We need to act sooner to help our children

The Scottish Government’s introduction of the Children and Young People Bill furthers its bold ambition for Scotland to be the best place to grow up in.

Striving for a better future for children in Scotland. Picture: Gareth Easton

Aiming to put our children and young people at the heart of planning and services, and ensuring their rights are respected across the public sector, is of course an aspiration to be applauded.

There is much in the bill to be commended, but there is more that can be done to ensure that it truly realises its full potential. We know that prevention is better than cure, and yet the bill contains not one mention of prevention, or of families and local services providing support. Instead it focuses on the demands of failure.

We naturally spend heavily in meeting the costs of failure, but need to try to prioritise preventative spend, which the societal costs of failure far outweigh.

Picking up the pieces

However, instead of focusing on measures that would reduce the harm of broken families, for example, the bill is concerned with picking up the pieces rather than providing vital cost-effective support in the first place.

We of course welcome the fact that the bill places a duty on local authorities to assess a care leaver’s request for assistance up to and including the age of 25. However, we urge that this be strengthened to give the young person the right to remain in and return to care.

This will have an associated cost, but it is well established that care leavers have higher instances of homelessness and involvement with the youth justice system.

The cost of these impacts far outweighs the cost of allowing a young person the stability afforded through remaining in or returning to care.

Prevention before cure

Likewise, while the bill focuses on support for care leavers, we would seek this support to be extended to those young people with additional support needs such as learning difficulties, affording them the same rights as care leavers.

The Children and Young People Bill can still seize the opportunity to put prevention before cure, based on the needs of families and communities, and is an opportunity that we simply cannot afford to miss.

• Brian Durham is managing director of Young Foundations, representing the Scottish Children’s Services Coalition

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