Why?
Aberdeenshire’s findings from the Bright Spot pilot in Scotland revealed that 19% of their children and young people (11-18yrs) had low overall wellbeing. This was statistically associated with: Family time with brothers and sisters being ‘not right’.
What?
Aberdeenshire undertook considerable work to ensure young people had a greater understanding of who the key people are when they come into care. They piloted the use of Ecomaps within their children and young people’s assessments. These are a visual tool that shows relationships that are important to a person or family.
Ecomaps can be a useful tool to assess the quality of relationships in a child’s life, who is important to them, who they wish to maintain a relationship with, and who we should consider when planning and making decisions for a child.
What difference did it make?
The feedback from the use of Ecomaps was extremely positive and this has now been embedded as standard practice. This is enabling better consideration of who the key people are who children need to maintain contact with when they come into care.
This also allows for a discussion around a child’s relationships within their reviews and can lead to discussions around increasing time spent with siblings or family members, to identify potential kinship care options for children and support recommendations within permanence plans.
Examples of Ecomaps that were created by children
