The Scottish Government has published revised draft Statutory Guidance for GIRFEC. This new guidance follows a public consultation held earlier in 2015 and an intensive period of joint working with organisations from across children’s and adult services and children, young people and parent groups.
The revised draft guidance, which includes an outline of key changes to the original consultation version and Q&A is available here: www.gov.scot/girfec
The new law and draft guidance aim to improve outcomes for children, young people and families by ensuring a consistent approach to how to support children’s and young people’s wellbeing wherever they live in Scotland. Enabling services to operate effectively by:
- setting out a shared understanding of children’s wellbeing, essential to services working together to improve outcomes for children, young people and their families
- placing in statute the role of ‘Named Person’, typically a health visitor or promoted teacher, as a point of contact that children and families can go to for advice or support if they need it
- formalising a single planning framework via the Child’s Plan for children who need additional support beyond what would be generally available, and
- making sure that services are able to share the right information at the right time to help children, young people and families to access the right help at the right time
Most of the way of working required by the new law is already happening, and has been happening for many years. Although this was happening for most children most of the time, the new law and guidance aim to ensure all children will have the same opportunities to have help and support available to them when they need it.
For more information on GIRFEC in practice and regular updates please visit www.gov.scot/girfec subscribe to the Getting it right… newsletter or follow on twitter via @girfec.