At Enquire, we’re always looking for ways to make our information and advice more accessible, practical, and impactful. Last year, we launched something new for those supporting care experienced young people on their education journey.
Navigate is a hub of practical tools, information and advice for the adults who support care experienced children and young people. It’s about removing barriers, building trust, and helping everyone to work together.
Our Navigate journey began in 2024, with funding from the Keep the Promise Fund. Our vision was to create a toolkit that would help to improve support and access to education for care experienced children, young people, and those on the edges of care.
Work to develop Navigate was built on a deep understanding of Scotland’s additional support for learning landscape. Informed by years of engagement with families, educators and professionals, we identified three key areas where support could make a real difference:
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- Attendance
- Exclusions
- Co-ordinated Support Plans (CSPs)
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These became the pillars around which Navigate was built. Much of the resources we have created focus on the importance of relationships when it comes to making improvements in these areas – with care experienced children and young people themselves and between the adults who support them.
Built in collaboration
Navigate is shaped by the people it was designed for. As well as pulling from existing awareness and day-to-day interactions with families and professionals, we met with care experienced school pupils, carried out surveys, and spoke with partner organisations to make sure the Navigate reflects people’s real experiences and real needs.
Based on those interactions, we have organised material into three easy-to-use categories:
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- Understanding rights – clear, accessible information and guidance
- Real-life stories – case studies and examples from lived experience
- What can I do? – practical, ready-to-use tools
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Our inspiration and motivation behind Navigate is to help foster positive relationships and to connect the people and services that form the scaffolding in a young person’s life. It is hub of resources that are designed not just to inform, but to help the adults who support care experienced children and young people to work better together.
A shared commitment to The Promise
We know that removing barriers to learning takes more than one service or one organisation’s efforts. That’s why Navigate is rooted in a whole-community approach, highlighting existing resources and working alongside partner organisations. As well as meeting with different stakeholders during the development process, we have created multiple video tools that feature different partners who share their insights, experiences and expertise.
By making practical, accurate advice more accessible – and tailoring it to the context of supporting care-experienced children and young people – we hope to help everyone in a supporting role to uphold The Promise.
Find out what tools Navigate can offer to help you in your role supporting care experienced learners: https://enquire.org.uk/care-experience/
Visit Enquire’s Professionals pages for more information, advice and resources: https://enquire.org.uk/professionals/
