Inverclyde Promise Newsletter March 2023
Engagement and Participation - Listening to the voices of children, young people and families.
As a partnership we value and respect the lived experiences of the children and young people we work alongside and are eager to involve young people much earlier in decision making processes through a participative approach, developing informed insights, ideas, recommendations and solutions for corporate priorities, policy and practice. Facilitating decisions to be made with, not for young people; co-creating, co-designing, co-producing and co-delivering. A vital part of our engagement is in sharing the learning and findings and keeping children and young people informed throughout the journey.
Creating inclusive and engaging ways for young people to participate and have their views heard, offer solutions and codesign is central to our planning process
Some recent examples include;
Establishing our IPromise Board with 3 care experienced young people co-chairing alongside our Chief Executive Officer to oversee implementation of The Promise
Co-developed IROCK Award (inverclyde rights of the child) with young people co-delivering as young assessors
Introducing Mind Of My Own App for our care experienced children and young people
Listening to children, young people and their families experiences of the care system
Carrying out digital surveys and face to face engagements with children, young people and their families to inform; child protection process, children services plan, strategic plan refresh, Inverclydes promise plan
Our approach to participation and engagement is guided and informed by;
UNCRC with focus on Article12 that states children and young people have their right to have opinions and for these opinions to be heard and taken seriously. It says that the opinions of children and young people should be considered when people make decisions about things that involve them.
Young people (Scotland) Act 2014. The act looks to ensure that childrens rights are realised and influence the design and delivery of policies and services.
The Scottish Approach to Service Design framework for designing services - an approach to designing services that helps to ensure they are designed with, not for, the people who will use the service
National standards for community engagement good-practice principles designed to improve and guide the process of community engagement.
The Promise Scotland tells us ‘We must Listen and Respond’
Our children and young people tell us that:
Relationships and Continuity of workers is so important – less worker in young people’s lives and staff able to work with young people more intensely with a range of support they can give and have that longer term, invested relationships.
More support is needed for Care Leavers/transitions. Planning, Information and support for young people living in their own tenancy. Having continued relationships with those who provided care once living independently.
Life skills support is needed for all young people, skills such as budgeting, household chores, cooking, emotional ie loneliness – preparing for the demands and challenges of everyday life.
We need to work on the stigma around care experience/extra support etc. The balance of support and also not feeling different needs to be right. Not just for care experienced young people – any young people who need some extra support. Stigma can impact on whether young people share their care experience for fear of judgement.
Parental health and wellbeing can have an impact on children and young people and they need support to deal with other people’s choices in their families.
Child/Youth friendly versions of paperwork, reports and strategies should always be considered/provided.
We must use a Language that cares whether written or spoken it should be caring and clear.
They must be listened to and involved in all aspects of their care.
Families tell us:
They need more Peer support and peer mentoring opportunities, they value lived experience, people supporting each other, building resilience together and empowering each other. Parents/ Carers want peer support group opportunities to peer mentor each other and have.
They are often not aware of what supports are available to them, whether financial or practical. Often only hearing from someone else and depending on workers telling you. One place where families can go and get information and support rather than contacting different places.
Parenting classes/support should be offered to everyone not just families with social workers to reduce stigma and offer a universal parenting support
Professionals need to communicate better to avoid families continuously telling their story.
Reports dig too deep, a full history is in each report – families don’t need to keep reading/reaffirming the negatives about their lives
Having family support offered within the home helps keep families together and gives parents help to address stressors and practical /emotional support. Supports available out with 9-5 / Mon-Fri needed.
Improving additional support for learning need better communication with parents/carers, particularly for parents/carers of ASN children. Concerns re transitions to high school and positive post school destinations.
Access to services and long waiting lists is a concern for both adult and child mental health services and supports.
Engagement with our workforce:
A series of pre- engagement sessions in March 2022 with sample teams who work and volunteer with children and families informed the methodology for consultation. Participants were invited to join workshops exploring The Promise and participate in activities and conversations consulting on where the gaps are, the changes needed in Inverclyde and what the workforce needs to be better supported. Over 500+ individuals participated.
These engagements have identified priority areas from the workforces’ perspective, to ensure it puts the needs of children and families first.
Our workforce are committed individuals and teams working across communities carrying out demanding and often emotionally challenging work – their experiences, voices and needs are highly valued and contribute to our progress, planning and evaluation.
We will keep listening. Continuous engagement and participation across children, young people, families and our workforce will ensure we learn from each other and continue to work together to #KeepThePromise and accelerate the ongoing process of transformational and radical change to the way we support and care for our communities.
Changing our current culture, systems and practices to ensure every child and young person has a foundation of stable, nurturing loving relationships will take effort from everyone. We celebrate and appreciate the efforts of our workforce to help Inverclyde deliver on this.
The Promise calls for capacity to support participation to be a focus in all workforce learning pathways. Effective participation will require investment and, where successful approaches already exist, they should be shared and replicated.
Emerging themes from workforce engagement:
| Family Time need for better environments that are friendly, relaxing spaces and coordinated by a dedicated individual/ team. |
| Logs/ Reports need to be written that CYP and families understand. We need to change the language and the way we report. |
| Paperwork/ Reports (HSCP) must be looked at, too much repetitive writing. This needs to be considered and prioritised. Very time consuming. |
| Change the language we use to be less stigmatising and more supportive, clear and concise. |
| Need to facilitate opportunities for families to come up with solutions. Empowering our families - not doing to them but with them, creating better clarity and a clearer space for them to think of solutions that meet their needs, and they will engage in. Give choice- give children, young people and families a bit of control back and consider how they feel and perceive. We need to continue to explain and remove the power imbalance. |
| Provision of Family Support into the home needs to be increased with outreach provided out with 9am- 5pm and over weekends. Preventing reception into care. We need a scaffolding of support around our families for when they need it. |
| Wellbeing of our workforce – post covid. Workforce are feeling fatigued, in need of better work life balance, tools to do job, desk space and a greater sense of belonging. |
| Life skills resources/Care Leavers/Transitions for throughcare and aftercare young people. Better support our care experienced children through transitions. Lack of resources to support young care leavers. Consideration needs to be given in planning and preparation for care leavers and pregnancy/ support within home, to keep babies at home. |
| The workforce need time to focus on relationships, support and encourage participation of those they work with to be involved in decisions about their lives and the services they receive. They need support to maintain relationships with young people who leave care. |
| Workforce training/ development and networking opportunities. Support better joined up working and pooling of resources. Training, not skilled enough to keep up with current issues. Know about Trauma but not enough training. |
| Meetings - Meetings need to be solution focused. Focus on whats going well, what are we worried about and What do we need to do/ What support does the family need? Where capable/ supported enough, YP could be offered to chair their own meeting, change the dynamic, shift the power. Let the YP help in making their plan. All partners need to take the same solution focused approach. Involve young person/families and always use clear language. |
| Networking opportunities to share effective practice, inform about local resources/ supports and encourage partnership working. General feeling this has been lost post covid. |
Participation in Inverclyde’s Promise:
We continue to Engage with Children, Young People and their Families and would welcome our Workforce and those who have trusting relationships to support and encourage them to have their voices heard in the shaping of services and supports available across Inverclyde.
Children & Young People Activities:
Proud2Care continue to meet each Wednesday, we have a range of activites that young people can get involved in, young people do not need to attend the weekly groups. We are actively trying to increase membership and would love to hear from the workforce if they have any ideas/ suggestions of how we can enagage more young people in the Proud2Care Network.
| Easter Activities | ||
|---|---|---|
| Monday 3rd April | Consultation event childrens houses | IPromise Team visiting as agreed per individual house |
| Tuesday 4th April | Fun day @Elev8 for all care experienced CYP | For more info contact caroline.mccahill@inverclyde.gov.uk |
| Wednesday 5th April | Kinship Day 12-2pm at Lomond View School | For more info contact lorriane.welsh@inverclyde.gov.uk |
| Thursday 6th April 11am – 3pm | Better Hearings Film School | For more info contact caroline.mccahill@inverclyde.gov.uk |
| Monday 10th April | Ocean Youth Trust Voyage | Fully Booked. |
| Friday 14th April | Proud2BActive 11.30am - 1.30pm inflatables, face painters and selfie pod plus active schools activities. | All welcome Notre Dame High School Sports, Inflatables, Games ect |
Promise Board & IPromise Practitioner Forum:
I Promise Board held quarterly, chaired by Louise Long chairing with 2 young people as co-chair. The agenda includes: Implementation plan for evaluation of Plan 21-24 80+ calls to action outcomes around a good childhood, whole family support, planning, supporting the workforce and building capacity with direction to Promise Practitioner forum.
If you would like more information or to join the IPromise Practitioner Forum please email the IPromise Team on ipromiseTeam@inverclyde.gov.uk
Partnership working – Promise team and Education:
Our I promise team and Virtual School Head Teacher have been travelling across Inverclyde’s 26 schools in order to share the work of The Promise and to focus on the 5 main education calls to action which include: no barriers to engagement in education, school improvement plans to ensure they are valuing and recognising the needs of theirs care experienced pupils, reducing formal and informal exclusions, positive destinations and full participation in subjects and extracurricular activities.
Implementation plans & Co-production:
Our implementation planning continues as discussed at our 1st I Promise Board meeting which was chaired by our Chief Executive and our young people. Our Promise Practitioner forum was also held last month which was attended by all partner agencies with a focus on evaluating where we are at with Plan 21-24 and our 80 calls to action.
We have co-produced our wellbeing assessments after listening to over 500 of the workforce and our children/young people/families. We created a working group and co-produced our new paperwork with our Proud2Care young people and our I Promise Modern Apprentice who have all provided great insight.
IPromise in Children’s Hearings:
We need to facilitate child friendly hearings that uphold children and young people’s rights and better supports and encourages their participation. Our I Promise in Hearings Working Group has been listening to children and young people to work together to deliver change. In April we will launch our young people produced I Promise Hearings Film and communication toolkit. The group will continue to work together to deliver on their action plan of change #StillLotsToDo
Corporate parents – Elected members:
As our previous Corporate parenting strategy is dated 2017 when we met with our elected members and Chief Officer it was agreed we would co-produce an updated strategy with our young people #PoweredByYoungPeople
Don’t judge a book by it’s cover. Embrace our stories instead. o
In February we celebrated World Care Day 2023, our Proud2Care Flag was flown above the Municipal Buildings We are invited our community to learn about children and young people in care and embrace their diverse stories of hope, courage, talent, and achievement. We want Inverclyde to listen to children and young people, look beyond the surface, and to see that every care-experienced child and young person is an individual with our own unique story, ambitions, and dreams for the future. #BeCareAware #IPromise #Proud2Care
We will finish our March News update with words from Hailie our modern apprentice. ‘Believe in yourself and you can make anything possible’rporate parents – Elected members:
