The Scottish Government has published guidance on the 27-30 month child health reviews on their website. The guidance identifies the core issues which should be addressed and recorded at the review, and standardised methods of assessment to ensure consistency of practice across Scotland.

The 27-30 month review should be offered to all children.  Whilst achieving a high uptake of the review will be challenging it is critically important to ensuring the review makes the greatest possible contribution to improving children’s outcomes and reducing inequalities.

The overall priorities of the review should be the promotion of strong early child development (particularly social/emotional and language/cognitive development) within a context of helpful parenting and wider family wellbeing, and the promotion of child healthy weight. The Getting it Right for Every Child approach provides an overall framework for the new reviews.

It is expected that all NHS Boards will provide reviews in line with this guidance, and will return the national data set on completed reviews, from April 2013.

The document can be viewed or downloaded from the Scottish Government website here.

There will be no Wise Up Wednesday for the next two weeks, but we look forward to being back with you in the new year.

The Children and Families team at Education Scotland wishes everyone a happy and restful time over the holiday period, with special good wishes to those of you who are working hard, providing children’s services throughout the holiday season.