Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is committed to Getting It Right For Every Child and has wide-ranging policies, including pregnancy and parenthood, family relationships, children’s services and child protection, focused on prevention and early intervention to ensure all children have the best start in life. Some examples of the types of action being taken across these policy areas are detailed below.

Pregnancy and parenthood - The Best Start report of the Review of Maternity and Neonatal Servicesrecognises the potential for maximum impact of early intervention during the early stages of pregnancy. The Best Start Implementation Programme Board is developing plans for delivery of the recommendations, including improving care for vulnerable pregnant women and tailoring services locally to deliver multidisciplinary care. As part of the continued commitment to supporting positive childhood experiences, the Health Visiting workforce is being increased by almost 50%, in addition to expanding the Family Nurse Partnership programme to reach all eligible first time, young mothers, by 2018 to increase contact with all families, and provide more intensive support for those who need it most. The Pregnancy and Parenthood in Young People Strategy recognises difficulties that young parents can face and the potential risks for childhood adversity. The Strategy encompasses good quality, integrated support for young parents and their families, so that they can achieve positive outcomes for themselves and their children.

Family relationships - The Government’s Children, Young People and Families Early Intervention Fund to help families develop and maintain positive relationships, and handle conflict when it arises. The Fund supports organisations such as Relationships Scotland, The Spark and Cyrenians to deliver counselling, mediation, child contact centres, and a range of online resources. The Government also supports initiatives to intervene early and prevent domestic abuse. For example, the Government supports the Ask, Support, Care intervention to train health practitioners and other service providers to identify signs of potential domestic abuse and to capitalise on the contact to offer support.

Children’s services - The Government is also working closely to support Community Planning Partnerships in aligning their commissioning practice with the requirements of their young population through the Realigning Children’s Services Programme to ensure appropriate and early intervention.

Child protection - The Government’s Child Protection Improvement Programme was established to drive progress in keeping children safer from abuse and neglect. The Government is implementing the recommendations from the independently chaired Child Protection Systems Review. The Government’s Permanence and Care Excellence programme (PACE) seeksto ensure that secure and permanent homes are found more quickly for children who need them.

The Government continues to be committed to preventing childhood adversity and is participating in the Scottish ACEs Hub (established by NHS Health Scotland in 2016), which brings together organisations from different sectors to learn from the evidence on childhood adversity and explore what further actions can be taken to prevent and mitigate ACEs in Scotland.

The term adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) is often used to refer to a set of ten key types of adversity which were first explored in a US study in the 1990s and in subsequent ACE studies. This set of ACEs refer to experiences of: abuse (emotional, physical, and sexual), neglect (emotional and physical), parental separation, and growing-up in a household where there are adults experiencing alcohol and drug use problems, mental health conditions, domestic abuse, or imprisonment. The Scottish Government’s Growing up in Scotland (GUS) collects information on some of these ACEs, including: parental separation, parents’ alcohol and drug use, mental disorder in the immediate family, domestic abuse, and parental imprisonment. GUS also collects information on additional types of childhood adversity for, example, bereavement of a close family member, bullying, and homelessness. There is variation in whether such experiences are described as ACEs, but evidence shows that these additional adversities similarly present risk factors for children’s health and wellbeing. GUS is a large-scale longitudinal research study tracking the lives of a representative sample of Scotland’s children and their families from birth, through to the teenage years and beyond. More information on the GUS survey and the findings are available at: www.growingupinscotland.org.uk.

The Scottish Government’s Children’s Social Work Statistics also collects information about children and young people who are looked after, on the child protection register and in secure care. This data collection includes information about the following adverse experiences: emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, parental alcohol and drug misuse, parental mental health problems, and domestic abuse. More information on Children’s Social Work Statistics is available at: www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Children/PubChildrenSocialWork.

Getting It right For Every Child is the national approach in Scotland to improving outcomes and supporting the wellbeing of children and young people by offering the right help at the right time, from the right people. As part of the Government’s commitment to Getting It Right For Every Child, a range of approaches are adopted to reduce the trauma of adverse experiences for children and to help build their resilience.

The Curriculum for Excellence plays an important role in promoting the health and wellbeing of children and young people in their educational settings. Recognising that positive relationships within an ethos and culture of mutual respect are the building blocks to developing children and young people’s resilience and helping them to make the right choices and cope when they are faced with challenging situations. The Additional Support for Learning Act places a duty on education authorities to identify, provide for and review the additional support needs of their pupils, ensuring that children and young people can access support if they need it (including for family circumstances or social and emotional factors). The Scottish Attainment Challenge prioritises improvements in the health and wellbeing of children alongside literacy and numeracy and the Schools (Health Promotion and Nutrition) Act (Scotland) 2007 places duties on local education authorities including ensuring that that schools are health promoting, and support physical, social, mental and emotional wellbeing.

The Government is committed to ensuring that outcomes for children are enhanced and launched the Children and Young People’s Improvement Collaborative in November 2016. This set in place a continuous improvement culture to bring successful interventions to scale that will enhance the resilience of all children and young people in Scotland.

The Scottish Government is supporting trauma-informed practice across the public sector and commissioned NHS Education Scotland to lead the development of a comprehensive National Knowledge and Skills Framework for all parts of the Scottish Workforce who have contact with people who may have had experience of trauma. The Framework (published in May 2017) helps to equip practitioners with the knowledge and skills required to successfully deliver quality, evidence-based services to people across the lifespan (including children and young people) affected by ACEs and traumatic events.

The Government has a range of work underway to reduce trauma and support some of our most vulnerable children and young people. The Mental Health Strategy 2017-2027 outlines the importance of responding appropriately to the emotional distress linked to, both the circumstances that led to a child becoming looked after, and the experience of being looked after in any setting. The Strategy also emphasizes that professionals working with looked after children and young people should have the necessary knowledge and skills around issues such as trauma and attachment. For example, the Scottish Government funds the Centre for Excellence for Looked After Children in Scotland (CELCIS), which provides learning, support and development to corporate parents, which is underpinned by evidence and best practice relating to attachment, trauma and loss. The Scottish Government also funds the Interventions for Vulnerable Youth Project (IVY), a specialist psychological and social work service young people aged 12 to 18 years who present with complex psychological needs and high-risk behaviour.

The Government continues to be committed to addressing childhood adversity and is working with NHS Health Scotland to raise awareness of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) across the public sector and wider. The Government is also participating in the Scottish ACEs Hub (established by NHS Health Scotland in 2016), which brings together organisations from different sectors to learn from the evidence on childhood adversity and explore what further actions can be taken to prevent and mitigate ACEs in Scotland.

It is the responsibility of each NHS Board to ensure that it has a nominated executive lead for bereavement care. As such this information is not available centrally.

However NHS Education for Scotland (NHS NES) act as Secretariat for the NHS Bereavement Strategic Leads and Coordinators Group, will next meet on the
3 August 2017. Further information on the work of the group is available by contacting the Secretariat via http://www.sad.scot.nhs.uk/contact-us/.

Ensuring that children across Scotland receive the best possible support and access to service is of great importance and the Scottish Government has begun the process to appoint a national co-ordinator for child bereavement services. In doing so we have written to the child health commissioners group seeking their professional advice and guidance on which organisations would be best placed to either co-ordinate, or take on a Child Bereavement Co-ordinator. Once we receive their feedback we will look to appoint a national co-ordinator as soon as possible.

The Scottish Government does not collect data on the number of school children in each local authority area who have a parent in prison.

The Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act 2004 (as amended) places duties on education authorities and other agencies to provide support to children and young people who have an additional support need which is causing a barrier to their learning. Education authorities must identify, plan and make provision for the support to be provided and review that support to ensure it is appropriate. This would include support for those who have an imprisoned parent.

The teaching standards set by the General Teaching Council for Scotland require teachers to be able to identify and respond appropriately to pupils with difficulties in, or barriers to, learning and recognise when to seek advice in relation to their additional support needs.

Initial teacher education in each of Scotland's nine teacher education providers addresses children's family circumstances and contexts. Schools and local authorities are responsible for ensuring that continuing professional development is provided to meet teachers' agreed development needs during their induction year and throughout their careers.

The Scottish Government is in the process of appointing the national co-ordinator for child bereavement services. We have allocated up to £70,000 in the financial year 2017-18 to support this work and will consider funding levels once the appointment process has been concluded and the national co-ordinator has been appointed.

The 14 recommendations identified in the Shaping Bereavement Care report are being continuously actioned and developed locally by NHS Boards within the context of the 2020 vision for Health and Social Care Services. The Scottish Government is aware that there is a significant and on-going programme of work aimed at improving training and education for staff (and patients, families and carers) across NHS Boards. Led by NHS Education Scotland, this aims to enhance understanding and care for those who are dying or have been bereaved. The most recent work includes: new education resources and a bespoke “Support Around Death” website for professionals.

The Scottish Government is fully committed to providing the people of Scotland, including Gypsy/Traveller communities, with the NHS Services that ensure people come first and that those who use services get the right care and support whatever their needs, at any point in their care journey. In response to concerns about difficulties experienced by Gypsy/Travellers in relation to GP registration, we issued a revised General Practitioner patient registration form in 2013, providing explicit instruction that Regulations relating to GP registration apply equally to members of the travelling and settled communities.

We continue to provide funding to organisations, including the Minority Ethnic Carers People Project (MECOPP), working to improve health outcomes for the Gypsy/Traveller community.

The Scottish Government recognises that Gypsy/Traveller communities are among the most disenfranchised and discriminated against in Scotland. We are continuing with work in a range of areas such as education and housing to achieve better outcomes for Gypsy/Travellers and are providing funding to organisations working with the community. We plan to publish a strategic programme of work document in Autumn 2017, bringing together all the relevant policies across Scottish Government which help to secure improved outcomes for Gypsy/Travellers.

The Scottish Government has established a Multi-Agency National Implementation Group to oversee implementation and monitor progress of the actions from the National Action Plan to Prevent and Eradicate Female Genital Mutilation. The Implementation group held its inaugural meeting in November 2016 and has met on a quarterly basis over the course of 2017.

A ‘Year One Update’ on the National Action Plan will be published later this year, documenting the actions and activities undertaken in the first year of the plan.