The focus of our joint inspection - children and young people subject to compulsory orders and living at home with their parents
Over the past four years, the Care Inspectorate and scrutiny partners have undertaken 15 joint inspections of services for children and young people at risk of harm. We will shortly be publishing an overview report. Aside from joint inspections, we also undertook a series of thematic reviews on specific topics including secure care; cross border placements; services for disabled children and young people and services for care experienced young people.
The last time that we carried out joint inspections of services for children who are looked after was between 2018 and 2020, in our joint inspections of services for children in need of care and protection. In our overview report we noted that:
- Children and young people subject to compulsory supervision orders and living at home with parents experienced the least improvement in their wellbeing, when compared to children looked after away from home in kinship, foster or residential care.
- Partnerships struggled to find the evidence to demonstrate tangible improvements in the wellbeing of looked after children and young people and in understanding performance trends concerning different looked after groups.
- There had been some progress in narrowing the educational attainment gap between looked after children and their peers, however, it remained too great.
- Not all care experienced children and young people had the same opportunities to share their views and meaningfully influence service delivery.
- The collaborative leadership of child protection was much more robust and embedded than that for corporate parenting.
There are also a range of other evidence sources that indicate there is a need for further exploration of the impact of services for children and young people subject to compulsory supervision orders and living at home with parents. In particular, Scottish Government’s publication, Educational Outcomes for looked after children 2022/23, evidences lower school attendance rates, higher school exclusion rates, lower positive destination rates and poorer attainment rates for children looked after at home, when compared to the wider group of looked after children.
By considering the experiences of children who are subject to compulsory supervision orders and living at home with their parents, we aim to better understand what is helping to improve outcomes for children and young people and what is getting in the way.
Our three key lines of enquiry are:
- Children and young people are well supported to live with their families. This support helps to keep them safe, overcome difficulties and makes a positive difference in their lives.
- The services children and young people receive are well planned and delivered in a way which is compassionate and by staff who put children and young people at the heart of decision-making. People in the workforce ensure that children, young people and parents are meaningfully listened to, heard and included.
- Leaders and managers work well together to create and maintain a joined-up system of care which delivers the right services to each child at the right time. This provides children and young people, their parents and the workforce with help, support and accountability.