreed that shared accountability for the NCS will be discharged in the form of a National Care Service Board (NCSB). There is continuing engagement with COSLA and NHS Boards to agree a way forward on a model of shared accountability, which will include a framework for national oversight and governance of social work, social care support and community health to drive consistency, monitor outcomes and embed an escalation process if things go wrong.

The Promise is clear that if Scotland is to shift its practice to support, prioritise and nurture relationships, then we must shift our accountability structures. Part of this relates to inspection. We are committed to ensuring regulation and scrutiny centres on listening to children about how they are cared for, their ability to thrive and measures the things that matter to children, young people and their families.

The Independent Review of Inspection, Scrutiny and Regulation of Social Care in Scotland, (IRISR) Chaired by Dame Sue Bruce, and engaging with The Promise Scotland, considered how regulation and inspection of social care support and linked services can ensure a human rights-based approach that delivers improved outcomes for people.

The IRISR Recommendation Report was published on 27th September 2023 and made 38 high level strategic recommendations. The Scottish Government response to the IRISR Recommendation Report was published on 6th March 2024, accepting all 38 recommendations, recognising that significant amounts of work are already underway that will in part or fully address a number of the recommendations.

To ensure the recommendations are implemented in a way envisaged by the IRISR implementation will be phased, and work has already commenced on two new workstreams focused on recommendations 15 and 33. We will also establish a programme of work that will enable us to track progress for current and future work to progress the recommendations.

We will continue to work closely and collaboratively with regulators, providers, partners and with those who have lived and living experience of social care support and linked services in all aspects of this work.

The Promise Scotland is engaged in the independent review of Inspection, Scrutiny & Regulation including representation on the stakeholder panel, one of two panels providing specialist advice to the Chair to inform recommendations.

Commitment

National Social Work Agency

We will consider establishing a National Social Work Agency to promote consistency of support and provide national leadership and strategic oversight of the profession.

Status

A National Social Work Agency (NSWA) will be established and given the important links and function that social work will have within the wider national NCS structure, we will ensure necessary reporting links and close working between the NSWA and the National Care Service Board. Working with partners across the public sector the NSWA will provide professional leadership and have national oversight of the social work profession – driving improvements in social work education, training and development, national workforce planning, improvement approaches and providing effective support for implementation of policy in local systems.

We are working across the Scottish Government, and external stakeholders, including Cosla and Social Work Scotland. The intention is to have a Shadow NSWA established by spring 2025 and to be fully operational by spring 2026.

Commitment

Public body appointments

Any of Scotland’s Boards and Public Bodies which have an impact on the care system must ensure that the values of The Promise are embedded in recruitment frameworks. We will explore how we ensure that appointments to public bodies that are within the gift of the Scottish Government can reflect this commitment.

Status

There is real energy for change across the system. This is represented in organisational structures, training and approach to business. Corporate parenting plans present clear messages and commitments to prioritise the best outcomes for care experienced children and young people, accepting responsibility for their welfare, and advocates for their needs.

The Promise Collective provides a strong framework of partnership working and sharing of information and activity underway across organisations to monitor and report progress. This includes connecting activities through corporate parenting duties, sharing best practice in meeting corporate parenting duties, and linking corporate parenting plans. Further work is required to explore how values of The Promise are specifically reflected in recruitment frameworks.

Commitment

National Care Service – Children’s Services

We will work with The Promise Scotland to build an evidence base to understand the best governance, financial arrangements and models of care to assess how we can best keep The Promise. This will explore the options for the future of children’s services from an evidence based position and enable us to assess the best way to keep The Promise.

Status

The establishment of the National Care Service (NCS) will change social care, community health and social work services landscape in Scotland. It will provide opportunities to strengthen systems, secure better ways of cooperative working, ensure performance issues can be identified and addressed transparently and supportively, and ensure better outcomes for people accessing support, in addition to improving experiences of those delivering care.

The Nataional Care Service Bill will reform the integration schemes currently existing under the Public Bodies (Joint Working) (Scotland) Act 2014, making them a fundamental constituting element of the National Care Service. It will also make these reformed integration schemes accountable to a new National Care Service Board. The consequence of reforming the integration schemes this way is that some children’s services will be part of the NCS. This is because some local authorities made a decision to voluntarily delegate these functions under existing integration schemes.

Commitment

Information Sharing for People With Care Experience

We will develop a blueprint for creation and control of information which will empower people to decide who and where key information about them is made available.

Status

This work, led by The Promise Scotland, will examine how protocols with key institutions can support provision of the right information at the right time. It will consider the National Digital record as proposed in regulations as part of the National Care Service Bill. There is opportunity to include any additional legislative changes as part of the proposed Promise Bill in 2025-26.

The Promise Scotland initial report of findings on development of a blueprint for the creation and control of, and access to, information about people with care experience is due to be published in 2024.

Commitment

Advanced Social Work Practice Framework

We will establish an Advanced Social Work Practice Framework which will set out the structures which support social workers to progress through different career phases and describe a cohesive and supportive series of academic, learning and development, and work based opportunities to support the workforce, both now and in the future.

Status

The Scottish Government, alongside partners within the Social Work Education Partnership, have undertaken considerable engagement activity with frontline social workers, managers and professional leaders who continue to form part of the stakeholder engagement of the overall project. Over spring 2023 the Advanced Practice Framework (APF) Subgroup ran several engagement events and spoke to over 200 social workers, both in person and online, to ensure that we, as a profession, get this right. We use the feedback to inform development of the Advanced Practice Framework for Social Work. We will then carry out further engagement with the social work workforce in autumn 2024.

The framework is an opportunity to influence a culture which promotes, acknowledges and values evidence based practice and to recognise the role experienced practitioners can play in using their knowledge and expertise to support the future workforce. The Advanced Practice Framework is due to be launched spring 2025.

Commitment

Social Work Paraprofessionals and Common Core Framework

We will establish a practice framework which will ensure a national approach to the learning and development opportunities for paraprofessionals within the social work workforce and explore the expansion of routes into further education.

We will also develop a common core training framework for the integrated children and family’s workforce which will focus on the core skills values and learning that the workforce will require to deliver family support and rights based practice.

Status

Consideration will be given to developing a framework for paraprofessionals following implementation of the Advanced Social Work Practice Framework. However, as part of work to widen entry routes into the profession more broadly, we are scoping the opportunity to introduce a Graduate Apprenticeship for social work.

The development of the refreshed Common Core continues to progress at pace. This work is being led by the Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC), in collaboration with a short-life working group of key stakeholders. This will provide updates to the workforce development sub-group, which in turn reports and seeks endorsement via the Children and Families National Leadership Group.

Commitment

Trauma-Informed Social Work Services

From 2022 onwards we will roll out a national programme of implementation support to develop trauma-informed social work services across Scotland.

Status

A workplan has been agreed with key partners to ensure Scotland’s social work services are able to recognise where people are affected by trauma, and respond in ways which reduce risks of retraumatising and supports recovery. Actions are progressing through the Trauma Responsive Social Work Services (TRSWS) Programme.

Delivery of the extensive implementation support and learning programme commenced in October 2023, initially with four areas, Glasgow Health and Social Care Partnership, Scottish Borders, Stirling and West Lothian Councils. Work is taking place across children’s, justice and adult social work services and workforce. New leadership support, workshops, training materials and products have been developed, and existing resources have been tailored to be used within a broad range of social work systems and contexts.

The team has delivered Trauma Skilled Practice training, with follow up support, to over 200 newly qualified and early career social workers, across Scotland. Initial analysis of feedback indicates this has been very well received and appropriately targeted at a suitable practice level for this component of the workforce.

Progress on the workplan will be continuously monitored by the TRSWS Partnership Delivery Group and updates will be shared on the website.

Initial learning from early implementation sites will help inform scheduling, with further areas across Scotland to be supported by the team from 2024 until December 2026. An independent evaluation of the programme will be commissioned which will help identify next steps. The team will review learning from the Trauma Skilled Practice training offer and share findings with partners and make any necessary adaptations.

Commitment

Workforce Objectives

We are committed to workforce planning through the Children and Families Strategic Partnerships Outcomes Framework:

• to ensure continuity current policies to future national policy initiatives in health, social services and the delivery of the national outcomes delivered by implementation of GIRFEC, UNCRC and The Promise.
• to develop cross-sector messaging; a multi-disciplinary and common core training and skills framework for the integrated workforce.
• To develop the necessary methodology and tools to enable workforce planning at a national level.

Status

The Scottish Government have developed a joint Workforce Improvement Plan with COSLA and key stakeholders which seeks to address the recruitment and retention challenges facing the Social Work profession which include, implementing workforce improvements and refining social work vacancy data to enhance increased accuracy in planning for the demands of the future workforce.

Work is progressing in collaboration with stakeholders including COSLA, Social Work Scotland, Scottish Association of Social Work. Unison and the Scottish Social Services Council to ensure the Improvement Plan is influenced and informed by the voices of social work and other key stakeholders. This includes initial agreement to develop a new national framework for social care and social work as part of ongoing discussions on the National Care Service (Scotland) Bill.

Commitment

Workforce Objectives

We will progress the delivery of a rights and relationship based practice and trauma informed training programme for the integrated children and families workforce.

The National Trauma Transformation Programme provides accessible, evidence-based trauma training resources and support for implementation.

A renewed shared ambition with COSLA for a trauma-informed workforce and services with the launch of a new National Trauma Transformational Programme and website.

Status

With the significant work done to date to progress shared ownership of this agenda across various policy areas within Scottish Government, and work with key partners to develop resources, 2024/5 will be focused on bedding in good practice, improving communication and awareness of resources available and supporting colleagues in their work to drive forward trauma-informed approaches to their policy areas.

Work continues with COSLA, the Improvement Service, Resilience Learning Partnership, and NHS Education for Scotland to support organisations to develop and implement trauma-informed approaches to their workforces and via their services.

In the Scottish Government, policy areas are driving forward policy approaches around trauma informed practice drawing on available resources and expertise as required. The central team’s focus will be continuing to play a coordinating and supporting role while looking at the relationship with Public Service Reform and issues around communication and reporting around activity that would enable greater awareness of the activity taking place locally and nationally.

Commitment

Workforce Planning and Development

We will progress an integrated whole system approach to workforce planning and workforce development for the children and families workforce, including the adult care workforce that support transitions.

Status

We have set up a short life working group with the purpose of oversee the development of the necessary methodology and tools to enable workforce planning at a national level, based on accurate modelling of demand for services, as well as the adequate workforce resources needed to meet such demands. Phase 1 will consist of a data improvement project which will allow us to understand true demand for services as well as the truth state of the workforce; in Phase 2, we will develop a modelling approach in order to allow us to project demand for services, as well as the workforce resources required in order to meet it.

Local workforce planning considerations will connect with Childrens Services Planning duties and the role of Childrens Services Planning Partnerships Governance fora and joint Strategic Needs Assessment.

Commitment

Workforce Regulation

A review of Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) codes of practice to ensure consistency with the skills and practice requirements of The Promise focused on trauma informed family support etc, will see revised codes expected to be launched in mid-2024.

The Promise Scotland will work with the Care Inspectorate, SSSC and other key stakeholders to create an enabling practice environment which supports and evidences a move towards relationship based practice.

Status

A review of Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) codes of practice to ensure consistency with the skills and practice requirements of The Promise focused on trauma informed family support has been completed. The new codes of practice was launched on 7th May 2024. SSSC has committed to work with The Promise Scotland on a myth busting campaign on workforce regulation and standards of practice, which supports the shift towards relationship based practice and the development of ongoing relationships.

The Care Inspectorate have given relationships greater prominence in the new quality improvement frameworks that underpin inspections.

Commitment

Universal and Targeted Health Services

We will continue to review the role of universal and targeted health services, such as health visiting and family nurse partnership, particularly during pregnancy and the earliest years of life, to identify where it could be further strengthened to respond more consistently to the needs of families at the earliest stage.

Status

Scotland’s Universal Health Visiting Pathway offers support to all of Scotland’s young families from pre-birth until a child starts school. As part of our commitment to ensuring that the Health Visiting service continues to deliver for families, we commissioned an evaluation of the Universal Health Visiting Pathway. The main phase 1 evaluation reports were published between December 2021 and June 2022. We are working with Health Board representatives and wider stakeholders to identify and consider appropriate next steps based on recommendations from the evaluation.

For young, first time parents, the Family Nurse Partnership programme is provided pre-birth until their child reaches two and we are currently working with NHS Boards to widen the eligibility criteria so more people can benefit.

4. Building Capacity

Commitment

United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC)

Delivering our commitment to incorporation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) into Scots law.

Our UNCRC implementation action plan includes building the capacity for public authorities to take a child rights-based approach in the design and delivery of services and ensuring that children, young people, their families and all of Scottish society are aware of and understand the UNCRC.

Status

The UNCRC (Incorporation) (Scotland) Bill was reconsidered by the Scottish Parliament on in December 2023 and the Bill was approved unanimously. The Bill received Royal Assent in January 2024 and is now the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Incorporation) (Scotland) Act 2024. Duties under the Act commenced on 16 July 2024.

Commitment

Bail and Release from Custody Bill

A Bail and Release from Custody Bill will be introduced this Parliamentary session.

Status

A Bail and Release from Custody Bill was brought forward to reform how remand is used, and how release mechanisms work for certain prisoners. We consulted on this between November 2021 and February 2022 and the Bill was passed on 22 June 2023, becoming an Act on 01 August 2023.

Commitment

Children’s Care and Justice Bill

A Children’s Care and Justice Bill will be introduced this Parliamentary session to enable improvements to youth justice, secure care, aspects of the children’s hearings system, victims’ services and the criminal justice system.

Status

The Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill, was introduced in December 2022, and passed by Parliament on 25th April 2024 and became an Act on 4th June 2024. The Bill will enable improvements to youth justice, secure care, aspects of the children’s hearings system, victims’ services and the criminal justice system.

Commitment

Housing Bill

A Housing Bill will be introduced to Parliament as soon as possible after summer recess in 2023. This will be a wide- ranging Bill including measures to both strengthen existing homelessness prevention legislation and introduce new duties on public bodies to ‘ask and act’ to prevent homelessness before someone reaches crisis point.

Status

The Housing (Scotland) Bill was introduced to Parliament on 26th March 2024 as per our commitment in the 2023-24 Programme for Government.

This Bill will enable the delivery of our commitment for longer-term private sector rent controls; tenants’ rights and other protections; and duties aimed at the prevention of homelessness. It’s right that we focus our action to support those most vulnerable, especially during these challenging times, in order to achieve our shared goal of delivering safe, affordable, and quality homes.

We will build on the strong housing rights that already exist for people who are homeless by bringing a renewed focus on prevention so that households do not have to go through the trauma and disruption of homelessness. The Homelessness Prevention Duties are based on the values of shared public responsibility, earlier intervention and providing more choice and control through avoiding crisis.

By intervening at an earlier stage, and encouraging services to work together to respond to people’s needs, we can ensure fewer people and families are faced with having to re-build lives affected by homelessness. If homelessness can be more effectively prevented, life chances and outcomes will be improved and savings will be made across public services.

The homelessness prevention provisions, if passed, will introduce a duty on the relevant bodies, listed in the Bill, to ‘ask and act’ about housing situations. In practice this will mean staff asking people they come into contact with through the exercise of their current functions about their housing situation and acting within their existing powers to prevent homelessness where a risk is evident. We know that people who become homeless can often be in contact with different services and organisations before they reach that point. We want to ensure that chances to prevent homelessness at the earliest opportunity are not missed.

Ask and act forms the cornerstone of a wider set of reforms to homelessness legislation which will take us closer to our ambition of ending homelessness.

The legislation will also change local authorities’ duties to people who are threatened with homelessness, requiring them to take action up to six months before homelessness appears imminent rather than the current two months requiring them to take reasonable steps to support households. This may include providing services such as family mediation where appropriate.

Commitment

Legislative Programme to Support Change

Legal Aid Reform Bill

A Legal Aid Reform Bill will be introduced in this Parliamentary session, to ensure that the system is flexible, easy to access and meets the needs of those who use it.

Status

The Scottish Government’s “Vision for Justice in Scotland: three year delivery plan”, published in November 2023 contains an action to engage with key stakeholders to inform and shape future legislative proposals in relation to the reform of legal aid. Building on previous reviews and consultations, the Scottish Government is now, in the first instance, engaging with the Scottish Legal Aid Board to identify possible legislative proposals with the aim of providing a modern, forward-looking and responsive legal aid and assistance framework for Scotland. The aim is to put in place a legislative framework that will best support citizens to defend their rights, resolve problems and settle disputes. Some of the proposals include making provision for simplified and enhanced grant funding powers to enable that more services be targeted, where and when possible. Engagement will be progressed in 2024/25.

Commitment

Legislative Programme to Support Change

Promise Bill

We will introduce a Promise Bill to make any further legislative changes required to keep The Promise by the end of this Parliamentary session.

Status

The purpose of The Promise Bill is to make any further legislative changes required to keep The Promise. For example this may include, provisions required to implement recommendations of the Children’s Hearings System working group and recommendations of The Promise Scotland in relation to a national lifelong advocacy service for people with care experience.

The Scottish Government will continue to work with partners including The Promise Scotland and COSLA to identify areas where a legislative direction may support delivery of The Promise.

Commitment

Review of Current Legislative Framework

We will undertake a review of the legislative framework relating to the care system in Scotland.

Status

We will undertake a review of the legislative framework relating to the care system in Scotland. We will consider the desirability and extent of a re-statement of the law in this area so that the law relating to the care system is identifiable and understandable before considering whether a Bill re-stating the law is necessary.

Commitment

Preventative Spend

Our ambition is that, from 2030, we will be investing at least 5% of all community-based health and social care spend in preventative whole family support measures that will enable us to create a Scotland where more children will only know care, compassion and love, and not a care system.

Status

Discussions are ongoing with Public Services Reform and health finance colleagues to ensure consistent understanding of the commitment, including engagement with health finance to determine how to identify current spend on this area. We will develop a forward looking plan on how to meet this commitment as part of our investment approach.

Commitment

Social Outcomes Investing

We will explore the opportunity to undertake a social outcomes approach to investment.

Status

This will be taken forward as part of our investment approach.

Commitment

Widening from Outcomes to Experience

We will ensure that data, evidence and information about experiences and relationships are prioritised in the way we monitor progress towards keeping The Promise.

We will develop a subset of indicators which will support the National Performance Framework Outcome “we grow up loved, safe, respected and that we realise our full potential”.

Status

The Scottish Government is working with COSLA and The Promise Scotland to develop a framework of key aims, outcomes and performance indicators to inform review of progress. The Promise Progress Framework will form the basis for reporting progress against Plan 24-30 and will be launched in alignment with The Promise Scotland Plan 24-30.

The purpose of The Promise Progress Framework is to provide Scotland with a shared framework that allows us to understand where we are in (the journey towards) keeping The Promise at any given time. This tells the story of the processes in place to generate change and how these are impacting the outcomes we need to improve, which allows us to be responsive in guiding what needs to happen next. This is aligned to the National Performance Framework and Children, Young People and Families Outcomes Framework to make sure we are understanding whether the care experienced community is getting what we all need to thrive, and how this work is contributing to Scotland’s overall aims.

Our work to keep The Promise is anchored by our Theory of Change which hypothesises the primary drivers, secondary drivers and activities which need to be undertaken across Scotland to realise our collective vision. In order to guide our work over the coming years, we need to better understand how our work is impacting the experiences and outcomes of the care experienced community.

Part 5 ‘How We Are Monitoring Change’ sets out in detail how the National Performance Framework, the Children, Young People and Families Wellbeing Outcomes Framework, The Promise Progress Framework, and The Promise are aligned to enable us measure how our activity is impacting the aims of The Promise.

Commitment

The Promise Collective

We will establish The Promise Collective, co-chaired with The Promise Scotland, to support alignment and cohesion of activities.

Status

The Promise Collective was established in 2022 with a key aim to align the improvement work underway across the system. A key element of this is to connect and provide a route for joint working and ambition by linking research and evidence to practice and policy.

The group was first convened in June 2022, co-chaired by The Promise Scotland, COSLA, and The Scottish Government. Membership included CELCIS, Who Cares? Scotland and the Improvement Service. The focus of the group has progressed over the two year period to consider the development and agreement of core aims, outcomes and indicators for joint monitoring and reporting of progress. Joint working on this has been supported by the Verity House Agreement.

In 2024, The Promise Collective has widened further to bring together the work of organisations including, the Care Inspectorate, Public Health Scotland, Police Scotland and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service.