Corporate Parenting Plan Progress Report - April 2025

Corporate Parenting Plan 2024 to 2027

Progress Report – April 2025

Annual review of progress against our Corporate Parenting Actions

Commitment 1

We will continue to develop existing relationships with other Corporate Parents to make sure that ILF Scotland remains alert to the needs of care experienced young people to inform our policy and practice.

Actions:

• We will continue to participate in Who Cares? Scotland’s Collaborative Parenting Network and attend quarterly meetings.
• We will continue to work closely with local authority social work departments to ensure staff are aware of the Transition Fund and how they might direct and support young disabled people to apply for funding.
• We will continue to communicate with key fostering agencies and with STAF (Scottish Throughcare and Aftercare Forum).

Progress:

ILF Scotland continue to participate in the Who Cares? Scotland network, attending quarterly meetings. As part of our communication and engagement with Local Authorities regarding the re-opening of the ILF Scotland Fund, information was included on the Transition Fund and the opportunities available in both funds to young people aged 16 and above, both through written information and in-person presentations.

Engagement with fostering agencies and STAF was limited this past year due to financial spending controls. so we intend to prioritise this action in 2025 to 2026.

Commitment 2

We will assess the requirements of care experienced young people to ensure we meet their needs.

Actions:

• We will continue to engage with care experienced young people to increase our understanding of their needs to help us better shape our services to take account of these.
• We will consider the impact on care experienced young people as part of our Equality Impact Assessments.

Progress

We have revised our EQIA templates to include care experienced young people as part of our ongoing EQIA process.

We continue to encourage a care experienced young person to join the ILF Scotland Young Ambassador Group.

ILF Scotland’s engagement and feedback strategy will include how we plan to increase our engagement with young people, including those who are care experienced.

Our programme of engagement events has had to be balanced with our capacity with the Transition Fund and is regularly reviewed.

Commitment 3

We will develop staff awareness of corporate parenting across our organisation.

Actions:

• All ILF Scotland staff and Board members receive training and awareness sessions that outline the principles of corporate parenting, our responsibilities, and the ILF Scotland action plan.
• New staff joining ILF Scotland have an understanding of corporate parenting by including it in our induction pack.
• To increase awareness of the difference the Transition Fund makes to care experienced young people, we will share experiences of recipients of the Fund and our work with other corporate parenting partners.

Progress:

Corporate Parenting training took place in October 2024 where staff and Board members participated in sessions delivered by Who Cares? Scotland. Additionally, our induction process includes a briefing on our Corporate Parenting role to ensure all new staff are aware of our commitments.

We aim to identify and publish a case study of a young person who is care experienced who has successfully applied for a Transition Fund grant.

Commitment 4

We will ensure access to our services for care experienced young people.

Actions:

• We will ensure our promotion of the Transition Fund reaches care experienced young people so they are aware of the Transition Fund and what it can offer them.
• We will continue to engage with care experienced young people through events such as Care Leavers Transition days.
• We will fully support care experienced young people to successfully complete the application process.

Progress:

Successful applications to the Transition Fund by care experienced young people remains at 13% for the past financial year. We aim to engage further with residential care services for young people to reach those who are eligible for the Transition Fund.

Our Person Centred Planning support has been brought in-house at ILF Scotland to ensure that young people have access to consistent and effective support through the application process. Where an applicant indicates on the application that they are care experienced, we allocate a specific specialist caseworker to provide additional support through the application process.

Commitment 5

We will consider where we could improve our services and processes for care experienced young people.

Actions:

• We will engage with care experienced recipients for feedback on our services and identify areas for improvement.
• We will implement systems to identify whether applicants to the re-opened 2015 Fund are care experienced and analyse this data to assist us with future planning.
• We will work with other Corporate Parents and care experienced young people to identify how we can improve our plan, services and processes.
• We will review our corporate parenting approach and report on progress against the actions in the report annually.

Progress:

Our Engagement and Feedback strategy for 2025 to 2027 includes planning for further engagement with care experienced recipients.

The portal application process for the re-opened ILF Fund captures those applicants who are care experienced and we continue to monitor these numbers to assess further engagement and potential improvements.

ILF Scotland are a listed authority for UNCRC (Incorporation) (Scotland) Act 2024 and will ensure that ongoing improvement as part of implementation of this project are included within our Corporate Parenting Plan.