One year on from the launch of Navigate, Enquire’s hub for those supporting care experienced children and young people in education, Jennifer Higgins reflects on the power of language – and how learning from the Each and Every Child initiative has strengthened our approach.
At Enquire, our service is committed to communicating and championing the rights of children and young people in education. Whether we are responding on the helpline, sharing information on social media or creating resources, our everyday conversations are a constant reminder of the central role that language plays when we are talking about children’s rights to additional support for learning. In the jargon-filled world of ‘ASL’, there’s hope in our collective care and examination of how the words we use reflect our values as a service. It’s because of our ambitions for the people we advise that we consider the language we use and its potential to influence how people think of themselves, and the people they are supporting.
Writing this blog is itself, an exercise in language. It’s written in the context of support for learning where additional support needs can apply in a range of scenarios related to lifelong neurodevelopmental conditions, disability, health needs and care experience as well as changes in family circumstances, bereavement or interrupted learning. Within just a few phrases, it’s already easy to discern language barriers between communities defined by ‘need’ within a service system that speaks its own coded language.
Amid the lingo, the question becomes how do you present a pluralistic picture of additional support for learning that actively promotes inclusion and considers children’s school experiences from a human perspective? It’s important to us that the families we interact with feel they can trust us to do that well, that people know they will be listened to with understanding and can see themselves positively reflected in our online resources and communications.
Each and Every Child provides a model for tackling that intricate question. The initiative is dedicated to demonstrating how individuals and organisations can build public support for solutions that create real change, specifically for children with care experience.
Promoting positive language choices
In 2026, Enquire was invited to attend their training programme alongside colleagues whose activities align on reframing the language around care experience to promote positive action. Each and Every Child responds to the views of children and young people shared in The Care Review – and acted on in The Promise – that say the systematic language used to describe care and care experience – including by the workforce – is stigmatising and compounds a sense of difference. It has a real impact on the services that people with care experience receive. Drawing on Frame Works UK research, the programme focuses on shifting public attitudes about care experience using eight recommendations including using metaphors to explain children’s involvement with the care system and explaining the collective value all of society gains when children have what they need to thrive. It was both challenging and enlightening to participate in the reflective groupwork exercises to consider the power of language – and eye-opening to discover how the simple framing of sentences can influence how people think, feel and act, and in relation to important societal issues.
Language is one of the core considerations for Navigate, our resource for supporting adults around children with care experience at school. Funded by the Keep the Promise Fund and shaped through conversations with young people, families and partners, Navigate flips the narrative on care experience. School is a challenging stage of development for all children. Following the Each and Every Child model, Navigate actively shifts the language away from divisive words and phrases that unconsciously blame care-experienced children for their support needs at school towards language that promotes a shared and empathetic understanding of what it’s like to be at school and have experience of care. Professionals are guided to do this through different tool types such as myth-busting the language of school attendance and top tips for using language to create an inclusive school environment.
Supporting real change
September marks one year since the launch of Navigate, and so the learning from Each and Every Child provides us with some timely pause for thought. If we want to improve educational outcomes for children with care experience, we must address stigma and discrimination head-on. Navigate does that by equipping professionals not only with the advice, but with the language for starting conversations about children’s support at school. We have a new page ‘Let’s talk attendance’ to de-bunk some of the language on this subject and to consider the context for the children being described. There are a couple of new videos in the mix, and we are adding to our draft emails for requests for school support.
Mostly, this month saw us renewing our commitment to language facilitated by the heart-felt and effective training delivered by Each and Every Child. As individuals in the children’s sector, we can educate ourselves; we can listen and amplify the voices of children and young people and promote positive action in the professionals delivering the best possible support. It is this care and curiosity about the people in the language and the words we use to bring about positive outcomes for children in education that emphasises the power we all have as communicators.
As the final recommendation from Each and Every Child makes clear; “Show that change is possible, as well as necessary, to build support for solutions.”
Each and Every Child is an initiative that uses robustly tested framing research and recommendations to shift public attitudes around care and care experience to improve the lives of people who have experience of care across Scotland.
Find out more https://eachandeverychild.co.uk/
Jennifer Higgins
Senior Advice and Information Officer
About JenniferJennifer is a Senior Advice and Information Officer at Enquire, overseeing the service’s written resources and leading their development. A qualified librarian, she has worked across heritage library services and previously served as an Advice & Communities Officer for the Kinship Care Advice Service for Scotland. There, she deepened her understanding of the value of accessible support for care-experienced families. She is passionate about helping people make the most of resources that support rights and wellbeing.