Justice
Documenting decisions (Voice)
Where Scotland needs to be by 2030
By 2030, Scotland’s decision making will be recorded in language that is easily understood; is positive and does not create or compound stigma; and will capture the voices of infants, children, young people, families, care experienced adults and the people and things that are important to them.
This means:
- Decisions will be documented in a way that is transparent, capturing the multiple perspectives involved and ensuring workforce perspectives do not dominate or drown out the voices of children, young people, families and care experienced adults, and quieter or alternative perspectives.
- Scotland will understand "language creates realities." Those with care experience will hold and own the narrative of their stories and lives: simple, caring language will be used in the writing of care files.
- All those with a role in recording decisions will avoid using words like ‘placement’, ‘respite’ and ‘LAC’. These words can impact a child’s sense of being singled out or different; compounding feels of isolation and low self-esteem.
- The workforce will be considerate and write reports in a clear, relatable way, using plain English. Reports will be written with the assumption the young person will read them later.
Listening (Voice)
Where Scotland needs to be by 2030
By 2030, Scotland will be a nation that listens to and puts the needs and experiences of infants, children, young people and their families at the heart of all decision-making.
This means:
- Scotland's decision-makers will be fulfilling their parenting responsibilities because listening to and acting on what children say will guide their choices. All decisions will begin and end with a focus on the importance of secure attachments, protecting and prioritising loving and consistent relationships that matter to children.
- The voices of Scotland’s infants, children, young people and those who are important to them will be actively listened to and will influence every aspect of delivering, inspecting, and continually improving services and care.
- Scotland's listening practices will be inclusive of children and young people who have faced significant trauma in their life - including babies and infants, children and young people with special educational needs or a disability, and those from whom English or Gaelic is not their first or preferred language.
- Care experienced children, young people and adults will have ownership over their own stories and personal information. They will be able to influence how their stories are shared. Children will be supported to understand the narrative of their lives in ways that are appropriate and have meaning for them, and young people and adults accessing their care records will be properly supported through that process.
Participation and engagement (Voice)
Where Scotland needs to be by 2030
By 2030, at the very latest, every individual’s voice and collective experience will have been heard in all aspects of work to keep the promise and its evaluation - meaning all change will have been influenced by voice.
- Meaningful participation and engagement will be routine. Learning will be central to all activity related to planning, delivery and evaluation of systems and services that impact on the lives of children, young people and families in and on the edges of the ‘care system’ and care experienced adults. This will include specialist skills to engage babies, infants and young children, as well as the important people in their lives.
- Participation and engagement activities will be inclusive of children and young people who have faced significant trauma in their life, of babies and infants, of children and young people with additional support needs or a disability, and of those for whom English or Gaelic is not their first or preferred language.
- Strengthened processes will be routine to make sure children of all ages, families, and care experienced adults are involved in all decision making about their care.
- Scotland's listening practices will be inclusive of children and young people who have faced significant trauma in their life, of babies and infants, of children and young people with additional support needs or a disability, and of those for whom English or Gaelic is not their first or preferred language.
- Care experienced children, young people and adults will have ownership over their own stories and personal information. They will be able to influence how their stories are shared.
- Children will be supported to understand the narrative of their lives in ways that are appropriate and have meaning for them, and young people and adults accessing their care records will be properly supported through that process.
Intensive family support (Family)
Where Scotland needs to be by 2030
By 2030, whatever issues families face, Scotland will ensure intensive family support is available, proactive and characterised by 10 principles: community-based; responsive and timely; work with family assets; empowerment and agency; flexible; holistic and relational; therapeutic; non-stigmatising; patient and persistent; and underpinned by children's rights.
The explicit aims of intensive family support will be to:
- Keep families together and avoid children going into care
- Interrupt and address intergenerational cycles of trauma
- Sustain meaningful and loving relationships.
This means that Scotland will:
- Recognise kinship, adoptive and foster families may need ongoing, intensive support. The principles for intensive family support that wrap around a family will be as accessible to kinship families as to families of origin.
- Not abandon families if children are removed from the care of their parents. Families will continue to be provided with therapeutic support, advocacy and engagement in line with principles of intensive family support.
- Ensure adopting parents have access to support at any point during the life of their child if they require it. That support will be available even if it was not initially required and will mirror the principles of intensive family support.
- Ensure holistic family support and individualised planning with the principles of 'one family one plan' wraparound support is available for all families in and on the edges of care.
- Ensure multi-agency partners plan strategically for both family carers and child services, based on outcomes from aggregated individual family and child plans. This will include robust concurrency planning for carers.
- Support all families caring for disabled children and those with additional support needs. If families require intensive support they will get it and will not be required to fight for it.
- Where a parent has a learning disability, care planning will be specific and supportive, working with their assets to build on their capabilities as parents.
- Make every effort to avoid imprisoning people with parenting responsibilities. Where parents facing imprisonment have had no prior engagement with social work services, criminal Courts will actively consider the needs of children and young people and that there is wraparound support for families affected by parental imprisonment, with planning for the likelihood of imprisonment and clear support for children who are impacted. Parents facing imprisonment will be supported to make plans for their children and everything will be done to avoid emergency removal and a panicked response.
- Ensure services supporting parental substance use and statutory children's services compassionately collaborate with each other ensuring supports are in place that holistically assess children within their families and support them to stay with families whenever it is safe to do so.
- Not penalise parents who are experiencing domestic abuse and recognise violence and abuse within the home happens across Scotland's communities.
- Ensure support is available for families which is early, intensive and domestic abuse informed, rather than waiting for children and families to reach criteria thresholds to access support. There will be consistent practice across Scotland which holds perpetrators to account and enables effective interventions to create opportunities for change and desistance.
Poverty (Family)
Where Scotland needs to be by 2030
By 2030, there will have been significant, ongoing and persistent commitment to ending poverty and mitigating its impacts for Scotland’s children, young people, families, adults and communities.
Universal family support services will be supporting and assisting families sensitively where poverty is the underlying problem.
Get more detailsUniversal family support (Family)
Where Scotland needs to be by 2030
By 2030, the underlying universal support system will support all families and identify those who need support. Universal services will recognise the role they play as adjacent parts of the wider scaffolding of care so they can support and nurture those with care experience.
Scotland will support a broad understanding of the importance of the early years of parenting. Preparation for birth will give parents the opportunity to access universal attachment based parenting education to sit alongside antenatal care.
Scotland will ensure there are places in every community for parents of young children to go for support and advice, to meet other local parents and to stay and play with their children.
The commitment to early intervention and prevention will be realised through proper, holistic support for families. There will be a significant improvement in universal family support services. This means:
- Scotland will be providing families with support that lasts as long as required, with the collective acceptance that for some families this will be a long-term commitment.
- Scotland will have a collective acceptance there will be some families who require longer-term support that goes beyond current practice.
It is babies, infants and young children who are currently most likely to be removed from their families. It is hard for decision makers to hear and properly listen to their voices and so judgments about the adequacy of their care are made by others. By 2030, Scotland will have done more to recognise the context in which families live and interactions will focus on supporting families to care for their babies, infants and children.
Get more detailsAdvocacy and legal advice (Care)
Where Scotland needs to be by 2030
By 2030, all care experienced children, young people, families and adults will have access to independent advocacy support, at all stages of their experience of care and beyond. This means:
- There will be consistent advocacy standards across Scotland that are subject to inspection and regulation.
- Families will be supported to understand and advocate for their rights and entitlements.
Children and their families will have a right to legal advice and representation if required. This means:
- Unaccompanied asylum-seeking children will have access to legal support, advice and advocacy to navigate the Home Office asylum procedures.
- Lawyers will act in a way that is accessible, understandable and not overtly adversarial.
- Scotland will have considered the creation of an accredited legal specialism to set standards for legal professionals representing children.
Decision making (Care)
Where Scotland needs to be by 2030
By 2030, Scotland will have had a culture change in key institutions responsible for decision making. This means:
- Children will not be asked to re-tell their story.
- Scotland will have developed digital tools that incorporate the principle of information ownership. These digital tools will operate at a scale that allows care experienced children and young adults to have control over their information and how it is shared.
- The right information will be shared at the right time and those close to children will be heard.
- It will be understood that the culture surrounding information sharing has the biggest impact on protecting children.
- Family carers will be able to make decisions on all the usual aspects of parenting, within previously agreed parameters, rather than having to seek individual permission on every occasion. Bureaucracy will not get in the way of day-to-day decision making.
- Family Group Decision Making (FGDM) and mediation will be a much more common part of decision making.
- Kinship family decision making will be supported by and characterised by family group decision making, to explore the breadth and consequences of decisions about where children should live.
As the key decision making body within the ‘care system’, the principles underpinning the Children's Hearings System will be upheld and understood across Scotland's services, and children, young people, and families will be the focus of the whole of the Children's Hearings System. This means:
- There will have been active consideration of underlying structures, so that it is best placed to truly listen and uphold the legal rights of children, young people, and their families.
- Children’s Hearings Scotland (CHS) and the Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration (SCRA) will protect and uphold the legal rights of children and young people in the management of Hearings.
- The Panel, the Reporter and those who represent and advocate for everyone will navigate the legal rights of children, young people, and families and ensure the human rights of each person are upheld and respected.
- Children will be provided with all the support they need to fully participate and be heard in Hearings.
Moving on and lifelong support (Care)
Where Scotland needs to be by 2030
By 2030, Scotland’s care experienced young people will feel safe, happy, loved and prepared as they move from childhood to adulthood. Care experienced adults will be able to access help and support when they need it. This means:
- Comprehensive thematic reviews of 'transition services' will have taken place; and all those with ongoing parenting responsibility will have explained how they plan to deliver integrated services from childhood to adulthood.
- Young people and adults for whom Scotland has taken on parenting responsibility will have a right to return to care.
- Young people will be encouraged to ‘stay put’ in their setting of care for as long as they need or want to. Rules, processes and culture will support that approach. There will be no regulatory barrier for young people to stay with foster carers for as long as is required.
- Residential Care settings will be supported and resourced to keep places open for children and young people in line with continuing care legislation. Scotland will ensure this does not end when children and young people do not want, and are not ready, to leave.
- Young people for whom Scotland has parenting responsibility will have access to services and supportive people to nurture them.
- Scotland will continue to consider how to create greater equity and opportunity for care experienced children and young people. That consideration will include how to increase opportunity for care experienced adults to access employment, training, stable housing and support.
- Older care experienced people will have a right to access supportive, caring services for as long as they require them. Those services and the people who work in them, will have a primary focus on the development and maintenance of supportive relationships that help people to access what they need to thrive.
- There will be clear communication and streamlining of the range of financial supports available to those with care experience.
Leadership (People)
Where Scotland needs to be by 2030
By 2030, all Scotland’s institutions, organisations, national bodies and Local Authorities that have responsibilities towards care experienced children and young people, will be fully implementing all their parenting responsibilities.
Scotland’s leaders will support and embed the changes made throughout the entire 'care system' to nurture and support families to stay together. There will also be strong leadership across all the workforce that models and supports the values and principles of the broader workforce.
Collaborative leadership, working across organisational boundaries, will be the norm for leaders across public services in Scotland. Systems of accountability and incentives will reflect this.
Leadership development activity will be consistently designed to ensure leaders, at all levels, are focused on what matters to children, families and communities, rather than their own organisations and systems. The voices of those with lived experience will be embedded in decision making.
The balance of power and influence will shift towards those with lived experience of the 'care system'. There will be support for care experienced people to benefit from high quality leadership development. More people with lived experience of the care system will be in positions of power and influence across all sections of Scottish society.
Get more detailsRecruitment and retention (People)
Where Scotland needs to be by 2030
By 2030, Scotland will have established a new way of thinking about the workforce, including putting in place measures to support and enhance recruitment and retention of those who care for Scotland’s children. This means:
- There will be enough skilled and confident members of the unpaid and paid workforce to meet the needs of Scotland’s children, families and care experienced adults.
- Anyone working alongside children, families and care experienced adults, including midwives, health visitors, family support workers and social workers, will be well resourced and supported and have sufficient capacity to care in the way the promise demands.
- The workforce will be nurtured throughout their care-giving journeys and this will be understood as a vital part of ensuring all children can grow up in an environment in which they feel loved and can thrive.
- Reflection, supervision and structured support will be recognised as an essential part of practice for anyone working with children, young people, families, and care experienced adults. Support for staff will be available, effective, flexible and regular.
- The ability of the workforce to act with care and compassion will be prioritised and the barriers to that, such as workload, environmental conditions, unnecessary bureaucratic processes, will be mitigated.
- Employment conditions will allow people involved in the care of children to flourish and feel valued. This includes with respect to workload, remuneration, secure employment status and environmental conditions.
- Residential care workers will be recruited on the basis of their values rather than educational levels.
Rules, processes and culture (People)
Where Scotland needs to be by 2030
By 2030, the primary purpose of care will be to develop nurturing, kind, compassionate, trusting and respectful relationships so that children feel safe and loved. Scotland will value relational practice with children and families. This means that there will be:
- A broad conceptualisation of the workforce, to include anyone who spends time with or has responsibility towards care experienced children, young people and families.
- A strong ‘national values framework’ for all of Scotland’s workforce. These values will be multidisciplinary, and fundamental for people who work with children in any capacity including all those with ongoing parenting responsibilities for young adults.
- An understanding that the purpose of the workforce will be to be caring above anything else. Rather than detach, the workforce will be encouraged not to step back but to step in.
- An approach to care where maintaining, sustaining and protecting loving relationships is possible and much more probable and the workforce is empowered to provide consistent, loving relationships for children. The workforce will be supported and encouraged to maintain relationships with people that matter to them, even if they 'move on'. This will require imaginative planning, supportive systems and adequate resource. Children who have been harmed through relationships will have supportive relationships in order to heal.
- An understanding of the workforce in terms of the degree of closeness of relationships members of the workforce have with children, rather than their status as paid/unpaid or in terms of professional/voluntary.
- Support for the workforce bring their whole selves to their work, to have a strong understanding of themselves, and to act in a way that feels natural and not impeded by a professional construct.
- Help for the workforce to have a different conception of risk taking, where risk taking is seen as a normal part of care.
- Scotland will stop stigmatising the children it cares for any rules that do so will have ended.
Workforce support (People)
Where Scotland needs to be by 2030
By 2030, Scotland’s workforce will be able to provide the loving and attentive care all children, young people, families and care experienced adults need.
Children and young people will thrive and feel loved because the workforce is nurtured and supported throughout their care-giving journey to help them create a sense of home, family, friends, community, and belonging for those they care for. This means:
There will be a recognition that the workforce includes anyone involved in the care and/or support of children, young people, families and care experienced adults.
- Scotland's carers will have confidence that they will receive the support they need to care for children and young people in their care. That will mirror the principles of intensive family support so that sticking with children and young people is supported, encouraged, resourced and normalised.
- As part of the broader workforce, kinship carers will be supported and have ongoing supervision and time for reflection to prevent them from feeling or becoming overwhelmed.
- Like all families, family carers will have opportunities for babysitting and short breaks, so that they, and the children they care for, can benefit from time away.
- Scotland will recognise that its workforce includes survivors of trauma. Those with lived experiences will be supported to be part of the workforce so that they can nurture their instinct to contribute and give back.
Learning and training in Scotland will have been through a process of re-evaluation, meaning the workforce is well-supported and confident to work across disciplines. The way Scotland cares will be underpinned by the guiding principle of attachment and will be informed, responsive and reflective about the nature and impact of trauma. This means:
- Child development will be part of essential foundation learning for anyone working with children.
- There will be access, at a level appropriate to roles, initial and lifelong learning that is grounded in attachment theory, trauma responsive care, physical and emotional wellbeing and a clear understanding and application of children’s rights.
- Everyone involved in the Children’s Hearings System, including legal representatives, will be properly trained in the impact of trauma, childhood development, neurodiversity and children’s rights.
- There will be clear learning pathways to foster self-awareness, emotional competency and human connection through relationships at all levels of the workforce.
- Learning will support the interaction across the workforce. This will nurture equal partnerships and encourage joint learning through informal education, mentoring, coaching and support networks, as well as opportunities for shared reflective practice. There will be a wider understanding and recognition of the importance of good parenting.
- There will have been active consideration of the development of multidisciplinary foundation years of learning for a range of professionals, covering basic principles of human development and children's rights.
- Care experienced adults will feel supported throughout their lives and will not experience barriers to this support because of challenges with the workforce.
Data and information (Scaffolding)
Where Scotland needs to be by 2030
By 2030, Scotland will have taken a different approach to how it collects data and information.
It will collect, analyse and use data that shows the whole person in context. Those who collect data will proactively listen to the experiences of children, young people, families, and care experienced adults, and those who support them, and that information will be treated as valuable evidence.
Data will be readily understood to be more than numbers alone and will also include qualitative measures so there is a holistic picture of the experiences of children, young people, families, and care experienced adults, the processes they encounter in and around the ‘care system’, and their outcomes.
This means:
- The data Scotland collects will be of high quality and common gaps, such as a lack of equalities information, will be addressed. Incomplete data will no longer be a barrier to data linkage or use. Data will be joined up, allowing people and organisations to see entire journeys and changes over time.
- Those who collect data will proactively think about data linkage in order to minimise duplication of effort and provide as complete and holistic view as possible. Joined up data will also improve accountability for outcomes instead of just activities or inputs.
- The workforce will have the capacity and skills to use this high quality, holistic data in decision making and service design and not just in reporting and research. Services will therefore be designed on the basis of need - backed by diverse, strong data and evidence - rather than on an acceptance of how the system has always operated.
Governance (Scaffolding)
Where Scotland needs to be by 2030
By 2030, governance arrangements around the 'care system' will be fully established with children, young people and their families, and care experienced adults at the centre and proven to be measuring what matters to them and not the 'system'.
There will be a clear focus on people’s needs across the governance landscape, bureaucracy and clutter will have reduced, frontline workers will have the flexibility and support to do the right thing, and there will be clear accountability to leaders for improving lives.
This means Scotland will:
- Introduce governance and accountability for improving lives first and foremost. Systems of accountability and incentives will ensure the needs of families and communities are prioritised over the needs of organisations and 'systems'.
- Have more bespoke services focused on people’s needs. Those who work directly with care experienced people and their families will have time to understand their lives. Building and sustaining longer term relationships will be prioritised and staff will be empowered to do all they can to improve lives, regardless of need. Services must be refocused around the person.
- Accountability for outcomes will be sharpened and public services will be streamlined. Data will be focused on outcomes, rather than inputs and outputs. The reporting burden on public bodies will be minimised. Public bodies will be held to account for their contribution to partnerships. Scrutiny bodies will have a greater focus on outcomes and prioritise those areas which are more complex and require a high degree of partnership working. A more strategic approach to risk management will support this approach.
Health (Scaffolding)
Where Scotland needs to be by 2030
By 2030, Scotland will have a range of timely, trauma-informed, and thoughtful support therapies available to those that require it, regardless of diagnosis. This means:
- Children and young people must not require a significant mental health diagnosis to be able to access support.
- Scotland will ensure there is timely access to mental health support before crisis point, to avoid hospitalisation.
- There will be criteria-free, community-based access to therapies that do not stigmatise, but instead help and support children, young people, families, and care experienced adults to work through difficulties they are facing.
- There will be availability of services to support parents and carers’ mental health at all stages of their parenting journey.
- There will be effective and flexible collaboration between services supporting adult mental health and statutory children's services.
- Scotland will recognise its responsibilities to those who have spent significant time in hospital through the decisions of the State and ensure they are properly supported to access all they need.
Justice (Scaffolding)
Where Scotland needs to be by 2030
By 2030, the interactions children and young people have with any part of the justice system will champion and uphold their rights, wellbeing and participation. It will recognise the impact of trauma, abuse and neglect on children and families:
- Care experienced children and young people will not be criminalised, with a progressive, rights-based youth justice approach, building on the Kilbrandon principles (needs, not deeds), a reality for all.
- The workforce will be supported to interact with and treat children and young people in a relational way, rather than interaction being driven by process and procedure.
- Criminal cases involving children and young people will be handled in environments that uphold their rights and support meaningful participation in proceedings, not in unsuitable, traditional criminal courts.
- Children and young people will receive appropriate, proportionate, age-sensitive, and trauma-informed support.
- Every effort will be made to implement the Kilbrandon approach to youth justice, by keeping children within the Children's Hearings System. If cases must take place in formal criminal courts, disposal will occur within the Children's Hearings System.
- The minimum age of criminal responsibility will be in line with the most progressive global standards.
- In line with UNCRC, 16 and 17-year-olds on remand and who have been sentenced will be recognised as children and if necessary placed in Secure Care rather than Young Offenders Institutions, never the adult prison estate. Young people who turn 18 while in Secure Care will not be automatically transferred to a Young Offenders Institute.
Legislation (Scaffolding)
Where Scotland needs to be by 2030
By 2030, Scotland will have a clear legislative, enabling environment that supports families to stay together wherever safe to do so, and protects and allows relationships to flourish, children to thrive and care experienced adults to access lifelong support. This means:
- A strong legal framework will be in place that acknowledges, protects and promotes brother and sister relationships in and on the edges of care. Those legal protections will include the right to time together, meaningful participation in decision making about their relationships and clear, simple rights to appeal.
- There will have been full consideration of the legislative environment that governs data to ensure Scotland is able to measure and collect what it needs to ensure it understands what is happening and how services are working.
Rights (Scaffolding)
Where Scotland needs to be by 2030
By 2030, the rights of children removed from their families will be upheld as a minimum standard for their care. That means the right culture of care has been created where the whole of the workforce respects, upholds, champions and defends the rights of children for whom they are responsible. The UNCRC will be fully incorporated and upheld.
- Scotland will implement the rights of the child in a way that does not reinforce a focus on policy, process and procedure but supports the ability of children and those around them to connect and develop relationships and cultures that uphold their rights as a matter of course.
- Children and carers will have access to information about their rights and entitlements at any point in their journey of care.
- Scotland will respect, uphold, champion and defend the rights of children and recognise their rights are most often realised through relationships with loving, attentive caregivers.
- There will be a universal, commonly understood, definition of care experience as it relates to rights and entitlements.
- Scotland will have ensured current definitions that act as the access point for rights and entitlements are inclusive enough to benefit all young people for whom Scotland has had parenting responsibility.
- Scotland will be a nation that does not restraint its children unless the only option is to ensure their safety.
- All restraints and use of seclusion will be recorded and reported so Scotland understands its use and monitor progress towards its cessation.
- There will be ready access to legal advice and representation when aspects of the 'care system' go wrong.
- There will be clarity about where care experienced children and young people can turn to for legal redress.
- All care experienced children and young adults will have access to justice legal remedies such as appeals, reviews and judicial reviews. Access to justice will include access to legal advice for children with additional support needs, those living in rural communities and those for whom English is a second language.