Highlighting best practice, planting seeds for change, and keeping connected. |
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Dear Friend,
How are you? It’s a question I ask everyday but it's felt different over the last few months hasn’t it? As lockdown restrictions begin to ease we can begin to get back to some form of normality, yet we know that for young people with care-experience getting back to ‘normal’ isn’t good enough. Last month we reported on the initial impact of lockdown, shedding new light on the issues we know our young people face. This month we want to highlight some of the good practice we’ve seen over the past few months – these are the key to building back better. We’re asking you to share your examples of good practice on Twitter using the hashtag #WeLove. We’d love to hear your organisation's story through pictures, videos and blogs so get creative! Find out more about how we’ve been leading with our own values during this crisis in my article in Third Force News, highlighting why the third sector is #NeverMoreNeeded. I’ve also reflected this month on this year’s Foster Care Fortnight and the vital role foster carers play. Just some of this month’s highlights include: • Project Return’s Seeds for Change kits are available now so young people and practitioners can get all the benefits of growing your own plants. • Building Relationships has continued to meet online, developing their relationship-based practice toolkit. • Youth Just Us has created some fantastic work for their new Newsletter for young people in care and in HMP&YOI Polmont – watch this space! • Our Focus Groups have moved onto Microsoft Teams and are meeting more regularly – book your place at the next one here.
Finally, I was pleased to see Fiona Duncan appointed as Chair of the Care Review oversight board. We look forward to working with Fiona to ensure we keep up the momentum and that the voice of care leavers and those who support them are at the heart of the process! Until next time, Jo |
| | | Let's show #WeLove - sharing best practice
This week Staf is running a #WeLove Twitter campaign to highlight and document the good practice of our members and partners across Scotland - promoting the fantastic work happening every day to support children and young people in and leaving care.
Get involved by sharing examples of your work on Twitter using the hashtag #WeLove. If you’re not able to join in on Twitter, please send your examples to us on admin@staf.scot and we can share from our own channels.
We will take all of these examples to the Scottish Government and record them to ensure we can build back better at the end of this crisis. |
| | | Project Return: Introducing 'The Catalysts', and planting seeds for change
Project Return's steering group, comprised of care-experienced young people, has launched their name and logo as 'The Catalysts'. Find out more about the meaning behind The Catalysts on the Project Return twitter feed here.
The group have created 'Seeds for Change' - an indoor plant starter kit that will bring nature and nurture inside to care leavers' and workers' homes, supported by Scottish Forestry.
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| | Youth Justice Voices: 'A voice and a purpose' and influencing the Disclosure (Scotland) Bill
Kevin Lafferty, Staf Participation Consultant, reflects on how Staf and CYCJ's Youth Justice Voices project has continued to give care and justice experienced young people a space to be heard during the COVID-19 pandemic in this blog.
The Disclosure (Scotland) Bill has been passed, improving the way we deal with the disclosure of childhood offending. Youth Just Us were able to give their views directly to Maree Todd MSP during the process. Read a summary of what the group said here.
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| | Building Relationships
The Building Relationships Advisory Group is creating a comprehensive tool that will support organisations to prioritise relationship-based practice. In order to achieve this, the group is collecting practice examples and experiences from across the country and across different settings.
In this blog, you can read all about the progress of the group to-date and how you can get in involved in future meetings.
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| | | Leading with our values
In this blog featured on Third Force News, Staf CEO Jo Derrick discusses the importance of putting principles into practice, no matter the circumstances.
The blog looks at the support that Staf has provided to young people throughout the pandemic, connecting members across Scotland, and the crucial role of the third sector in building back better.
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| | Children and young people ‘increasingly isolated’ in lockdown
The Centre for Youth & Criminal Justice (CYCJ) has released research which shows that Scotland’s children and young people are feeling increasingly isolated in lockdown, as COVID-19 restrictions continue.
Young people involved in Youth Just Us developed questions for, and contributed to, this important piece of research.
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| | Foster Carers: Weathering the COVID-19 storm
Reflecting on foster care fortnight, Staf CEO Jo Derrick blogs about the positive relationship-based care that foster carers across Scotland are providing during this period of COVID-19 uncertainty.
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| | Meeting since 2014, the Implications of Continuing Care focus group offers a safe place to discuss issues and practice arising from Part 11 of the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014. The recent work of this group has discussed commissioning placements, fostering fees and payments and shared good practice from across Scotland.
The next meeting of the Implications of Continuing Care focus group, and the third meeting of the group in 2020, will take place on Tuesday 23rd June online via Microsoft Teams. At this meeting there will be the usual opportunities to meet colleagues and share practice that supports service delivery.
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| | The Supported Lodgings, Supported Carers focus group provides a supportive forum to share good practice, local and national developments, and discuss issues around Care Inspectorate inspections.
This group is aimed at members and corporate parents who provide supported lodgings or supported carer services for care-experienced young people. Our fourth meeting of 2020 will take place virtually via Microsoft Teams on Tuesday 7th July.
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| | | | The Staf Care Leavers into Employment focus group tackles the issues faced by young people in both accessing and sustaining employment. Recent focus groups meetings have discussed the DWP's commitments to care leavers and protocols with local authorities, and the development of national policy to support care leavers into employment.
At every meeting there is an opportunity for attendees to network with peers and discuss best practice. The next meeting will take place on Wednesday 15th July via Microsoft Teams.
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| | | The Local Authority Members' Forum has been created exclusively for local authority managers to give you space to discuss the issues that matter to you, given your unique statutory responsibility in delivering service for care leavers.
The next meeting of this forum will take place via Microsoft Teams on Tuesday 4th August.
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| | | If you only have time to read, listen or watch one thing this week, make sure it's one of the below. |
| Read: David Grimm, member of Project Return's 'The Catalysts', was published in the Scottish Journal of Residential Child Care with their poem 'The Extraordinary ordinary'. Read here. |
| Listen: 'brains on!' presents a podcast for kids and curious adults: 'Joy Overload! The science of tickles and cuteness.' Listen here. |
| Watch: The second video of the Neurosequential Network Stress & Trauma Series discusses the shift in functional capability of the human brain with a shift in internal 'state'.Watch here. |
| | | © 2020 Scottish Throughcare and Aftercare Forum, All Rights Reserved.
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