How are organisations working to #KeepThePromise
in Aberdeen?
Find out how Aberdeen City Council and other partner organisations are working towards ensuring the aims of The Promise are met and delivered in the city.
Aberdeen City’s Children’s Services Partnership
‘The Promise’ makes clear the extent of change required, but the outcomes that Scotland needs to achieve are simple and reflect Scotland’s existing commitment that all children “grow up loved, safe and respected so they can fulfil their potential”.
In Aberdeen we know that commitment and alignment to The Promise requires more than sentiment and change from within single agencies. Aberdeen City’s Children’s Services Partnership is delivering on identified local commitments and actions to Keep the Promise through the Children’s Services Plan.
Aberdeen’s Promise priorities for change
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Whole Family Support: Supporting families (in the broadest context) with a focus on what support works to keep families together and support wider families to continue to care, ensuring that support feels coherent, holistic and relational
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Trauma: Delivery of early and preventative trauma informed support across all services
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Children’s Rights: Ensuring the rights of the child, their own needs and their voice is at the centre of decisions about what is best for them.
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Poverty: Ensuring that our local services know and understand the impact of poverty and work to reduce the number of children growing up in poverty and the negative outcomes associated with that.
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Participation: Involve the care community and lived experience in our plans to #KeepthePromise by working with families to redesign the services available to them to make them work better for those that use them
Promise Delivery Partners from the Promise Scotland Team have been established to facilitate and support change alongside organisations in and around the care system to support shifts in policy, practice, and culture so Scotland can #KeepThePromise.
Kris O’Mahoney
Principal Planning & Development Officer – Aberdeen City Council
KOMahoney@aberdeencity.gov.uk
The image outlines Aberdeen City’s local children’s services strategic landscape which demonstrates how The Promise should encompass them all.
The care system is far reaching and goes beyond the strategic landscape outlined here.
All services in and around care have responsibilities for delivering on The Promise, not just for those children currently in care but for all who have, or will go on to have, care experience including infants, children, young people and adults.
The key outcomes within The Promise are a system that helps families to stay together where safe to do so by providing preventative whole family support, coupled with a care system for those children that require it that shows love, compassion and consistency for individual children and young people.
Progress so far
A self-evaluation of progress in Year One of Plan 21-24 has been undertaken by the Children’s Services Board to examine how children’s services in Aberdeen are and need to support the change agenda to keep the Promise. This exercise has helped identify gaps and areas for further development across the multi-agency children’s services partnership.
Whilst some progress has been made, there is still a significant amount of work to do if we are to affect the transformational change required of us all in and around the care system to deliver on The Promise.
Want to get involved or find out more? As well as getting in touch with Gette at ACVO, you can contact Amy Evans
Lead Officer for Corporate Parenting at Aberdeen City Council via amevans@aberdeencity.gov.uk or Rachel Keenan, Aberdeen’s Promise Delivery Partner via rachelk@thepromise.scot
Get in Touch
Promise Delivery Partners from the Promise Scotland Team have been established to facilitate and support change alongside organisations in and around the care system to support shifts in policy, practice, and culture so Scotland can #KeepThePromise.
Kris O’Mahoney
Principle Planning & Development Officer – Aberdeen City Council
KOMahoney@aberdeencity.gov.uk
News and updates from The Promise
March update from Gette Cobban – Senior Development Officer (The Promise), ACVO TSI
March update from Gette Cobban – Senior Development Officer (The Promise), ACVO TSI
Five years since The Promise was made This year marks the halfway point from when The Promise was made, to when it needs to be kept. This is a really important year: an opportunity to reflect on all the positive changes that have happened so far and focus on what...
Corporate Parenting: A Collective Responsibility in Fulfilling The Promise in Aberdeen
Corporate Parenting: A Collective Responsibility in Fulfilling The Promise in Aberdeen
The Promise, launched in 2020, is the commitment made to our children and young people after the largest ever review in Scotland of our care system. The aim is to create equity across the lives of all our children and young people, working to give everyone the best start in life and the best opportunities possible.
New Framework to understand progress towards keeping Scotland’s promise
New Framework to understand progress towards keeping Scotland’s promise
A new framework published today (Wednesday, 18 December 2024) gives the first high-level understanding of progress towards keeping the promise — that the conclusions of Scotland’s Independent Care Review will be implemented in full. The Promise Progress Framework brings together nearly 50 different streams of national data into one place, to start to answer the question of how Scotland is doing as it works towards keeping the promise.