About Navigate
Navigate is where you can find resources, advice and information to help support care experienced children and young people at school and nursery. It can also help support children and young people who are on the edges of care.
Understanding rights
Information about additional support for learning, and how this relates to care experienced children and young people.
Real life stories
Stories, case studies, and examples from care experienced children and young people and the professionals who support them.
What can I do?
Practical tools to help you take action to support care experienced children and young people, so they can access the support they need at school.
Who is Navigate for?
Navigate is for all adults who care for, live with, work with, and support care experienced children and young people. This can include:
- parents and adoptive parents
- foster and kinship carers
- residential carers
- teachers and education support staff
- advocates and advisers
- people in healthcare and social work
- and many more.
Care experienced children often have many different adults in their lives, and it is important that all of these adults work together. That is why we created Navigate with all adults in mind – to help everyone be on the same page when it comes to supporting children and young people to benefit fully from their education.
What is ‘Care Experience’?
The phrase ‘care experience’ is used to describe when a person has lived in care at any time in their life. It is a broad term that covers lots of different life experiences.
🔗 Find out more on our Navigate page What is care experience?
▶️ Watch our short Navigate video that asks Is care experience an additional support need?
Is Navigate for children and young people?
Children and young people can access information and advice about additional support for learning through reach.scot, Enquire’s website for all children and young people. They can also access advice and information on our TikTok, @reach.scot
While it’s important that children and young people understand their rights, it is not their responsibility to make sure their rights are upheld. That’s why Navigate focuses on the adults in care experienced children and young people’s lives.
Why focus on care experience?
Care experienced children and young people, through no fault of their own, can face extra barriers when it comes to school and nursery.
All children and young people in Scotland should grow up loved, safe, and respected. An important part of that is making sure care experienced children and young people get the help they need to be fully included and supported in their education.
Who created Navigate?
Navigate was created by Enquire, the Scottish advice service for additional support for learning, thanks to funding from Corra Foundation and The Promise Scotland.
Who are Enquire?
Enquire is the Scottish advice service for additional support for learning. We’re funded by the Scottish Government to provide advice and information to children and young people, their families, and the professionals who support them.
🔗 Visit enquire.org.uk to find out more about our advice for adults
🔗 You can also find out more at reach.scot which is our website for children and young people.
What is The Promise?
Scotland has made a promise to every child and young person: that they should grow up loved, safe, and respected. The Promise was created following the Independent Care Review in 2020, which looked at the ‘care system’ and what needs to be done to improve it.
🔗 Read more about The Promise and its plan for 2024 to 2030
