What is helping?
Support for kinship, foster and adoptive families
The Minister for Children, Young People and The Promise, Natalie Don, stated that the Scottish Government is committed to ensuring all adoptees and adoptive families can access the support they need, when and where they need it throughout life.
The Kinship Care Collaborative, established in 2020, has been instrumental in prioritising what needs to happen for kinship carers to ensure they are supported to care for the increasing number of children who live with extended family and friends. The work of the Collaborative includes updating the guidance for Part 13 of the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 to provide better clarity to professionals and kinship carers and developing an assessment framework for kinship carers which links to the national practice model and children’s plans.
The Kinship Care Advice Service for Scotland (KCASS) provides free, confidential, impartial advice to kinship families and those working alongside them.
Support for families once a child has been removed
Since 2022 over £1.2 million in grant funding has been made available to organisations to support birth parents during the Hearing stage. Organisations can bid for a “diagnostic” fund involving research into child removal and what can be done to support parents. Alternatively, they can bid to an “action” fund (the implementation of findings from the diagnostic research). The fund is managed by Corra on behalf of the Scottish Government.
£800,000 in grant funding has been made available to help support 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 lived experienced of birth parents and using this learning to identify what supports birth parents if their child is permanently removed from their care.
Earlier this year, Parenting Across Scotland commissioned The Lines Between to review research focusing on the lived experience and needs of parents and those in a parenting role in Scotland in 2023. The purpose of this research is to understand the key issues, challenges and priorities faced by parents and those in a parenting role in Scotland today.
The Scottish Government’s Supporting Roots research provides a broad picture of the needs of birth parents who have lost a child or children to the ‘care system’.
Planning
In September 2022 refreshed GIRFEC policy and practice guidance materials were published. In October 2023, the GIRFEC Child's Plan Practice Statement was published to communicate current policy intention regarding roles and responsibilities of practitioner’s involvement with the development and monitoring of a Child's Plan.
A review of the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014, Part 3 statutory guidance on Children's Services Planning is planned to consider if its content, scope and format remains helpful or requires amendments to better reflect the current policy landscape for strategic planning, delivery and reporting to further enhance the available support.
Support for families caring for disabled children and children with additional support needs
Self-directed Support (SDS) Statutory Guidance was updated in November 2022 and an SDS Improvement Plan (2023-27) came into effect from April 2023. This is supported by Scottish Government funding of £7.5 million for 2023/24 comprising a package of grants implemented by Social Work Scotland, In Control Scotland, Inspiring Scotland and the ALLIANCE. This includes a relaunch of the Support in the Right Direction programme, which commenced for three years from April 2024.
The Education, Children and Young People Committee has published a report on the findings of its inquiry into additional support for learning. The inquiry found there was a significant gap between the ambitions and implementation of a policy that aspires for children and young people with additional support needs to be taught in mainstream education.
The Scottish Government has published an engagement analysis report regarding feedback received on the National Transitions to Adulthood Strategy: statement of intent. Following the Programme for Government commitment to introduce Scotland’s first National Transitions to Adulthood Strategy, an external strategic working group was established and this group co-developed a statement of intent which set out the proposed vision, scope and priorities for the strategy.
Care planning where a parent has a learning disability
In December 2023, the Scottish Government launched a public consultation on the proposed ‘Learning Disabilities, Autism and Neurodivergence Bill‘. A key objective of the proposed Bill is to ensure parents with learning disabilities are given the support they need and their children are not unfairly removed from their care. This includes provisions around independent advocacy, data collection and inclusive communications and support.
Parental substance use
In January 2021, the First Minister announced a new National Mission to reduce drug deaths and harms, supported by an additional £50 million funding per year over the lifetime of the Parliament (2021-26).
£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 Corra and administered via the Children and Families fund.
The National Development Programme for Family Inclusive Practice commenced in June 2023. Learning from this will support other local areas to develop pathways to meet the needs of families in their communities.
The Scottish Government is continuing ongoing work relating to impact of Minimum Unit Pricing and restrictions around alcohol advertising.
Domestic abuse
In 2022, the UK officially ratified the Istanbul Convention (Council of Europe convention on preventing and combating violence against women and girls).
In 2022 the Scottish Government published its Vision for Justice which sets out several priorities including trauma-informed, person-centred support for women and children who are victims and witnesses, including of domestic abuse. The Equally Safe Strategy (Scotland's strategy for preventing and eradicating violence against women and girls) was refreshed in 2023. Scottish Government’s ‘Delivering Equally Safe Fund’ currently provides support to a number of organisations working with children and young people affected by gender-based violence. Over the 2 years of the fund, £3.4 million is being provided to 12 organisations solely working with children and young people.
In May 2023, the Scottish Government published its Violence Prevention Framework, which seeks to strengthen Scotland’s response to tackling gender-based violence and support more targeted work to tackle hate crime, youth offending, poverty and inequalities.
