Quality framework for children and young people in need of care and protection

This quality improvement framework is for community planning partnerships to support self-evaluation of services for children and young people in need of care and protection and is designed to lead to improvement in services. It places the child at the centre of self- evaluation and looks at the impact that services can have on a child’s life as well as the positive outcomes that they can lead to.

It can be used by the full range of services that contribute to the health and wellbeing of children, young people and their families. It is used by the Care Inspectorate’s strategic scrutiny children’s team and their scrutiny partners: Education Scotland; Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS) and His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland (HMICS), for inspections of community planning partnerships.

Throughout this guide, we use the terms ‘children and young people in need of care and protection’, ‘children and young people’ and ‘care experienced children and young people’. This includes children, young people and young adults for whom community planning partnerships have corporate parenting responsibilities.

‘Partnerships’ are defined as groups of services and organisations who have collective responsibility for improving services for children and young people in need of care and protection. Arrangements vary across local authority areas, but may include:

• community planning partnerships

• chief officers’ groups

• health and social care partnerships

• children’s services planning groups

• child protection committees

• corporate parenting champions boards

• community safety partnerships.