Scottish Government biodiversity duty report 2021-2023

10. Directorate For Children And Families

10.1 Introductory information

The Children and Families Directorate works across government and with delivery partners to support systems and behavioural change to improve outcomes for children, young people and families. The Directorate is responsible for:

• Implementing policy priorities for children, young people and families;
• The capability and leadership of delivery agencies working with children, young people and pregnant women;
• Prioritising action that supports early years and intervention principles;
• Promoting the rights and views of children and young people;
• Promoting organisational structures and processes which are effective and personalised;
• Policy on regulation and development of the social services workforce.

10.2 Nature-based solutions, climate change and biodiversity

Climate change, COP26 and Early Learning and Childcare (November 2021)

The UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow was a great opportunity for children and young people and the Early Learning and Childcare (ELC) sector to get involved and learn about building a more socially-just, sustainable and equitable society. The COP26 Summit provided a unique and inspirational context for learning for children and young people of all ages. It provided a useful focus and inspiration for ELC providers and practitioners.  We encouraged the ELC sector to get involved in COP26 by taking more play and learning outdoors, and by sharing their practice and initiatives related to this across the sector.

10.3 Public engagement and workforce development

Outdoor play and learning is already an integral, everyday part of Early Learning and Childcare in Scotland. It is our vision that children in Scotland’s ELC sector will spend as much time outdoors as they do indoors and time outdoors will happen every day, in every setting. This is supported by the Health and Social Care Standards and the National Standard for funded providers.

Out to Play

We know that confident, skilled practitioners who are engaged and committed to outdoor learning are key to increasing the amount of time that children spend outside when they are accessing their entitlement to funded ELC. The Scottish Government worked to promote and enhance outdoor learning to ensure it became fully embedded within ELC provision as part of the expansion to 1140 hours, including publishing a series of popular national guidance document for ELC practitioners: ‘Out to Play’ which aims to support ELC practitioners to provide high quality outdoor play experiences for children. Three follow up chapters were published in March 2021:

• Out to Play - Section 11 - Practitioners supporting children with additional support needs
• Out to Play - Section 10 - Out of School Care Providers
• Out to Play - Section 9 - Childminding Settings

Published in October 2023, Caring for Our Outdoor Spaces is the latest chapter of the ‘Out to Play’ series. The new guidance was developed as a supportive resource by practitioners in response to the sector’s needs. Caring for Our Outdoor Spaces focuses on supporting practitioners to create safe, nurturing and inspiring outdoor learning experiences which help foster a true love of the outdoors in our young people that stays with them for a lifetime. The guidance supports practitioners to embed Learning for Sustainability (LfS) in everyday play and learning by providing practical tips, factual information about the world around us and suggestions to extend the children’s active engagement with the natural world. Through this guidance we consider ways to reduce the impact on biodiversity as a result of increasing children’s time outdoors when in ELC and we promote children’s exploration of the natural world.

Wider support for the ELC sector

Between April 2020 to March 2022 we funded an Outdoor Play and Learning Improvement Programme to train ELC practitioners across 6 ELC settings to use improvement methodology to increase time outdoors. The report and supportive videos are available online for access by other settings that are taking steps to increase quality time outdoors - Out to Play Improve - CYPIC 2023

During 2020/21 we funded the Virtual Nature School with funding of £209,000 to support more than 2,500 practitioners and 40,000 children and families with improving the quality of outdoor experiences in ELC during the pandemic.

We grant-funded Inspiring Scotland £103,000 over the COVID-19 pandemic to create and share outdoor play guidance and materials for the ELC sector. This funding enabled them to:

• Supplement the Scottish Government’s 2019 Out to Play guidance with new chapters on creating outdoor experiences for the wider ELC sector, including childminding settings, out of school care services and practitioners who work with children with additional support needs;
• Provide guidance and support around the COVID-19 pandemic to social enterprises supporting outdoor learning previously set up with Scottish Government seed funding (Abriachan and Argyll Community Trust).