Today marks one year since the publication of The Promise – the outcome of Scotland’s Independent Care Review.
Our teams and partners are committed to #keepthepromise to support children and young people to grow up loved, safe and respected.
The Promise reflected the voices of over 5500 people – over half of them children and young people with experience of the ‘care system’, adults who had lived in care, and lots of different types of families. They also listened to the paid and unpaid workforce to shape the Review’s conclusions.
Keeping voices at the heart of what we do
In East Lothian, we're commited to #keepthepromise and are working hard on our ongoing engagement activity – making sure that voices are at the heart of everything we do. In December 2020, we agreed funding to sustain the East Lothian Champions Board.
The Board helps to create transformational change to the lives of care experienced young people by ensuring their perspectives, experiences and challenges are considered and actioned in our decision-making. Currently two care experienced young people are employed to work with the Board.
A Research and Link worker with care experience is currently employed by Who Cares (Scotland) to work with our housing service to develop a new ‘Home and Belonging’ Strategy for care experienced young people. Taking The Promise as the starting point, the Home and Belonging Strategy reflects the experiences of care experienced young people in East Lothian and outlines recommendations that will make a difference for how we develop and offer our services, and for the care experienced people we are providing them for.
#keepthepromise
East Lothian Council’s Head of Children’s Services Judith Tait said: “The publication of the Independent Care Review report was not the end of a process; it was an important milestone in the transformation of services in Scotland to provide a nurturing, supportive and loving care experience based on the voices and perspectives of those who live, and have lived, within it.
"Our teams and partners are committed to #keepthepromise in how we plan, provide and assess our services to make sure we are meeting our collective ambitions to support children and young people to grow up loved, safe and respected. Principles of The Promise will underpin our redesign of children’s services and the council-wide Transforming Services for Children Project."