Subject: Celebrating Care Day & The Promise Anniversary

Welcome to our first newsletter of 2026

Dear Friend

It’s been a busy and energising start to the year for all of us. Our focus groups and forums are in full swing, and it’s been fantastic to see so many members sharing your insights, experience and passion. We also apprecaited coming together to celebrate the promise anniversary, an important moment to reflect on how far we’ve come and the work still ahead.

We have made an important decision about this year’s Summit. Rather than holding a single event on 17 March, we’ll be hosting a new series of learning events throughout the year, each focused on the issues our members have told us matter most. We hope this approach creates more opportunities for meaningful discussion and involvement. More details will be shared very soon.

With Care Day approaching on 20 February, we’d love to hear what Staf members are planning. If you’re organising or taking part in any activities, please let us know so we can help amplify your activities.

In this newsletter, you’ll find updates on the Moving On Route Map, progress on The Promise Bill, opportunities to get involved with Youth Justice Voices, exciting developments in our Resource Hub, news from the National Leadership Network, and much more.

Thank you for everything you do. Your commitment, insight and determination continue to drive positive change for those with care experience. We’re grateful to be working alongside you and look forward to another year of learning, collaborating and making a difference together.

With warm wishes

Jo Derrick
Chief Executive

Upcoming Staf events

We are working across our forums and focus groups to engage with Staf members as we implement the Moving On Route Map.

Dates for the year ahead are now live on our website.

You can now book onto the meetings coming up in February and March.

Please email victoria@staf.scot if you have a question or topic you would like to see covered. You can also get in touch to be added to the Teams channel for these groups.

Supported Lodgings, Supported Carers Focus Group

Tuesday 24 February 2026

Care Leavers into Employment, Education and Training Focus Group

Tuesday 10 February 2026

Local Authority Managers' Forum

Wednesday 25 March 2026

Participation Practitioners' Forum

Thursday 26 March 2026

Turning Route Maps into real change

The Promise Scotland recently published 25 Route Maps, which bring together pathways for keeping the promise by 2030. You can view them at plan2430.scot/the-route-maps.

These Route Maps provide a shared framework for understanding how systems can work better together at key points of transition. They emphasise the importance of relationships, consistency and young people being meaningfully involved in decisions that affect their lives. Together, they offer a practical and hopeful way of translating the ambitions of the promise into everyday practice.

We want to say a heartfelt thank you to everyone who contributed to the development of the Moving On and Lifelong Support Route Map. This has been a genuinely collaborative process, shaped by the insights of young people, practitioners, managers and partners across sectors. Your honesty, curiosity and willingness to reflect on what works (and what doesn't) has been essential in grounding the Route Map in real experience.

The publication of the Moving On Route Map is not an end point. It marks the beginning of the next phase: implementation. Over the coming months, we'll be focusing on how the Route Map can be used in practice, supporting reflection, strengthening relationships across services and helping organisations make meaningful, trauma-informed changes that young people can feel.

We'll be sharing opportunities to engage, learn together and explore how the Route Maps can support better transitions for young people, now and in the future.

Join Youth Justice Voices in the North East

Do you know someone with care and justice experience in the North East of Scotland? We're looking for new people to join Youth Justice Voices North East. We asked our current participants what makes this group worth joining, and their responses speak for themselves.

To chat about getting involved, please contact hannah.kouris@staf.scot.

The Promise Bill moves forward

The Children (Care, Care Experience and Services Planning) (Scotland) Bill successfully passed the Stage 1 debate in the Scottish Parliament. This marks an important milestone and signals broad parliamentary support for its overall principles and direction of travel.

Stage 1 focused on scrutiny of the Bill's aims, informed by evidence from people with care experience, practitioners, local authorities, the third sector and other key stakeholders. The debate reflected strong cross-party recognition of the need to improve outcomes for children and young people with care experience, strengthen corporate parenting responsibilities, and embed more consistent and forward-looking planning of services across Scotland.

The Bill seeks to build on the ambitions of The Promise by improving how children experience care, enhancing support for care experienced people, and placing clearer duties on public bodies to plan and collaborate effectively. While Members of the Scottish Parliament welcomed these intentions, the debate also highlighted areas where further detail, clarity and strengthening may be needed as the Bill progresses.

The Bill is now at Stage 2, where amendments can be proposed and considered in detail. Staf continues to engage with members, partners and policymakers to support informed discussion, amplify practice-based insight, and contribute to shaping legislation that delivers meaningful and lasting change for children, young people and families.

Free online learning for Staf members

Did you know all Staf members can access WeLearn for free? Our new online learning platform offers a range of short courses to complete at your own pace, all produced with experts by experience. Visit welearn.staf.scot to register free.

A fresh look for our Resource Hub

The LCT Resource Hub is currently undergoing some changes - its new design will provide easy access to key focus areas, each offering a wide range of resources. It's going to be better, bolder and packed with even more valuable content.

The Hub is designed to support everyone working to improve the lives of young people with care experience. Every resource will still be rooted in the voices and insights of young people themselves, but with more ways to learn, connect and act.

There will be a monthly news section for you to share your news with new audiences. Whether you're working on an exciting project, launching new resources or spreading the word about funding opportunities, you can showcase this information on the Hub for more people to see.

Got something to share on the Hub? Please get in touch with dawn@staf.scot.

Our trauma course reaches 900 learners

Since the launch of our Foundations of trauma-informed, relationship-based practice course last year, over 900 learners have enrolled and their feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. Learners describe the course as providing a 'good, general, foundational basis' with 'a great deal of information' and 'practical resources'. Learners found it 'very well put together, and informative on the subject matter' and 'an excellent introduction and easy to understand'.

Learners are already putting the course concepts into practice in meaningful ways. One Impact Officer shared that they will use what they learned when doing evaluations with children. Others mentioned it will help with personal and professional career development. One noted, "This training will be recommended to our staff who are SSSC registered as part of the mandatory trauma-informed training requirement".

The course is introductory and free to access on the Open University OpenLearn Create website. If you would like to learn more about the course, or perhaps you have completed it and would be willing to share how you are using the learning, please get in touch with dawn@staf.scot.

Steering Group

The Steering Group and Consultants have been considering how they can work effectively in this important year for the project. We're still catching up with everyone to see what people are thinking about bringing both groups together, clarifying meeting times and roles. We're also talking about what to call the team if they work together (currently most people are thinking that Consultants is the best job title).

The team looked at the 12-month report from MCR Pathways and the Stirling Champs Project 12-month report. Other things the team are looking at just now are okaying the fourth annual report draft and digesting 'The Jigsaw' reports.

The team were keen to see a 'route map' of how we could work this year, which has been produced and discussed.

Some of the team attended the latest Participation Network Steering Group, which was continuing to plan the next event in Perth. Focusing on trust, safety, environment and participation, this gathering will have quite a creative focus. More info to follow soon.

We have been in early discussions with a couple of organisations who are keen to ask the NLN be involved in supporting their work. The team have had a general discussion, but we will share more info soon.

NLN evaluation

To support the Steering Group/Consultants' work through the evaluation tendering process, Pamela from Staf is going to lead a session on various issues and processes the team will need to consider.

Beyond '26

Barry has completed the NLN research report titled The Jigsaw, which brings together perspectives from across the NLN to support shared discussion about its future, beyond the current funding period ending December 2026. The full and an abbreviated version of the report have been sent to all of team NLN.

Friends and allies' input into post '26

We would normally promote the opportunity to give general feedback on the NLN around January. This year, we have been engaging with the community to ask about their thoughts on the NLN post '26. We have started talking to various projects and have also promoted the questions we want to ask via a survey on social media which can be found here: s.surveyplanet.com/ckcbwnx0

Leadership blogs

We have shared blogs from Olivia Khan, Cheryle O'Brien, Susanne and Gary. All the leadership blogs shared this month will feature on the NLN website.

Partnership working

Gary met with Jonathan Grant from Vox (voxscotland.org.uk) to discuss how both projects can help each other. Vox and the NLN are similar in their approach to leading the work we do with lived experience being front and centre. Vox are going to share an update on the NLN with all their members and offer them the opportunity to write a leadership blog too.

Gary also met with the Rural Health Equity Stakeholder Group. This is led by Change Mental Health (changemh.org). The NLN was asked to be part of this group because of our lived experience approach. With a focus on the rural Highlands, the group started looking at aims, objectives and communication.

We will be delivering a workshop at Children in Scotland's Annual Conference, taking place 27-28 May 2026 at the DoubleTree by Hilton Glasgow Central. Titled 'Shifting from co-production to production: insights on participation', this will be delivered by some of team NLN and will explore what meaningful co-production really looks like in practice, using the work of the NLN as an example of putting those with lived experience at the heart of decision making.

For more info on the NLN, please contact gary@thenln.org.

Practitioners who work directly with children, young people and families are invited to attend one of two 90-minute sessions taking place on Tuesday 17 February, the first at 10.30am – 12 noon and the second at 2–3.30pm.

Team managers and service managers are invited to a 90-minute session on Wednesday 18 February at 10.30am – 12 noon.

Sessions will be held on Microsoft Teams. A joining link will be sent to participants.

For further information and to book a place, please email celcis.earlyhelpandprotection@strath.ac.uk stating which session you would like to attend.