Whole Family Support Third Sector Delivery Fund: Child Rights and Wellbeing Impact Assessment

Child Rights and Wellbeing Impact Assessment

Brief Summary

This CRWIA aims to provide a general overview of the impact the Whole Family Support Third Sector Delivery Fund (“The Fund”) will have on children’s rights and wellbeing. Given that each funded project will look different depending on the organisation delivering the work, this assessment will take a strategic approach to assess the impact of the Whole Family Support approaches the Fund is intended to enable.

This document is an assessment of the likely effects of Whole Family Support (as delivered by Third Sector Partners) on the rights and wellbeing of children. Scottish Government will continue to review and update this document where required during strategic decision-making process. We expect that any future iterations will reflect an increased understanding of these impacts as the amount of evidence available continues to grow.

Name the proposal, and describe its overall aims and intended purpose.

The Fund will provide up to £20m to support third sector organisations to provide more support that wraps around families in their communities.

We know that the third sector are a critical partner in delivering Whole Family Support. We are already working extensively with third sector partners across a range of delivery programmes, but we want to go further.

The aim of this Fund is to support delivery at scale - funding will be available to partners who can work nationally, or across multiple local authority areas, to deliver holistic, person-centred support that integrates effectively with the wider public sector.

The funding will contribute to the Scottish Government’s mission to eradicate Child Poverty by enabling third sector organisations to provide families with the right support when they need it, where they need it, and for as long as they need it.

It will also support our Public Service Reform Strategy , by driving better integration between third sector delivery partners and public services.

Funding will be provided to up to ten third sector partners (or partnerships) who can demonstrate their ability to deliver at scale.

Applications should demonstrate deep understanding of local need and plans to work collaboratively, and applications from partnerships or groups are encouraged – this funding is intended to drive improved partnership working.

Who will it affect?

The Fund is intended to enable the provision of support to families experiencing or at risk of child poverty. It is likely to affect the six priority family types at greatest risk of experiencing child poverty:

• lone parent families
• minority ethnic families
• families with a disabled adult or child
• families with a younger mother (under 25)
• families with a child under one
• larger families (three or more children)

The policy aims to enable these families to access support they may not be able to access otherwise, specifically holistic support that can address poverty-related issues in the immediate and longer-term, while also preventing future poverty.

The Fund is a key element of the Scottish Government’s wider commitment to tackling child poverty and enabling the delivery of WFS, which includes work to enable systems change through an integrated WFS Programme.

The Fund plays a complementary role in this work, fostering greater partnership working between the Third Sector and services delivered by local authorities.

Start date of proposal’s development: January 2026

Start date of CRWIA process: April 2026

1. With reference given to the requirements of the UNCRC (Incorporation) (Scotland) Act 2024 (Annex 1), which aspects of the proposal are relevant to/impact upon children’s rights?

The Fund’s focus on supporting children and their families who are at risk of, or who are experiencing poverty, has direct and indirect positive impacts on children’s rights. The impact is most specifically on Article 26 Social Security (assessment criteria for the Fund explicitly requires funded organisations to plan activity to address one of the three main drivers of poverty, e.g. increase income from social security and benefits in kind) and Article 27 Adequate standard of living (funded activity is likely to address material standards of living through several avenues such as through cash first grants to positively impact living standards, whilst increased access to services, employability support, financial advice and subsequent increased wellbeing will likely positively impact standards of living).

These interventions will also likely have an indirect impact on a range of other rights, in particular on Article 3 Best interests of the child; Article 6 Life, survival and development; Article 12 Respect for the Views of the Child; Article 18 Parental responsibilities and state assistance; Article 24 Health and health services; Article 30 Children from minority or indigenous groups; Article 31 Leisure, play and culture; and Article 39 Recovery from Trauma and Reintegration.

The application criteria for the Fund stipulated the need to incorporate lived experience into the development of any activity and funded service delivery, which will positively impact Article 12 Respect for the Views of the Child.

By targeting Whole Family Support towards priority family groups, the Fund is also expected to positively impact Article 23 Children with a disability.

Depending on the focus of funded projects, there may be an indirect impact on Article 28 Right to education and Article 29 Goals of education.

2. Please provide a summary of the evidence gathered which will be used to inform your decision-making and the content of the proposal

Evidence has been drawn from existing research, reports and policy expertise. As tackling child poverty is a priority of the Scottish Government, cross-government work and stakeholder engagement is ongoing, and the government’s approach is informed by a wealth of evidence and statistics on child poverty.

An evidence review on what works in tackling child poverty sets out which approaches are most helpful. An evaluation of early evidence and learning from a range of initiatives that aim to tackle child poverty through holistic, person-centred support for parents provides early evidence of the impact of these approaches.

Evidence has been gathered on a range of wellbeing indicators, which is helpful for understanding the impact of poverty on children.

Data shows that children in priority families are more likely to be in poverty and the Scottish Government has compiled evidence on each of the priority family groups.

There is also evidence to show the impact of more person-centred, holistic and place-based services on improving lives, a programme funded by UK Government. See for example - Evaluation of the Changing Futures programme - final report

In the early development of the Fund, officials engaged with the Third Sector Interface Network and delivered a webinar session attended by around 150 third sector professionals, where the proposals for the Fund were presented, providing an opportunity for attendees to ask questions and provide comments. Many of the organisations in attendance provide support to children in poverty.

In 2025/26, we also undertook a targeted programme of work, supported by Glasgow Council for the Voluntary Sector (GCVS) and Children in Scotland, to assess the effectiveness of partnership working with the third sector in six Fairer Future Partnerships (FFP) areas. This has helped local areas to deepen relationships and understand gaps and barriers, and learning from the project was shared at a national conference on 9 March 2026, focussing on ‘Collaborating for Impact’. This understanding has been used to inform the design of the Fund, including the requirement for applicants to demonstrate how they will align their funded work with local system change efforts.

In developing the latest Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan 'Bringing Hope, Building Futures',within which the Whole Family Support Third Sector Delivery Fund was announced, a targeted consultation process was conducted in 2025 to gather feedback from community based and national third sector organisations, local authorities, health boards, COSLA, and the Scottish Parliament, in line with the requirements of the Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017.

A panel of policy and analytical experts from across the Scottish Government and external partners were involved in the assessment of the applications to the Fund. Lived experience engagement has been supported by the Poverty Alliance’s ‘Get Heard Scotland’ Citizen panel, through assessment of the highest-scoring applications and providing feedback to help inform funding decisions.

As the design of each programme will be determined by the third sector organisation delivering the funded activity, each organisation will be expected to implement robust monitoring and evaluation processes. This is a key requirement within the Fund’s assessment criteria. These processes may include gathering feedback from children and young people on the impact of the services provided. The expectation for strong monitoring and evaluation mechanisms will also be reflected in the objectives and outcomes set out in the Grant Offer Letter.

3. Further to the evidence described at ‘3’ have you identified any 'gaps' in evidence which may prevent determination of impact? If yes, please provide an explanation of how they will be addressed

Whilst the assessment process for awarding the Fund included a lived experience panel element, we will aim to encourage successful organisations to incorporate feedback from children and young people in their evaluation processes, to inform the adaptation of the WFS services they deliver in future funding years (subject to confirmation of multi-year funding awards).

Over the course of the first funded year (2026/2027), we expect to start to see evidence of early impacts emerging, as well as learning from adapting programme delivery.

4. Analysis of Evidence

As is set out in the analysis of wellbeing indicators for the Children, young people and families outcomes framework children living in the 20% least deprived areas display substantially better outcomes than those in the 20% most deprived areas, and this pattern is consistent across all indicators relating to child development, attainment, mental health, and physical health.

The evidence review on what works in tackling child poverty highlights the need for a person-centred, holistic approach, within a framework of understanding structural barriers, in order to maximise the effectiveness of policies and avoid perpetuating stereotyping and stigma. Also, clear targeting strategies that identify and support priority families are crucial.

Data shows that children in priority families are more likely to be in poverty. The Scottish Government has compiled evidence on each of the priority family groups which details the unique structural barriers they are likely to face and emphasises the need for services which address these barriers.

The evidence outlined above demonstrates the link between poverty and poor outcomes for children, and the need to work to shift services to be more person-centred, holistic and place-based. The aim is for the Fund, as one part of wider work on WFS, to empower services at a local level to wrap themselves around and support families in or at risk of poverty, according to the needs of the family, building integrated, responsive services focussed on improving lives.

Evidence from a range of evaluations shows that support like this can help families address immediate crises, support stabilisation and contribute to many short-term outcomes, like confidence, wellbeing and improved finances, as well as supporting families to address longer-term or underlying issues including health and wellbeing and employability. See, for example:

• Phase 2 report on Child Poverty Pathfinders in Dundee and Glasgow: Child poverty pathfinders in Dundee and Glasgow: phase two evaluation
• Report on findings from the evaluation of the Family Wellbeing Partnership in Clackmannanshire: Family Wellbeing Partnership in Clackmannanshire: evaluation

There is also some evidence that suggests that shifting services to be more person-centred, holistic and place-based can potentially also reduce the support people need in the future.

An evaluation of early evidence and learning from a range of initiatives that aim to tackle child poverty through holistic, person-centred support for parents and families highlights that:

• For individuals and families accessing services, emerging evidence across several initiatives suggests that satisfaction was related to the holistic and personalised nature of support, in particular the ‘no wrong door’ approach.
• Factors that limited the impacts to date for individuals and families included the time taken for tangible change to be felt by people with multiple and complex support needs and the impact of the wider socio-economic context in limiting individuals’ progress.

The evidence also suggests the need for targeted engagement strategies for different groups, as well as a need to break down cultural stigma for some groups in accessing support, in order to ensure that all of those who need support feel able to access it. In addition to this, a follow-on report on engagement approaches for families across place-based, system change initiatives identified the Third Sector as critical to this engagement.

5. What changes (if any) have been made to the proposal as a result of this assessment?

The assessment informed the design of the fund; including assessment criteria requiring applicants to demonstrate positive impacts for priority family groups, expectations around inclusive delivery, and commitments to ongoing equality monitoring. Any evidence gaps will be addressed through ongoing monitoring, evaluation and engagement with funded organisations.