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Where children live

Where is Scotland in 2024?

Across Scotland, there is recognition children may live in many places and that irrespective of this, the needs and aspirations of care experienced children and young people must be met and their relationships maintained.

In 2023, the number of children in the ‘care system’ reduced - 20% lived at home, of those living away from home, the majority lived in kinship care and foster care, with only a smaller proportion of children in residential care. Yet, the experiences of these children and their families is not known which is critically important to understanding progress. 

Numbers of children and young people experiencing secure care are reducing, with over a third of young people in secure care in Scotland in 2023 coming from outwith Scotland. In addition, there continue to be young people who experience this due to a lack of appropriate alternative accommodation and support.

While addressing adoption breakdowns has seen some progress, with reported cases of adoption breakdown decreasing since the conclusion of the Independent Care Review - indicating ongoing efforts in this area, inconsistent data collection remains a challenge, highlighting the need for better planning and resource allocation to strengthen support services and prevent adoption breakdowns effectively.

Despite an overall reduction in children and young people in care, a declining number of foster carers and a lack of suitable housing, and reducing numbers of approved adopting households coupled with growing pressures on already stretched social work teams and an increase in numbers of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children arriving is resulting in system challenges around the places where children live.

Scotland is experiencing rising numbers of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and young people,  support services are working to be responsive to a growing number of different cultures, languages and unique experiences of trauma. This requires the development of new skills and requires a learning period for both caregivers and those responsible for the strategic development of care services to meet the needs and uphold the rights of all children. 

Where children live

Where does Scotland
need to be by 2030?

By 2030, fewer children, young people and families will interact with the ‘care system’ and those that do will experience it as positive and supportive. This means that that those who support children, young people and families will genuinely care about them.

Irrespective of where they live, Scotland’s children and young people will experience warm, relational, therapeutic, safe, loving homes alongside their siblings and have all they need to thrive. This includes unaccompanied asylum-seeking children getting the same care and support that all children who need it receive.

For secure care, this means:

  • Fewer children will need to live in secure care.
  • The purpose, delivery and infrastructure of secure care will have changed.
  • Alternative, therapeutic, trauma-informed and community-based supports will have minimised the use of secure care settings.
  • For those children and young people that do experience secure care, their rights are upheld and they access all they need for their holistic wellbeing.
  • Where safe to do so, they maintain good contact with their family.

For foster care, this means:

  • Foster care will be valued.
  • Children and young people will be supported to stay with their foster families for as long as they need to, as reflects family life.
  • Foster carers will be cared for and supported to care.
  • Foster families will have access to the support and services needed.
  • Foster families will receive financial support to provide the best care children and young people require.

For kinship care, this means:

  • Kinship care will be valued.
  • Children and young people will be supported to stay with their kinship families for as long as they wish / need to, as reflects family life – and arbitrary end dates, aligned to birthdays will have ceased completely.
  • Kinship carers will be cared for and supported to care.
  • Kinship families will have access to the support and services needed.
  • Kinship families will receive financial support to provide the best care children and young people require.
  • Kinship will relate to any family that the child or young person considers to be their family and has a loving home.
  • Whatever the mode of arrangement, children living in kinship care have the support they need to thrive.

For adoptive families, this means:

  • Adoptive families will receive the support and attention required to love and care for their children, particularly where the ongoing impact of trauma and broken attachment is felt by the child and the family.

For children living in residential homes, this means:

  • The needs of the children living in a residential home at the time must inform any rules as opposed to a blanket set of instructions and restrictions.
  • Children and young people will have supportive, kind relationships with all staff and the residential provider must be supported to find the right balance between having consistent core staff along with the flexibility of additional support that works for the children and young people.
  • Young people who leave residential care will be able to may maintain relationships that are important to them.
Where does Scotland
need to be by 2030?

The route map to get there

Focus must be on unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and young people, as the number entering Scotland’s ‘care system’ has meant that an already stretched system is not well equipped to meet their needs. For the needs of all children and young people to be met consistently, work to reform the 'care system' must prioritise improving current processes and increasing resources to ensure unaccompanied children and young people, and those removed from their families, are given all they need to thrive.

The New Scots Refugees Integration Strategy will be jointly led by the Scottish Government, COSLA and Scottish Refugee Council. The forthcoming Delivery Plan will provide a route-map for the six overarching outcomes it contains.

The Hearings for Children recommended an 'exit plan' for children leaving secure care and the Hearings System (recommendation 11.21) will be considered.

The Reimagining Secure Care report will be published by the Children and Young People’s Centre for Justice.

There is expected to be a Scottish Government consultation on a national, strategic approach to foster care.

Statistics will provide detailed analysis of the numbers of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children; numbers of those entering or leaving care; types of care setting; time spent in care and destinations upon leaving care will be published.

The actions outlined in the Voice foundation are fully embedded at every stage to progress actions on where children live.

What is helping?

The roll-out of the Scottish Recommended Allowance (SRA) as a standard national allowance for all eligible foster and kinship carers in Scotland to support them in caring for the children and young people they look after has been welcomed. Implementation challenges have been highlighted by carers and must be fully considered.

There is an increasing recognition of the importance of kinship care and the role it has in supporting sibling and other family relationships, alongside the support needed for kinship carers. The Kinship Care Collaborative, established in 2020, has been pivotal in identifying the necessary support for kinship carers. Their efforts include developing an assessment framework for kinship carers that aligns with the national practice model and children's plan, as well as revising the kinship care guidance for Part 13 of the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014. Work to progress this must be reflective of the experiences of children and young people.

Some Children’s Services Planning Partnerships (CSPPs) are using Whole Family Wellbeing Funding to support kinship care as part of a wider approach to reduce the number of children in residential and foster care arrangements. Learning from this and the impact it has on children and young people must be widely shared and used.

There is also work to increase awareness of support for families. The Kinship Care Advice Service for Scotland (KCASS) provides free, confidential, impartial advice to kinship families and professionals working alongside them, and The PATHways programme enables adoptive families, kinship, and permanent fostering families to benefit from therapeutic support and a peer support parenting group.

Collaborative work to better understand the number and needs of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children has provided greater understanding: this understanding translating into action and delivery will prove vital.

Who must act?

Housing

Housing
Local Government

Local Government
Public Bodies

Public Bodies
Scottish Government

Scottish Government
Scrutiny

Scrutiny
Voluntary sector

Voluntary sector

Here is what matters to children and families

People who support me are working together to make sure that if I ever need to live away from home, I'll still be living close by, and/or in a place that I have meaningful connections with.

People who support me are working together to make sure that no matter where my family and I are, we'll always get the same, high quality, help and support.

The people in my life who support me genuinely care about me and aren't just using my circumstances to make money.

Find out more about the what matters questions here.

Also connected to this theme

Documenting decisions
Listening
Participation and engagement
Intensive family support
Moving on and lifelong support
Stability
Health
Justice

Mapping

This is how Plan 24-30 relates to other frameworks and plans

Independent Care Review conclusions  Plan 21-24 priority area
the promise pgs. 74-84 Planning
  A good childhood
  Supporting the workforce 
UNCRC GIRFEC
Articles 3; 19; 20; 39 Safe
  Healthy
  Achieving
  Nurtured
  Included



Plan 24-30 foundations