As we approach the Scottish Parliament election next month it gives us a chance to focus on what lies ahead for young care leavers and our members.
Each of the ‘big 5’ political parties have laid out their manifestos and thankfully have a lot to say about support for young people, although to varying extents. We are pleased to see some of the calls that we have actively promoted over the past year be included in manifestos. Some have specific pledges for care leavers and all back the implementation of The Promise. We’ve distilled the key messages affecting young people with care experience in our recent
blog. We continue to be ambitious and amplify the voices of care leavers, the workforce and our members and I’m pleased to announce 2 new developments. The first is that we will shortly be circulating the first of our quarterly Policy and Practice Briefings containing key messages from our projects, focus groups and policy updates with a view to ensuring young people and the workforce can influence and bring about real change. This briefing will be shared with policymakers, and other key stakeholders for influencing policy in Scotland.
The second development is that we have secured some additional funding to develop a Scottish Care Leavers Voices Forum that will play a key role in engaging with policy-makers and representing voice of care leavers further, both within Staf and also in Scotland at a local and national level. More information will be shared as we formally launch this project in the coming months.
We also have some changes within our team that I would like to share with you. This month we welcomed two new members of staff to the team; Tommy Dey as Project Return Development Worker whose first priority will be Togetheroo, the care experience awareness day on the 25th May, along with getting to know The Catalysts. We also welcome Katina Gallagher who will be working alongside Papoula Petri Romão on The Real Toolkit but will also be developing our relationship with the care experienced community, to extend our reach across Scotland and ensure as many care leaver voices are heard and acted upon, particularly as COVID restrictions across Scotland lift and we see the impact of lockdown on our community.
I’m delighted to welcome Tommy and Katrina to the team and look forward to seeing these developments unfold. I will be doing this by cheering from the side-lines however for the next few months as I will be taking an extended period of leave, for personal reasons, and will be back in post fully after the summer. Pamela Graham, who many of you already know well, will be stepping into the CEO role on an interim basis, and will continue to be well supported by the rest of the Staf team and our Board of Directors.
Before I hand over to Pamela though this month there are two particular resources I would like to draw your attention to. Firstly, for anyone who has played No Knives Better Lives' 'Nae Danger' game you may well recognise a few voices. In our
latest podcast we hear from Chris and Ashley who, alongside other members of Youth Just Us, helped shape and literally added their voice to some of the characters. It makes for a fascinating and entertaining listen and is a great example of co-production.
Secondly, I’d like to draw your attention to the Scottish Government and NHS Education Scotland’s
National Trauma Training webinar taking place on Friday 14 May. We’ve played a significant role in supporting this programme and urge you to attend if you’ve not done so already.
