Dear Friend

Welcome to this month’s newsletter and a big hello to our new subscribers, it’s great to have you on board.

This month the endorphin levels have been topped up thanks to some great in person gatherings. The Cross-Party Group on Care Leavers met at the Scottish Parliament to discuss supports for care experienced students during and after attending further and higher education. It was a passionate and thought-provoking evening, and we were delighted to welcome some new members to the group, including many with experience of care. Our next meeting is scheduled for the 25th of September so if you fancy joining us for that one, and aren’t already on the mailing list, email marion@staf.scot to become a member of the group.

We have also held a productive focus group in person at the Staf office for those who support supported carers and those who provide supported lodgings. It was wonderful to see so many in attendance and we will continue to offer the in-person option to our focus groups and forums throughout the year.

Our Implications of Continuing Care group will be meeting online next month where we will be joined by the Scottish Government who will be discussing updated draft guidance on Continuing Care providing a great opportunity to shape the final document and share any concerns or queries on the policy. You can sign up here.

Our Local Authority Manager’s Forum is taking place at the end of March, and we would love to have representation from as many areas as possible so please do sign up here if you are a senior manager/team leader in a Local Authority.

This week we also had the privilege of organising, alongside colleagues from across the third sector, the Participation Network gathering. Over 80 participation practitioners and young people attended a fun, inspiring and joyful event as we all addressed the participation power imbalance. We’ll be sharing resources from the day shortly on the website. If you’d like to be informed of future Participation Network events, please sign up here and if you are a participation practitioner who works with care experienced young people why not sign up to our Participation Practitioner’s Forum taking place at the end of March.

Our next large-scale event is our annual Staf Summit sponsored by Kibble which we are delighted to share will feature presentations from the Chief Social Work Adviser, Iona Colvin, The Promise Scotland’s Head of Insights, Claire Stuart, and our own Thomas Carlton, PHD students from Edinburgh University, Throughcare and Aftercare nurse teams from North Lanarkshire and Dumfries and Galloway, The Why Not? Trust and Sandyford, Glasgow who will all be focusing on how we can improve the health and wellbeing outcomes of Scotland’s care experienced young people. We still have a few places remaining which can be booked here.

As February comes to an end, so too does the 100 Days of Listening. Thank you to everyone who took part and shared their thoughts on how we can accelerate the Moving On pledges from the Promise. We'll be sharing what we've heard and next steps soon.

Thanks to support from Sound Lab, Youth Just Us, our group for care and justice experienced young people have been learning some DJ and MC skills from one of Scotland’s up and coming musicians, Steg G. There is another chance to take part in March alongside Virtual Reality session with No Knives, Better Lives, and graffiti workshop with Articulate at SWG3. You can find out more here. 

As you might have seen we have recently been recruiting to the Staf team with 9 advertised fixed term contract posts. Pamela and the team have done a fantastic job of co-ordinating and managing the process and we are at the final stages of interviewing; therefore, we will be announcing new members of the team, and their role in supporting our members and projects, very soon.

Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to thank Gill Robinson, our Vice Chair and fantastic supporter of our work whose tenure with us has ended. Gill has been an integral part of the Staf Board bringing her many years of experience in the justice sector to guide and shape our strategic plans over the last 6 years. We will be sharing more information about recruitment to our board at the right time but for now, thank you Gill.

Best wishes, 

Jo Derrick, Staf CEO