This 12-month Project is funded through The Promise and will support practice development in Transitions to Permanence and ensure children and young people maintain the relationships that are important to them during transitions and beyond.
The Staying Connected Project Co-ordinator, Carol Laird joined AFKA Scotland in July 2022 on a secondment basis from a local authority Fostering and Adoption Service and has worked in social work services for almost 23 years. Six local authorities have agreed to support AFKA Scotland to pilot this Project, and each local authority will identify 2 Champions to develop the project in their area. Carol will initially work with the Champions to develop a Community of Practice, where existing good practice can be shared and challenges highlighted. This information will then inform a series of training sessions that will be delivered on Supporting Transitions and Staying Connected. The training sessions will focus on Key Principles, Transitions to Kinship Care, Transitions to Permanent Fostering, and Transitions to Adoption. All training sessions will be co-created to ensure they are responsive to need in practice, and the 5 Pillars of The Promise will be embedded throughout.
On completion of the project, a Transitions Toolkit will be created and made available to all Scotland’s 32 Local Authorities.