Orkney “Head, Heart, Hands” programme launched

Orkney is to become one of six areas in the UK to explore a fresh approach to how children are looked after in foster care.

Orkney Health and Care has partnered up with Scotland-wide organisation Aberlour Fostering and will be  joined by representatives from the only other Scottish pilot site – Edinburgh City Council – for the launch of the Head, Heart, Hands programme at the Scottish Parliament today.

Over the next three years, the Head, Heart, Hands programme will establish an innovative approach to fostering called social pedagogy — a way of working that already, shapes how children in care are looked after in many countries across Europe.

Maureen Swannie, Orkney Health and Care’s children’s services manager explained: “Social pedagogy sounds like a complicated concept but, put simply, it’s about taking a sensible, down to earth and rounded approach to the parenting role and placing the focus on building positive relationships between children and their carers.”