The Promise Design School

We strongly believe that children and young people have a fundamental right to live in safe, loving homes.

Last week we had the initial Promise Design School meeting. It was an important step in our journey to fulfil The Promise’s ambition to protect the dignity of children in care and have a restraint free Scotland.

We’re proud to have led the way in reviewing and reducing the use of physical restraint on children in their own residential houses.

Thanks to generous funding from the CORRA Foundation, we are working in partnership with Kibble to focus on how we can better support children when they are distressed. We aim to better understand children’s needs and respond to them in a loving, caring way which does not rely on restrictive practice.

We have selected four other organisations who will work with The Promise Design School, Kibble and ourselves to develop their own blueprints for reducing physical restraint. The organisations making up project teams include Edinburgh Secure Services, St Philips School, North Lanarkshire and Glasgow City Council.

The process will include learning and mentoring sessions led by The Promise. Each project team having separate sessions to develop their own ideas. Teams will be invited to critique each other’s ideas. The aim will be to design and innovate solutions which can be used in the real world.

Rachael Hood from The Promise Design School said: “We love that you’re trying to solve this problem…. bravely stepping into a space where you’re challenging each other”.

Each project team consists of an organisational lead and implementation team. It also includes a care experienced young person. The teams are supported by clinical psychologists Dr Shona Quin and Dan Johnson. Aberlour and Kibble will work alongside the organisations to offer support with any challenges and issues.

The first full session will be later this month. The project will be fully evaluated next year to see how far we have come in fulfilling The Promise’s ambition.