Chamber and committees

It is the responsibility of each local authority to use resources as efficiently as possible and deliver services effectively to ensure taxpayers get the best possible value. How this is done is a matter for each council - councils are autonomous bodies, responsible for managing their own day to day business and answerable to their electorates.

We will expect to obtain credible evidence of actual uptake from local authority returns, which will be collected in 2017-18 and published from 2019 in the annual National Statistics publication Children’s Social Work Statistics. We will consider this, and any other information that we obtain from across local authorities, to monitor numbers and support local authorities to ensure they offer support best suited to each care leaver.

Education authorities and other agencies have duties under the Additional Support for Learning Act 2004 (as amended) to identify, provide for and review the additional support needs of their pupils. An additional support need can arise for any reason and be of short or long term duration. Additional support may be required to overcome needs arising from learning environment; health or disability; family circumstances or social and emotional factors. Looked After Children and Young People are deemed to have additional support needs until they are assessed otherwise. This includes support for mental health issues in school, regardless of whether the school is a mainstream school or not.

Education authorities and all those working in our educational establishments have a responsibility to support and develop the mental wellbeing of pupils, with decisions on how to provide that support taken on the basis of local circumstances and needs. Some will provide access to school based counselling. Others will be supported by pastoral care staff and liaise with the Educational Psychological Services, family and health services for specialist support when required.

Our new 10-year Mental Health Strategy was published on 30 March, and sets out our vision to improve mental health in Scotland. A key section in the Strategy deals with prevention and early intervention and there are a range of actions aimed at ensuring all children and young people, in a variety of circumstances, have good mental health and that agencies act early enough when issues emerge and impact on young lives.

Skill Development Scotland (SDS) Leadership and Management teams use a wide range of monitoring and performance information to track the quality and performance of the services and to support staff to improve and develop their practice, as well as sharing good practice around working with care experienced individuals.

Within the SDS national development and delivery team a Senior Executive is focused solely on care experienced individuals. This role is pivotal to progressing the Corporate Parenting Action Plan, managing stakeholder relationships, informing and influencing professional practice, leading on developments in relation to resources and staff learning and our engagement with young people. This role is a key interface internally with our Strategy, Policy and Performance team and Evaluation & Research team, maintaining a consistent focus on how our evidence base supports the continuous improvement of our services for care experienced individuals.

An SDS Community of Practice has been organised with a Corporate Parenting Champion from each local authority who meet to share good practice in working with care experienced young people. This includes identifying training and development needs to support staff to work more effectively with care experienced young people.

SDS’s refreshed school offer identifies care experienced pupils as being entitled to a maximum level of service to develop their career management skills. This intensive support continues beyond school to support care experienced young people to develop their career management skills. This ensures a cohesive approach to supporting care experienced young people to help them achieve and sustain a suitable positive outcome.

The duty to provide Continuing Care does not apply if the accommodation the person was in immediately before ceasing to be looked after was secure accommodation. Continuing Care placements are intended to entitle eligible care experienced young people to extend their care setting in order to maintain established relationships with trusted, supportive adults. For a number of reasons, secure accommodation is not an appropriate setting for Continuing Care. However, when external factors outwith the young person’s control make a Continuing Care placement unavailable local authorities will be expected to discuss and agree alternative support measures which meet the young person’s needs.

All young people need support when returning to communities after periods of being accommodated or sentenced. Young people should have a package of support detailed in their Child’s Plan, delivered in partnership to meet assessed needs and risks, by age appropriate services, in areas such as:

• Accommodation

• Education, training and employment

• Health and substance misuse

• Involvement of families; and

• Financial stability

When a young person enters custody or secure care planning for their transition back to the community should start immediately. Regular reviews should take place with the young person and partners, including parents and carers, to review the Child’s Plan and prepare for their return, with contingency plans put in place if needed. The final review prior to release provides a key opportunity to support a smooth and successful transition back to the community.

Transitions must take account of Corporate Parenting responsibilities, including the extension of rights of previously looked after young people.

Guidance on Reintegration and Transitions was published in 2011. This provides a minimum standard to be achieved and an overview of ‘good practice’ principles for local authorities, community planning partners, the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), the secure estate, and other partners working with young people under 18 years of age.

The Centre for Youth and Criminal Justice, funded by the Scottish Government, publish an annual Guide to Youth Justice in Scotland: Policy Practice and Legislation which includes a chapter focussed on Reintegration and Transitions. This is available at www.cycj.org.uk and was refreshed in June 2017.

The Scottish Legal Aid Board (SLAB) has provided the Scottish Government with the following information regarding the numbers of looked after young people who received Assistance by Way of Representation (ABWOR).

For the three year period from 1 September 2014 to 31 August 2017 inclusive, publicly funded legal representation in the form of (ABWOR) was provided to 667 looked after young people who were under 18 years of age and subject to Compulsory Supervision Orders.

ABWOR was also provided to another 53 young people at a Statement of Grounds children’s hearing. This is the initial hearing where the reasons for the reference are put to a young person, if they are old enough to understand the proceedings.

ABWOR was also provided to another 61 young people who were classed as ‘relevant persons’ to a child who was the subject of the hearing, for example the young mother of a child. At present, SLAB does not have the facility to specifically record if such a young person falls within the definition of a ‘looked after young person’ but due to the fact that they are a relevant person to an even younger child, this could be possible.

ABWOR was provided to another 3 young people who were classed as ‘non deemed relevant persons’ and who were seeking to become deemed relevant persons to the child in question, such as a young sibling of the child or other young relative/carer. Again, SLAB does not have the facility to record if such a young person falls within the definition of a ‘looked after person’ but we intend to be able to record this information in the future.

If a local authority becomes aware that a child or young person who is looked after by them or is in receipt of advice, guidance or assistance from them has died, the local authority must, within 24 hours, notify the Care Inspectorate. The Care Inspectorate, on behalf of Scottish Ministers, receives, reviews and provides feedback to the local authority on a report compiled by them reviewing the circumstances of the child or young person and his/her death.

Once notified, the Care Inspectorate alert Scottish Ministers as soon as reasonably practicable, and information around the name of the child, his or her date of birth, the legal circumstances in which he or she was being looked after and where, and brief details of the cause and circumstances of his or her death, if known are recorded.

The exact (medical) cause of death is not always known. The Care Inspectorate’s principle concern is with the circumstances of the child's life and pathway. It should also be noted that this group of children includes children with life limiting conditions whose deaths are anticipated.

Skills Development Scotland (SDS) is committed to ensuring staff are appropriately qualified for the roles that they undertake and receive appropriate training on the needs and rights of young people; including those with care experience. This includes, but is not restricted to, the SDS Academy of learning and development activities for all staff across the organisation. The Academy offers a core set of equality focused modules and learning. Partner organisations are also engaged to deliver staff capacity building and learning where local needs extend beyond what the Academy offer. In 2016 SDS updated standard operating procedures in order to better support care experienced young people to access SDS services and progress into positive outcomes.

SDS has benefitted from the SG-funded training for corporate parents which is delivered by Who Cares? Scotland and involves hearing directly from care experienced young people. SDS recently launched an E-Learning module on Corporate Parenting for all its staff which incorporates video clips of care experienced young people telling their story and talking about the various issues and barriers they faced along the way. This training is accompanied by a series of worksheets to direct team discussions across the business which raise questions about how these young people could have been supported further and also possible ways to improve SDS practice going forward.

The first of the 16 commitments included in the SDS 2015-2018 Corporate Parenting Plan is to ‘Introduce all-staff training on the subject of Corporate Parenting, with additional training opportunities offered where appropriate.’ Towards this SDS has launched a Career Information Advice and Guidance Equalities E-Learning module with a specific focus on Additional Support Needs (ASN), Corporate Parenting and Community Justice, which is compulsory for all Operations staff and is assessed. Operational staff have also recently had training in the delivery of the Next Steps post school service offer which entitles care experienced young people to intensive individual engagement with an SDS Adviser up to their 26th birthday.

SDS has an ASN resource area on its staff intranet, which includes a specific area on working with care experienced young people. This intranet resource contains a range of guidance documents on how colleagues can support care experienced customers with their individual needs. As a final example, an SDS Community of Practice has been established with a representative from each local authority across Scotland. The Community of Practice meets to share effective and interesting practice in working with care experienced young people, which drives continuous improvement across the country. The Community of Practice members have also received additional training from CELCIS (the Centre for Excellence for Looked After Children in Scotland).

Virtually no children are expelled from Scottish schools.

The Scottish Government recognises the important role of our education system and the need to provide a positive and inclusive learning experience for all school pupils. We have taken a number of steps to reduce the incidences of school exclusions and close the attainment gap to improve the health and wellbeing of our children and young people, and maximise their future opportunities. On 19 June 2017 we published our refreshed guidance on preventing and managing school exclusions. This focuses on the importance of early intervention measures to prevent the need for exclusion and it promotes the importance of positive relationships in schools, recognising that exclusion should only be used as a last resort. The guidance also highlights the importance of schools and education authorities recognising the impact that exclusion can have, particularly on disadvantaged children.

We recognise that excluded and disengaged learners need additional support which is why Education Scotland provides support and advice through a range of national networks and working parties for third sector groups who are working to improve educational outcomes for learners at risk of being excluded.

We have been working with our partners to prevent homelessness amongst care experienced young people in recent years and this will remain a priority as we develop the proposals around Programme for Government.

The Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Action Group will focus on the actions needed to eradicate rough sleeping and transform the use of temporary accommodation. We know that there will be people with experience of the care system amongst those with more complex needs who may be rough sleeping, who will be the focus of immediate action.

An important part of the work of this Group will be ensuring the voice of people with direct, personal experience of homelessness informs its actions, including the voice of care experienced young people.

The national group for homelessness in Scotland in recent years has been the Scottish Government and COSLA’s Homelessness Prevention and Strategy Group and this group will retain an important long term role going forwards in identifying priorities for tackling homelessness amongst young people, including care leavers.