Prevention and family support: How do children who have been supported to stay with their family describe family life following a ‘close encounter’ with the care system?
Background
Scotland’s ambition is for children to be supported to stay within their families wherever it is safe and possible to do so. The overall number of children entering care each year in Scotland is falling, and proportionally more children who do become looked after are living with kinship carers, and fewer are remaining with their parents. These national‑level trends help to understand what is happening, but not how this is being achieved, or the impact on families. To answer that second question, we need better evidence to provide context to national statistics: on the factors that influence whether families can stay together; the support available locally; and the conditions that enable early, preventative help rather than crisis‑driven intervention. Here, prevention is understood primarily in relation to children at risk of entering care and their families, focusing on how earlier identification of unmet need, timely support, and system responses may reduce avoidable escalation to compulsory care.
Next steps
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Source
This question was published as part of the set of ARIs in this document:
Related UKRI funded projects
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Kinship care re-visited: Using Census 2011 Microdata to Examine and Map the Extent and Nature of Kinship Care Households in the UK
The research project will use microdata from the 2011 Census to provide nationally representative, reliable statistics and maps on the distribution and characteristics of kinship care households in the four countries of ...
Funded by: ESRC
Lead research organisation: University of Bristol
Why might this be relevant?
Partially relevant as it focuses on kinship care households in the UK, not specifically on children who have been supported to stay with their family following a 'close encounter' with the care system.
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Comparing health outcomes for care experienced children and children in the general population in Scotland using linked administrative data
Children who are in the care of their local authority (care experienced children, CEC) are one of the most vulnerable groups of people in the society. In 2017 approximately 15,000 children in Scotland were visited by soc...
Funded by: ESRC
Lead research organisation: University of Glasgow
Why might this be relevant?
Fully relevant as it specifically addresses the health outcomes of care experienced children in Scotland, providing national level evidence on their health, pregnancy, and mortality rates.
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Understanding What Matters: Developing effective participatory methods from the research into what matters to children living in kinship care.
Kinship care is the caring arrangement in the family constellation for children who cannot remain with birth parents. My PhD research was the first to solely focus on the views of children living in kinship care in Engla...
Funded by: ESRC
Lead research organisation: University of Sussex
Why might this be relevant?
Partially relevant as it focuses on child participation in kinship care, which is related but does not directly address how children describe family life following a 'close encounter' with the care system.