The Conference featured five major Speakers and ten Workshops.
The Programme for the day began with an opening address and welcome to the Conference by Addie Stevenson, Chief Executive of Aberlour Child Care Trust.
Jim Stephens, Team Leader for Early Years, Scottish Government then gave the keynote speech. In articulating the Scottish Government vision for the Early Years, Jim spoke of the central position of the Early Years Framework in the structure of children’s policy in Scotland. He spoke of the quantity and quality of work currently being undertaken in Scotland to support young people and emphasised the importance of parenting for achieving positive outcome in the early years.
Lis Bardell, Project Manager, National Parenting Development Project then emphasised some of the underlying principles of working with parents. Lis went on to describe a staged intervention model that allows a strategic approach to the organisation and delivery of services to parents. She articulated some of the challenges facing Local Authorities as they move to refocus resources towards the early years and describe some specific issues, such as service evaluation, workforce development and effective partnership working that are challenging service providers in Scotland.
Bill Whyte, Director of The Criminal Justice Social Work Development Centre, Edinburgh University then took the opportunity to describe some of the research that he and others had undertaken into parenting services in Scotland. Bill made clear links between the early years and outcomes for children, particularly in relation to criminal behaviour in later life. He indicated that a key to providing services to parents was the organisation of those services along a continuum, from universal provision through to specialist targeted provision.
Presentations from Stella Everingham, Head of Integrated Children’s Services, Scottish Borders Council and Robert McDowall, GIRFEC Team, South Ayrshire Council ensued in which they described their experiences of developing and implementing a multidisciplinary Parenting Strategy including the challenges and successes within their respective local authorities.
Where PowerPoint Presentations were used by Speakers or workshop leaders, they have been included here.