4.1.3 The Children and Young People (Scotland) Act (2014)

The Children and Young People (Scotland) Act (2014) places a duty on local authorities and schools to ensure the wellbeing of children and young people is safeguarded, supported and promoted. This has been an important recent change to our range of inclusive education legislation because the experience of the child or young person and the extent to which they feel included impacts on their wellbeing. The voice of the child or young person is essential in understanding their needs and ensuring their wellbeing is safeguarded, supported and promoted. Fostering strong relationships between staff and children and young people is essential to this practice.

The Getting It Right for Every Child (GIRFEC) approach has been national policy since 2010 and is now defined in statute in the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act (2014). The Act aims to strengthen children’s rights and improve and expand services that support children and families, including looked after children. Its purpose is to ensure an inter-agency approach across education, health and social work to improve outcomes for children and young people.

It helps practitioners focus on what makes a positive difference through developing a shared understanding of wellbeing. It requires public services to work together to design, plan and deliver services for children and young people. This means services taking a collaborative approach to assessing needs, agreeing actions and outcomes to best support the child. Children and families are at the centre of the process. Agencies should work together to support streamlining of planning, assessment and decision-making so that the child gets the right help at the right time.

Most children get all the support and help they need from their parent(s), wider family and local community, in partnership with services like health and education. Where extra support is needed, the GIRFEC approach aims to make that support easy to access, with the child at the centre. It is for all children and young people because it is impossible to predict if or when they might need extra support.