Secure care: pathway and standards

What are the Pathway and Standards Scotland?

The Pathway and Standards establishes a coherent set of expectations across the continuum of intensive supports, following a child's potential journey before, during and after a stay in secure care. They are written from the perspective of the child and have specific standards on the areas children detailed were most important to them and had the greatest impact on their care experience. The adoption of a pathway approach reflects the concerns and accounts shared by children, young people and stakeholders throughout the Secure Care National Project and during the co-production of the Pathway and Standards. The Pathway and Standards are not service-led but instead are designed to be applied wherever children are experiencing extreme vulnerabilities, needs and risk in their lives, requiring the involvement of all corporate parents if they are to be achieved for every child.

The individualised implementation of the Pathway Standards should be based on each child's assessed strengths, needs, vulnerabilities, risks and circumstances. While it is recognised that some of the Pathway Standards may be more challenging and take time to fully implement in practice than others, the Pathway Standards detail the expectations we should be aiming to achieve for every child. In anticipation of the changes in practice, approaches, experiences and outcomes the Pathway Standards will bring, they will be subject to ongoing monitoring, review and updating.