by Keith Dyer, Quality Assurance and Compliance Manager, Education and Children’s Directorate, City of Edinburgh Council
You may recall that back in 2016, the First Minister made a commitment that Scotland would “come together and love its most vulnerable children to give them the childhood they deserve.” She commissioned the Independent Care Review to look at what needed to change to give young people the best support. Between 2017 and 2020, the review team worked to figure out how to keep that promise. The aim was to identify and deliver lasting change in Scotland’s ‘care system’, leaving a legacy that will transform the wellbeing of infants, children, and young people.
About the care review
In February 2020, the care review’s work reported on their work. One of the reports, The Promise, sets how we, in Scotland, should change the way we approach supporting children and young people who are in care whether that’s living with their grandparents or an aunt, in foster care or getting support in their family home.
So, what does this mean for us, working in Edinburgh?
A great deal of the Promise’s focus is rightly on making sure we do the best to support families to keep children at home and in their communities. For children and young people who cannot live at home with parents – known as being care experienced – Edinburgh’s Promise has a vision that Edinburgh’s children will be loved, safe and respected. This will mean a clear focus on the right support, at the right time for families, for as long as they need it. Edinburgh’s Promise is the delivery arrangements for the transformational change that keeping the Promise require and is part of the Edinburgh Children’s Partnership. Keeping Edinburgh’s Promise will take the involvement and effort of all colleagues, teams, services and organisations working with Edinburgh’s Children and their families.
Edinburgh’s Promise and what you can do
Our 2021-2024 Promise Plan was built on five fundamentals:
- what matters to children and families
- listening
- poverty
- children’s rights
- language
These principles could end up meaning different things to different colleagues in Edinburgh, whether they are in services providing direct support to children and their families, or indirect support to those services.
The Edinburgh’s Promise Fundamentals paper unpacks what these fundamentals mean for all of us in Edinburgh, and what delivering on them looks like at a personal, team, service, and organisational level. For example, ‘what matters to children and families’ is about supporting that the child and their family’s needs, rather than delivering what the service usually ‘delivers’. The poverty fundamentals include not blaming or judging people for not having enough money to live on.
For all colleagues, they offer a tangible and meaningful guide as to what keeping Edinburgh’s Promise entails for them in their day-to-day work with Edinburgh’s children and their families.
Please take time to read the fundamentals paper and consider with your teams how you will apply them and what changes you may have to make in your Organisation to keep Edinburgh’s Promise.
If you and your team would like to hear more at first-hand about Edinburgh’s Promise and what it means for your organisation and services, please contact Keith Dyer: keith.dyer@edinburgh.gov.uk
Leave a Reply