Practice guidance

Getting it Right For Every Child (GIRFEC) is the Scottish Government’s commitment to provide all children, young people and families with the right support at the right time – so that every child and young person can reach their full potential.

This guidance is intended for practitioners and service leads who work with children, young people and families and aims to provide practitioners with a deeper understanding of wellbeing. The Practice Model seeks to support practitioners to consider ways to improve wellbeing for a child or young person.

The refreshed national Model contains a number of key changes:

• Greater emphasis on child-centred, rights-respecting, strengths-based practice and the inclusion of children, young people and their families at every stage of the process;
• Simpler language identified which can be used when working together with children, young people and families;
• A deeper understanding of the impact of trauma and Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) in considering the My World Triangle; and
• Further detail provided on the Resilience Matrix.

The refreshed values and principles of GIRFEC we want to fully embed and implement are:

• Placing the child or young person and their family at the heart, and promoting choice, with full participation in decisions that affect them;
• Working together with families to enable a rights respecting, strengths-based, inclusive approach;
• Understanding wellbeing as being about all areas of life including family, community and society;
• Valuing difference and ensuring everyone is treated fairly;
• Considering and addressing inequalities;
• Providing support for children, young people and families when they need it, until things get better, to help them to reach their full potential; and
• Everyone working together in local areas and across Scotland to improve outcomes for children, young people and their families.

Further information on using the Practice Model can be found here.