This response from Barnardo's Scotland was prepared for the consultation on A Connected Scotland: Tackling social isolation and loneliness and building stronger social connections. It draws on the experiences of our services and the children, young people and the families supported by them.
Throughout this response, we will highlight some of the specific needs of these groups of children and young people. However, our overarching concern is that the Scottish Government's strategy fails to highlight, and create pathways to link into, other key Scottish Government initiatives that could impact on the social isolation and loneliness felt by these groups of young people, such as the Equally Safe strategy, the Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Action Group or the Independent Care Review. Barnardo’s Scotland calls on the Scottish Government to ensure that this strategy has strong, positive links with other key areas of work across government and that these are built into the performance framework.