The Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 influences how services across Aberdeen City work together to improve outcomes for children, young people and families. The Act covers four areas:
- Children’s rights;
- Early learning and childcare;
- Looked after children; and
- Some aspects of the GIRFEC national practice model.
The Act sets out a legal definition of wellbeing, and the legal requirement for Local Authority and Health Boards to work with all agencies to develop a joint children’s services plan.
To ensure better permanence planning for looked after children, the Act:
- Provides for a clear definition of corporate parenting, and define the bodies to which it applies;
- Places a duty on local authorities to assess care leavers’ requests for assistance up to and including the age of 25;
- Requires a Local Authority, in certain circumstances, to provide continuing care in the same accommodation for looked after young people aged between 16-21 years;
- Provides for additional support to be given to kinship carers in relation to their parenting role through the kinship care order and provide families in distress with access to appropriate family counselling; and
- Puts Scotland’s Adoption Register on a statutory footing.