Foreword
The vast majority of young people in Scotland make a positive contribution to society and are valuable and valued members of their communities. We want to build on the great qualities that young people bring to our society: energy, enthusiasm, creativity, an appetite for learning and huge potential for the future. At the same time, we must remove the barriers that prevent too many of our young people from realising their potential and leading successful, fulfilling lives. The cost for them and their communities of negative outcomes - including educational underachievement, economic disadvantage, social isolation, poor health, substance misuse and involvement in offending - is one that none of us can afford to pay.
This Framework belongs to all the key partners who together are committed to preventing offending by young people. We share a vision of a Scotland where all children and young people pursue their dreams and fulfil their potential in safe, strong and supportive families and communities. We are united in our determination to intervene early, and in partnership with each other and communities, to get it right for every child. Together, we reject the polarisation of children's needs and community safety; we will champion both.
We know what we need to do. We need to prevent the causes of offending by giving every child the best start in life. We need to intervene early with children and families at risk to give them the support they need to thrive. We need to give young people more positive choices and chances, and build their capacity to capitalise on opportunity. For the small number of young people who pose a serious threat to themselves and their communities, we need to intervene quickly and effectively to turn their lives around.
In all of this, we want to reconnect young people and their communities to build an unassailable alliance around the shared goal of a more successful Scotland, now and into the future.
The vision is a familiar one. What is new is our shared commitment, within the context of a new kind of partnership as set out in the Concordat, to making it happen. As equal partners, we will focus on identifying and embedding what works, enabling good practice to spread, and demonstrating impact in improved outcomes for children, young people and communities. At every level, we will get better at partnership, using information, seeing holistically and acting strategically.
We don't underestimate the challenges of delivering this framework, and securing transformational change for our young people and communities. However, we believe that a partnership built around this shared set of principles is a firm foundation on which to build a safer, stronger future for our young people, and for Scotland.
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Fergus Ewing MSP
Minister for Community Safety | Cllr Isabel Hutton
COSLA Education, Children and young people Spokesperson |