LIFESTYLE SECTION
Corporate Parenting in Practice Rosie McKean, Training & Education Coordinator
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t’s time for an update from the world of Corporate Parenting! If you didn’t know, a Corporate Parent is a public organisation that has legal responsibilities to support Care Experienced people. Some examples of Corporate Parents include your local council, the NHS, colleges, universities and national bodies like Children’s Hearings Scotland. Recently, the Scottish Government asked Corporate Parents to report what they’ve done over the past 3 years to support Care Experienced people. Here’s what they found out:
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Scottish Ministers
Local Authorities
The Scottish Government published and approved the Independent Care Review findings and recommendations, known as The Promise. The government also committed to actions such as keeping brothers and sisters together, and making it easier for Care Experienced people to access supports such as free dental care, the job start payment, housing payments and childcare.
The government found that the types of support accessible to Care Experienced people were different across local authorities. Moving forward, it’s important that local authorities ensure that Care Experienced people get the best support, no matter where in Scotland they live. Although, we still saw some unique supports being designed, like in the Scottish Borders, Care Experienced people worked with a local IT firm to build a Wi-Fi system for local authority children’s homes. This gave young people their own digital hub letting them access the internet.
