As part of our ten year strategy, Barnardo’s Scotland has identified priority areas for policy influencing. Two of these are mental health and wellbeing, and looked-after children and care leavers. Our extensive work with children, young people, families and carers throughout Scotland has shown us that there is a huge overlap in these areas of work and that a spotlight on the mental health and wellbeing of looked-after children and care leavers is necessary.
To address this, we are working on a series of reports and resources - including this one - that aim to draw attention to the particular mental health needs of this population, and look for practical policy solutions. We will be using the experiences of our frontline services and the participation of children and young people themselves to inform all aspects of this work, and will take a ‘whole sector’ approach by looking at what roles agencies, practitioners and policy-makers can play in implementing positive change.