[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"$f2qbo04anng107":3,"$f10b3rz2z388kj":17},{"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":8,"seo_description":12,"image":13,"attachment":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":16},"01jafm81wfb1s2qgx82sqsp4e1","9c8b0191-fcca-48df-af06-d7308bbd8d7b",null,0,"Evaluation of Sustain Borders","evaluation-of-sustain-borders","\u003Cp>Aberlour Children's Charity supports over 7,500 children annually through various services. The Sustain Borders service, funded by the Scottish Borders Council (SBC), aims to support families with children at the edge of care, preventing family breakdown and reducing the need for care placements.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Sustain Borders provides intensive, personalised support to families in crisis. The service operates on five principles: consultation and co-production, relationship-based support, intensive support, edge of care, not edge of Social Work involvement , and personalised support. It collaborates with SBC Social Work and other agencies to offer comprehensive support.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cstrong>The service has successfully kept 80% of referred children out of care\u003C\u002Fstrong>, significantly improving family relationships and overall wellbeing. Using the SHANARRI indicators, the evaluation shows positive progress in safety, health, achievement, and inclusion among children. The flexible, intensive support has also helped reduce anti-social behavior and build trust in the system.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Sustain Borders complements existing services, providing much-needed intensive support that reduces pressure on Social Workers and other agencies. It has filled a critical gap in service provision, enhancing collaboration and achieving positive outcomes for children and families.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Cstrong>The service has demonstrated significant cost savings for SBC, avoiding upto £4.35 million in care placement costs over 15 months. \u003C\u002Fstrong>By preventing children from entering care, Sustain Borders also reduces future costs related to health, education, and criminal justice.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Learn more by downloading the full report via the link below.\u003C\u002Fp>","2020-01-31 11:51:50","The Sustain Borders service has been successful in its main aim to avoid being taken into care for four out of five children and young people (80%).  Read our full report.","media\u002F01JAFM81WCE94YP0V1E869VEE7.webp","docs\u002F01JAFM81WE64D3XG88N4PRMVQE.pdf","2024-10-18T10:54:48.000000Z","2024-10-23T14:33:42.000000Z",{"id":18,"blog_author_id":19,"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","9cdbdd6d-4900-4646-a012-d3e67a5ee788","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"]