New Scottish Government guidance to help local authorities allocate school attainment funding for care experienced children 2020-2021
The Scottish Government has published (1 September) national operational guidance for local authorities to help them decide how to use the Care Experienced Children and Young People Fund.
During the COVID-19 public health emergency, current guidance for Attainment Scotland Funding, including the Care Experienced Children and Young People Fund, was relaxed to allow for more flexibility to offer the most effective support.
This Fund was launched in 2018 as an additional resource provided through the Attainment Scotland Fund. It is used by local authorities to help close the poverty related attainment gap by funding initiatives and interventions aimed at improving educational outcomes for care experienced children and young people, aged between 0-26. These include mentoring programmes and outdoor and play-based education.
The fund provides up to £33 million over this parliamentary term (2016-2021), split between Scotland’s 32 local authorities. Of this, £11.6 million is available for the 2020-21 academic year, at £1,200 per looked after child aged 5-15.
The guidance offers local authorities, as corporate parents, suggestions of how the funding could be best used to improve attainment of their care experienced children and young people such as working with Further and Higher Education Institutions, other national bodies, Early Years providers and post 16 employment, training and education providers, and voluntary sector organisations who can provide support and services to children and families for both school based and non-school based issues. A number of resources are also shared including the Looked After and Learning guidance published by CELCIS.