[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"$fz75wi1ffj00r":3,"$f10b3rz2z388kj":18},{"id":4,"author_id":5,"category_id":6,"is_featured":7,"title":8,"slug":9,"content":10,"link_text":6,"link":6,"content_overview":6,"published_at":11,"seo_title":12,"seo_description":13,"image":14,"attachment":15,"created_at":16,"updated_at":17},"01k3rmh7x2mh69p11wr9wnrb55","9cdbdd6d-4900-4646-a012-d3e67a5ee788",null,0,"Aberlour's Response to the Children (Care, Care Experience and Service Planning) Bill","aberlours-response-to-the-children-care-care-experience-and-service-planning-bill","\u003Cp>At Aberlour we understand the importance of Scotland Keeping the Promise by 2030. We provide safe, loving and supportive services across Scotland for children and young people who often face complex challenges. These include residential children’s houses, mother and child recovery houses and many other services with a focus on supporting children and young people to remain with their families where it is safe to do so. Applying a rights-based approach, we are committed to meeting the needs of those with care-experience and supporting them to fully access their rights.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Our response will refer to key challenges and specific issues affecting care experienced young people unable to live with their families, unaccompanied asylum-seeking young people, and young people with disabilities and complex needs. We comment on the proposals contained within the Bill but also reflect on the wider systemic changes required if we are to Keep the Promise by 2030. Like many others, we share concern about the lack of progress and pace in implementing change and therefore support the passing of the Bill in this parliamentary term to build momentum and deliver on The Promise we have made to Scotland’s children, young people and families.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>However, there are challenges within this Bill, and on its own it will not be enough to deliver the change required. There is much wider work needed to strengthen supports for families, declutter the care landscape and truly put the voices of care-experienced people at the heart of any new system. Our organisational ambition to eradicate child poverty and give all children an equal chance, and the best possible start in life is at the heart of everything we do. This is all part of our defining mission: “to be brave for our children and young people.” To that end, we urge the Scottish Government to do the same.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Our response focuses on aspects of the Bill that relate to services where we have direct experience. Throughout our consultation response, we have reflected what children, young people and families at Aberlour have told us as part of our commitment to upholding their right to have their voices heard. The issues we raise are not new, and reflect feedback shared across previous consultation responses, evidence sessions with the Scottish Parliament and directly in dialogue with colleagues in the Scottish Government, MSPs, policy makers and wider decision makers across Scotland’s Children’s Service Leadership.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>We urge Scottish Government to commit to undertaking the necessary actions to ensure we fulfil our commitment to Keep the Promise to all Scotland’s children, young people and families.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Read our response to the Children (Care, Care Experience and Service Planning) Bill.\u003C\u002Fp>","2025-08-28 00:14:16","Aberlour Children's Charity's Response to the Children (Care, Care Experience and Service Planning) Bill","Read Aberlour Children's Charity's response to the Children (Care, Care Experience and Service Planning) Bill.","media\u002F01K3RMH7N3BQ81EE2S8WJSZC1Y.jpg","docs\u002FAberlour Response to Children(CCESP) Bill Stage 1.pdf","2025-08-28T15:25:25.000000Z","2025-08-28T15:25:49.000000Z",{"id":19,"blog_author_id":5,"blog_category_id":20,"is_featured":21,"title":22,"slug":23,"content":24,"content_overview":6,"published_at":25,"seo_title":22,"seo_description":26,"image":27,"created_at":28,"updated_at":28},"01m45vtvk0pdb1y7c1cqv76edp","1",false,"Panic and Promises Won't End Child Poverty","panic-and-promises-wont-end-child-poverty","\u003Cp>We live in a world that seems to spin faster every day, where all the dials are turned to 11 all the time.  \u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The headlines crash from one calamity to another as our political leaders rush to promise emergency action while their opponents demand even more urgency. \u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It is noisy, tiring and a few hours later, when the news cycle spins to another red alert, the last one, whatever it was, is most often forgotten. \u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>For years now, child poverty in Scotland has been routinely described as a national emergency demanding emergency action. It is and it does but, with more than one in five children still growing up in poverty in Scotland today, is it time to ask if the language of emergency and crisis is helping?  \u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Perhaps it only encourages more haste but less speed, a birling carousel of taskforces and committees, policy papers and special reports, but too little measured and impactful action? Are we even checking if the blizzard of promises and commitments is being delivered before starting the snow machine again? \u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>What if the endless planning and process is actually slowing us down? What if somehow all the talk is delaying implementation of practical, tested, and effective measures to improve the lives and secure the life chances of the 210,000 children growing up poor in one of the wealthiest countries in the world? \u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Because we already know what works. We have known for years.  \u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Of course, there are no magic bullets, no simple solutions to the complex social issues that have blighted our poorest communities for decades. Child poverty, like Scotland’s drugs crisis, another national emergency, is embedded in longstanding economic trends that have stripped far too many of our neighbourhoods of jobs and hope. \u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Those trends will not be reversed overnight but, in the meantime, we should not let perfect be the enemy of good. As Challenge Poverty Week begins today, the biggest challenge is to see the wood not the trees, to recognise and appreciate what is already working and build on it. \u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>There are things that we know ease the impact of poverty on young lives; that have been trialled, tested and measured; that inch their families from peril to safety; that give them new strength, confidence and a path to a more secure future. So why not have more of them? \u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>These are services that our charity and others are delivering every day, hand in glove with our partners in social work, health care and education. These are services delivering real, measurable success, making children safer, healthier and happier today and improving their chances tomorrow. \u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Intensive family support, for example. The clue is in the name. It is the opposite of easy. Any family’s journey back from the very edge of crisis is one of hard yards and no shortcuts. \u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Our teams arrive to work, shoulder to shoulder, with families on the point of collapse, with children often on the edge of care. Ensuring those babies and young people are safe is always the priority but, after that, keeping them with their families is the driving force because that, all research suggests, is the best way to stabilise childhoods and secure futures. \u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Intensive family support means doing whatever it takes to keep children safe and families together. It can rebuild broken relationships; improve parents’ confidence in themselves; create new connections in communities; and help build firmer financial foundations with advice on welfare rights, maximising incomes and problem debt. \u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Any investment in intensive family support and other specialist services, for pregnant women and new mums, for example, is more than returned in thriving families, stronger communities and money saved. Resource is better spent on intensive support keeping families safely together, than managing their separation through a lifetime of crisis-led state intervention.  \u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Our two Mother and Child Recovery Houses, in Falkirk and Dundee, for example, offer recovery spaces for pregnant and new mums with a history of substance use, allowing them to recover while staying safely with their babies. This helps keep families together and children at home, improves their futures and saves millions of pounds in avoided care costs. \u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This is true child protection and the big question is not whether we can afford to roll out these services across Scotland but if we can afford not to?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\u003Cstrong>Justina Murray \u003C\u002Fstrong>\u003Cbr>\u003Cstrong>Chief executive of Aberlour Children’s Charity \u003C\u002Fstrong>\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp> \u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\u003Cem>This article was written for the Daily Record and published on Monday 5th October 2026.\u003C\u002Fem>\u003C\u002Fp>","2026-10-05T00:00:00.000000Z","Aberlour Children's Charity CEO, Justina Murray, explains what must be done to end child poverty in Scotland. We know what works and we've known for years. ","media\u002FRS873_0E5A9135.jpg","2026-10-05T11:05:26.000000Z"]