Keeping The Promise - HUB for SUCCESS

Our schools, colleges and Universities are part of the care system in Scotland. They can be an important scaffolding of support to our care experienced community.

Care Hub Launch at Grassmarket Community Project.
The Hub for SUCCESS is an innovative and collaborative multi-partner response to the need to improve post-school educational outcomes for people of all ages with experience of care in South East Scotland.

Find out more about the Promise Scotlandhttps://thepromise.scot/

In Scotland, we are committed to ensuring that all of our children and young people have a good educational experience. We know that attaining a good level of education can lead to good outcomes such as good health, good employment opportunities and more. We know it is even more important for our care experienced learners to get good quality support in school, college and university in order to help them succeed. Our care experienced learners may have faced choppy waters during the education, that is why it is even more important that our care experienced children and young people get the support they need for education when they need it.

The Independent Care Review was “an independent, root and branch review of the care system” announced in the Scottish Parliament by Nicola Sturgeon in 2016.

The Care Review heard from more than 5,500 people. These were children, adults, and families who have personal experience of care, as well as the unpaid and paid workforce.

On 5 February 2020, the Care Review published The Promise. This document sets out the changes needed to make sure all children grow up feeling safe, loved, and heard. The Hub for SUCCESS partnership is comitted to keeping the Promise.

Sharing the learning

Our student communities are stronger if each and every student has what they need.

Schools, colleges and universities must recognise the role they play as adjacent parts of the wider scaffolding of care so they can support and nurture those with care experience. (The Promise, p.46). We help our partners see themselves as the scaffolding of care so that through working together we can keep The Promise.

Universities and colleges in Scotland must also act on their responsibilities towards care experienced students, ensuring they are provided with access to mentoring and support throughout their studies. (p.93).

We are currently exploring what mentoring opportunities are available across our partnership, what we can learn from each other and how we can help to Keep the Promise together.

Please get in touch with Lorraine Moore if you want to learn more about what you can do in your school, university or college to Keep the Promise.

Recent work

Some examples of our recent work includes:

Presentations on education and The Promise to social work teams and third sector organisations.
Training on support for care experienced students at university/college – delivered to finance, wellbeing and student support teams.
Consultation with Widening Participation teams about how to ensure care experienced pupils are included in targeting and messaging of outreach activities.
Fostering collaboration within local third sector organisations by taking part in the Edinburgh Keeps the Promise group hosted by EVOC.
Training delivered to SAAS staff in partnership with Who Cares? Scotland
Working with our partners to review their approaches to discretionary funding and how this is accessed.
Working with our student ambassadors, to deliver a schools programme to Primary 7 classes to some Edinburgh Schools