Young people shape our Corporate Parenting Plan

Overview

We commissioned the Scottish Youth Parliament to work with us for six months in 2024. We wanted young people to take the lead in designing our engagement approach to ensure young people with care experience had opportunities to shape our work. They worked to set out key recommendations for Police Scotland’s 2024-2027 Corporate Parenting Plan.

What is a Corporate Parenting Plan?

A Corporate Parenting Plan is a document that sets out how organisations identified under the 2014 Children and Young People Act such as local authorities (councils), colleges, universities, the NHS and Police Scotland act as Corporate Parents, to support and meet the needs of Care Experienced young people within their communities.

How did SYP engage with Care Experienced Young People?

Over six months (July to December 2024) the Scottish Youth Parliament have been engaging with Care Experienced young people gathering their views and experiences with Police Scotland and through a national survey and focus groups. From this engagement, key recommendations for Police Scotland’s Corporate Parenting Plan were formed and Care Experienced young people ranked their priority.

We also engaged with Care Experienced young people living in children's houses to get their unique perspective on Police Scotland’s Corporate Parenting responsibilities.

How we think it’s gone

This project was a great opportunity for SYP to engage with Care Experienced young people throughout Scotland with hundreds of responses to the survey. Focus groups enabled us to ‘sense check’ the wider data, examine emerging themes and prioritise recommendations for Police Scotland’s new Corporate Parenting Plan. We enjoyed working with Police Scotland who really engaged with the consultation and the need for the plan to be presented in an accessible way to Care Experienced young people.

SYP was publicly recognised for its approach by the Policing Performance Committee when the plan was discussed for approval, highlighting the importance and impact of the consultation piece.

What Police Scotland thought about working with us

Kevin Ditcham, Police Scotland’s Insight and Engagement Lead, said:

“We wanted to take a different approach and ensure that young people with care experience were at the heart of the development of Police Scotland’s new Corporate Parenting Plan 2024-27. Working with SYP was refreshing – they were always responsive, flexible, and really understood what we were looking to achieve. Our partnership demonstrated what is possible when we think differently and build in engagement and participation from the very start. We need to ensure plans and policy respond to the experiences and needs of communities and this is one example of how we are doing this. Thank you, SYP!”