CCPS Children’s Committee welcomes Whole Family Wellbeing Fund

Families have a right to holistic, universally accessible, preventive family support. The Promise called for it and the incorporation of the UNCRC mandates it.  The challenges of Covid recovery make it more urgently needed than ever.

We look forward to working together with children, young people and families and our Scottish Government partners to shape the delivery of this ambitious vision and commitment.

Mark Macmillan, chair, CCPS Committee on care and support for children and young people

Below is a link to the Programme for Government and the specific section on the Whole Family Wellbeing Fund:

https://www.gov.scot/publications/fairer-greener-scotland-programme-government-2021-22/pages/5/

Our promise included, ‘where children are safe in their families and feel loved they must stay – and families must be given support together to nurture that love and overcome the difficulties which get in the way’. This requires a shift in investment to prevent families reaching crisis point. We are committed to investing at least £500m over the life of this Parliament to create a Whole Family Wellbeing Fund. This will enable the building of universal, holistic support services, available in communities across Scotland, giving families access to the help they need, where and when they need it. This will help reduce the need for crisis intervention and contribute to improving people’s lives across a wide range of different areas, including but not limited to, child and adolescent mental health, child poverty, alcohol and drugs misuse and educational attainment. Fundamentally, this is about significantly reducing the number of children and young people who are living away from their families by 2030.