Hansard

I, too, thank the minister for holding this hugely important debate. Like others, I reaffirm the Scottish Greens’ commitment to achieving the Promise.

I do not think that anyone could argue with what the Promise is at its heart. The recognition that important structural and societal barriers remain for care-experienced people reminds us of the urgency with which such barriers should be dismantled. What we have done so far and how we have pushed progress forward are really important. If the importance of an issue could be measured purely by the number of briefings and emails that we receive on it, this issue would be a high priority for the chamber.

With regard to steps forward, The Promise Scotland, in its briefing ahead of the debate, highlighted the Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Act 2024. My colleague Ross Greer managed to secure amendments to that legislation that sought to improve the way in which secure transport is delivered and scrutinised, because the transport provision for young people in secure care had been a bit of a missing link in the gradual raising of standards, quality and accountability over recent years.

The hope instead of handcuffs campaign raised the profile of the issue, too, highlighting that children in Scotland were being inappropriately restrained when in the care of secure transport providers, with handcuffs, for example, being used in situations in which they simply were not necessary. The use of restraint against children has, rightly, been the subject of significant scrutiny and debate in the Parliament and in council chambers across Scotland, and I am glad to note that progress has been made specifically in relation to schools, with greatly improved guidance being produced.

The availability of secure transport has also been an issue. The Education, Children and Young People Committee heard that, due to the lack of specialist providers in Scotland, transport providers were coming from hundreds of miles away to take young people relatively short distances. That was not good either for young people or for providers themselves. However, as the “Plan 24-30” document says:

“Keeping the promise will never not be urgent. Childhood is short, and precious. ”

That should focus minds on how we continue the pace of change and adapt current plans when issues arise.

Support for families and early intervention have been raised by several organisations. Helping families to thrive, and giving support and guidance before a crisis, are essential to keeping the Promise. The whole family wellbeing fund has been hailed as a positive step forward, but many families are still finding it difficult to navigate systems when they need help.

We must also remain aware of how budgets impact on the financing of third sector and other organisations that provide support and advocacy to families, as well as the effects on funds such as the whole family wellbeing fund. Projects under that fund cannot sustain many third sector organisations on their own. We know that financial positions are difficult, but often it is all too easy to cut funding for some of that vital work in order to plug gaps in statutory services. The reality is that many third sector organisations are either catching people who do not qualify for support, or preventing people in need from accessing statutory services in the first place.

I have attended a few events with organisations such as Who Cares? Scotland at which I have spoken directly to young people who are care experienced and have heard from them what they need from us, and I have found kinship care and relationships with siblings being mentioned often. There is a perception that kinship care is often dismissed as it can be too difficult to establish, or that only immediate family were considered for it. The definition of “kinship care” in the Scottish Government’s guidance is actually pretty broad, but it seems that, in certain cases, it might not be being explored to its full extent. I was going to ask the minister for an update on work in that space, but I am grateful to her for outlining some of the measures that are under way. I am particularly interested in the guidance to the social work sector to support kinship care. If she has any further information, either now or at a later point, I will be hugely grateful to get that detail.

As Roz McCall mentioned, there has been some progress on keeping siblings together, but the briefing from The Promise Scotland once again raises the issue of the lack of contact with siblings for care-experienced people. It is an issue that I have heard repeatedly from children and young people right across the country, and it appears that we are not yet getting it quite right every time. There needs to be a consistency of approach for siblings who have individual plans and orders through the hearings system to ensure that the system that is supposed to support them is not putting in place competing orders with different contact requirements. Not taking wider circumstances and important people in the care-experienced young person’s life into account is not getting it right for that child or young person.

The language that we use around care experience can also carry stigma. In the process of preparing for the debate, I read about some work that Clackmannanshire Council has undertaken to make the language that it uses about care experience more accessible. That could be the language used in reports, or in meetings, and it would ensure that the young people being talked about know what it is that people are saying, so that they can have meaningful input into their care. That very much prompted me to go back through this speech to see whether I had lived up to those accessibility standards.

We are talking about the simple things—things that we know make a lot of what we do more accessible, such as not using jargon or too many abbreviations, and making sure that the child or young person understands what is being said before moving on to the next topic. That might sound patronising, but the entire document is about how those little things encourage children and young people to be equal partners in their own care, to be able to participate and to explain their own view and experience.

I know that I am rapidly running out of time, and there are several more things that I wanted to cover and which I hope to be able to address in closing. In the interests of time, though, I will leave it there for now.