The Promise is the report by the Independent Care Review which sets out the compelling and profound need to transform the care system for children and young in people. The review highlights our collective role in a vision where we grow up ‘loved, safe and respected so that we realise our full potential’.
The SSSC is proud to be a corporate parent identified by the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014. Our Realising potential plan provides updates on our activities since the publication of our previous corporate parenting plan in 2017.
SSSC Chief Executive, Lorraine Gray said:
‘We contribute to The Promise by making sure that Scotland can count on the services that are provided by a trusted, skilled and confident workforce. Every day, people working in social services across Scotland support millions of people of all ages to improve their life chances and to get the care and support they need.
‘There are several corporate parents with responsibilities around supporting care experienced children, young people and adults and we are proud to be one of them.
‘We cannot achieve the grand ambitions in The Promise on our own. We work closely with key partners, including other regulators and the sector who deliver these critical services, supporting formal and informal partnerships between services which work together to meet the needs of care experienced children, young people and adults.’
Realising potential sets out the activities we will carry out between 2020-2023 including:
- reviewing the SSSC Codes of Practice for Social Service Workers and Employers
- developing new insights into the challenges for the care experienced community and the workforce through analysis of our workforce and fitness to practise data
- continuing to develop learning resources that reflect the needs of staff working with care experienced children and young people
- exploring how we can support care experienced young people to consider a career at the SSSC or in the wider social service sector.
Since publishing our first Corporate Parenting plan in 2017 we have carried out a range of actions.
- We’ve continued to register staff across the social service sector. By June 2020 we had more than 164,000 registrants. This includes more than 40,000 registrants in day care of children services and 8,000 registrants in residential childcare.
- We’ve published several new apps and resources to help staff develop their knowledge and skills. These resources are on our Learning Zone website and cover topics such as engaging with children and young people.
- We continue to raise our staff’s awareness of The Promise and the need to make sure the views of care experienced children, young people and adults are considered in our work.