The findings of the Independent Care Review, published in 2020 gave us a clear, collective ambition for children and young people growing up in Scotland, which prioritises the needs of children, young people and their families. Our work to #KeepThePromise is ongoing and in 2021, intandem received funding from the Promise Partnership to explore the support available to children and young people who are looked after at home.
We wanted to understand the support available, and what support was missing, from the perspective of children and young people, their families, and those who work alongside them. We also wanted to understand where mentoring adds value, where there are gaps and what we can do to develop intandem in the way that children, young people and their families need.
This is an important piece of work as we know from previous research that children and young people who are looked after at home do not always have the support they need, in a responsive and timely way. We hope this report adds to the overall picture, and highlights where we can focus our collective efforts to respond to their needs.
This report is largely for our own learning and development, however we felt that it was important to share what children, young people and their families have told us. We know many are actively driving change, including the work being done to redesign the Children’s Hearings System. What we have learnt will inform our future work but there are important takeaways for everyone supporting children and young people who are looked after at home.