A three-year plan outlining how Aberdeen City Council will meet its obligations to support children and young people in the authority’s care was approved by councillors today (Tuesday 23 May).
The Corporate Parenting Plan 2023-26 was presented to the Education and Children’s Services committee along with a report detailing progress and activities undertaken throughout 2022 by council officers and its partners in ensuring that Aberdeen City Council fulfils its duties as set out in in the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014.
Aberdeen City Council, along with all public sector organisations has a duty to be alert to matters potentially impacting on the wellbeing of looked after children, young people and care leavers, assess their needs, promote their interests, provide opportunities for individuals to help design activities to aid their own wellbeing, take appropriate action to help them access opportunities to realise their potential and look at ways of improving the service still further.
In addition, as part of the Local Outcome Improvement Plan (LOIP) the council has also set itself a stretch target of ensuring that 95% of care experienced children and young people will have the same levels of attainment in education, health and emotional wellbeing, and positive destinations as their peers by 2026.
The Corporate Parenting Annual Report for 2022 outlined a number of highlights over the last year including the recruitment of a new Principal Planning and Development Officer and other school-based posts to support care experienced children and young people, training of all probationary teachers in corporate parenting, the resumption of face-to-face Champions Boards, celebrations and events and a suite of multi-agency data, to support monitoring of corporate parenting activity.
The 2023-26 plan will see Aberdeen City Council work with corporate parenting partner organisations such as Police Scotland and NHS Grampian to deliver improved education and health outcomes for care experienced children and young people, support to allow individuals to spend more time at home and with kin and to access multi-agency care services.
Committee Convener, Councillor Martin Greig, said: “I was very pleased to hear about how much hard work over the last year has gone into supporting the health and wellbeing of the children and young people in our care and helping them succeed in what they want to achieve in life.
“The plan for the next three years also gives me confidence that we can go still further in improving outcomes for our care experienced children and young people before they go on to make their own way in the world.”
Vice-Convener, Councillor Jessica Mennie, said: “The review of the last year underlines some major achievements by our service in supporting children and young people with experience of care and the new three-year plan gives us a real roadmap for continuing to provide them with the best possible starts in life.”