Read the latest update from Gette including keeping on track with The Promise for 2030, getting involved with the 3rd Sector Forum, Children’s Services Board update and more.

Halfway There: Keep Heading for 2030

“Here we are racing through 2025 and I wonder if like me you are wondering if you are still on track to meeting the aims of The Promise by 2030?“

I have always said that The Promise itself is simple enough but we get bogged down in the challenges and the nitty gritty of day-to-day work, wondering if we can achieve success. We see there are reviews, reports, road maps, websites and it can just feel really hard.

I have been reminding myself that it’s a glass half full situation. We are half way there and we can still make it. Just the other day, I had a quick look through my diary and asked myself: “Is the work I do still working towards The Promise we made and am I keeping in mind the 5 foundations of that Promise?”

The Promise says that our care experienced children should be safe, loved and respected. Having this Promise as the backbone of all our work with all children and families should set the standard, reducing the need for a care system.

The 5 foundations are Family, Voice, Care, People and Scaffolding. I believe keeping these 5 areas at the heart of the work we do will ensure that we do #KeepThePromise.

If, like me, your diary is full of meetings, forums, events, workshops, strategy planning, network meetings, promoting services, evaluation and evidencing support – have a quick think about the 5 foundations and ask yourself, “Is the work I do contributing positively?”:

Family – Am I working to ensure whole families receive the best support possible when they need it?

Voice – Am I ensuring that the voice of those families (each individual person) is heard and listened to?

Care – Am I ensuring that where a child or young person does need the support of the care system, I’m thinking about what will be the best outcome for them and their family?

People – Am I aware that children, young people and their families need strong relationships with me and am I considering how trauma has an impact on relationships with people around them?

Scaffolding – Am I aware that we are all part of the scaffolding around families and that we, as workers, need that scaffolding to look after us as well?

Wishing you all the very best, keep heading for that 2030 target – we can do it!

3rd Sector Forum (The Promise)

A huge thanks to everyone who is currently supporting our 3rd sector forum. Our membership is now up to almost 90 which is amazing. We meet at the moment 5 times per year and it is an opportunity to get together, build out network, share experiences, hear from our 3rd sector reps currently sitting on the Children’s Services Board and Outcome Improvement Groups and take the opportunity to raise issues to feed back into these groups.

“When 3rd sector colleagues get together it is amazing where the conversation goes!”

Our next meeting is on Tuesday 24th June, 12.00 until 14.00. We have speakers from The Fit Like Hubs, Sport Aberdeen (Grampian Inclusive Cycling Bothies) and Shona Duff, ACC Corporate Parenting Lead. We will take a short break over the summer and meet again in September.

If anyone would like more information about The Forum, please get in touch. Attendees do need to book spaces for these meetings as the venue is set up for us and tea/coffee/biscuits are included.

Promise Scotland Learning Collaborative – Town House (24th April)

I attended the Aberdeen session of the Promise Learning Collaborative; these are currently being held across the country. It was well attended with a variety of presentations about local work relating to The Promise and an opportunity to share experience and learning to help us work towards our aims to #KeepThePromise.

The Northern Collaborative (covering Aberdeen all the way north to Shetland) meets online regularly to share practice, ideas, tease out difficulties and challenges. It is a great group of really enthusiastic folk. Unfortunately, Aberdeen is not particularly well represented.

It is only 1.5 hours so if anyone is interested, please either get in touch with me for more information or contact Tom Boyd at Promise Scotland who is our link: tom@thepromise.scot

Children’s Services Board update

I wanted to also share the Children’s Services Board newsletter (first edition) which aims to publish quarterly across all sectors.

There’s a lot of interesting information and links within it, so well worth a read.

In particular, you may wish to read either the full version of the Children’s Services Plan update 2024-2025 or if time is limited the short summary version. Both links are within the Children’s Services Board newsletter.

As always, you can have a look at our dedicated webpage on our ACVO website at acvo.org.uk/thepromise to find out more about our work in Aberdeen as well as useful resources and news/updates.