Maureen McGinn: New trust offers hope for the most vulnerable

TODAY, the Big Lottery Fund (Big) formally hands over the reins to its largest single investment in Scotland as the £50 million Life Changes Trust launches in Edinburgh.

The Big Lottery Fund Scotland committee has been involved in the development of this ground-breaking initiative and believes the trust can bring about a step-change in the way young people leaving care and people with dementia and their carers access support and services in Scotland.

In Scotland, more than 16,000 children are looked after and there are 86,000 people with dementia – a figure forecast to double over the next 25 years. It’s these people we hope to help.

The Life Changes Trust will help people like Henry Rankin, a retired policeman, who has vascular dementia. Henry has a wife and three children, who sat in a waiting room while he was given his diagnosis. He received no information, felt abandoned and believed he’d be dead in six months. Henry found out about dementia from the internet and learned to deal with it by meeting other people like him through Alzheimer Scotland.

Big knows Henry’s story is not unique, so we set our sights on a Scotland where people with dementia and their carers and young people leaving care receive the support they need to enjoy high quality lives.

Young people leaving care face unparalleled challenges. They are more likely to be excluded from school; their exclusion rate is 36.5 per cent compared with 4.5 per cent for the general school population. They’re less likely to go on to higher education. In 2010, just 2.6 per cent of those leaving care continued education at 16, against 35.5 per cent of young people living with their own families. And, anecdotally, young people who have been in care make up a disproportionate percentage of those in the criminal justice system.

Big’s ambitions for the Life Changes Trust are high. I’m convinced the trust can really change things and I’m sure, when we look back in ten years, it’ll be clear its creation was the point when young people leaving care and those with dementia and their carers felt they had a solid, more positive future.

• Maureen McGinn is chair of the Big Lottery Fund Scotland committee.