 I ask the members of the public in the gallery who are leaving the chamber to please do so quickly and quietly as we are going to resume our business. The next item of business is a member's business debate on motion 8, 7, 2, 1, in the name of Rona Mackay, on supporting foster carers in the workplace with fostering friendly employers scheme. This debate will be concluded without any questions being put, and I would ask those members who would wish to speak in the debate to please press the request to speak buttons. I call on Rona Mackay to open the debate around 7 minutes, please miss Mackay. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Nothing is more important than giving a child the best start in life and a loving, stable home. Nothing is more important than ensuring that the thousands of children who, through no fault of their own, get that best start. The Scottish Government is passionate about fulfilling the promise, ensuring that care experience children are protected and loved, and I am very proud of our continuing commitment to them. The theme of today's debate, taking place during foster care fortnight, which runs from now until May 28, is fostering communities. Delivered by the leading fostering charity, the Fostering Network, it focuses on how employers can support employees going through the fostering process. The fostering friendly employer scheme would ensure that foster carers have the opportunity for paid leave for training, respite meetings and other requirements to fulfil their vital role. I also hope that the theme will help to boost awareness of the need for more foster carers and make employers think how they could help employees who feel further wished to help children. Thousands of new foster families are needed every year to care for children, with the greatest need being for foster carers for older children, sibling groups, disabled children and unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. There are currently 4,623 children in foster care in Scotland and 3,716 fostering families, and we need to thank them for their hard work and the love that they give to the children in their care. However, 500 more fostering families are needed and I will go on to outline how employers can support them at no cost to their business other than giving them time. The Fostering Network set up the Fostering Friendly Employer Scheme in 2014 in response to the findings that foster carers need more flexibility and understanding from their employers in order to work alongside fostering. There are over 120 fostering friendly employers in the UK and the number is growing. They collectively employ over half a million staff. The recent news that John Lewis has joined the scheme is great news and I expect other large companies to follow. The Fostering Network found that 41 per cent of foster carers combine their role with other employment in Scotland, while 60 per cent of foster carers said that a fostering friendly HR policy would help them to work while fostering, because flexibility is the key to helping employees through the process of fostering. I can speak from personal experience as an employer. My head of office, Paul, has adopted his siblings and went through a thorough and detailed process beginning with fostering. Obviously, it involves getting time for meetings, phone calls and social work appointments. When I see happy, thriving children, I know that every absence from the office was worth it. Nothing could be more important than the selfless act of offering your home to children, and in Paul and his husband Mark's case, nurturing them for life. Having signed up to the Fostering Network's Fostering Friendly Employer Scheme, I am proud to say that I am the first MSP to do that. I have no doubt that many more colleagues from across the chamber will follow suit. A foster carer who works within a fostering friendly employer said, being employed, being a Malwan foster carer is hard to get to grips with it first. You have your own commitments by fantastic managers. I was honest with them at the beginning and said, look, this is what we are going through. When emergency placements came up, I sent my manager a text in the middle of the night to say, we have just taken a placement, so I am going to be late in the morning. He would reply, it's not a problem, don't worry about it. One business said that the impact for us as a company is relatively small, but the impact for any potential child being fostered could be significant. Presiding Officer, I was privileged to host the reception here in Parliament in February of this year for the Fostering Network, and it was a wonderful evening hearing inspirational stories from foster parents who are meeting some of the happy children who were an absolute delight. What does being a fostering friendly employer entail, and how do you become one? Will the Fostering Network have a template on the fostering friendly HR policy, which is available by inquiry, and the scheme is free to join? Signing up to the scheme means supporting staff by providing five days paid leave per year for fostering-related activity. The policy applies to staff who have three months or more employment servers with the company, and if they are applying to become a foster carer or an approved foster carer and have a child in placement or an approved kinship carer, they are eligible. As an employer, we are committed to supporting any staff member who is a foster carer or an approved kinship carer by creating a fostering friendly office that offers flexible working arrangements that respond to the needs of all staff who are foster carers or approved kinship carers. Those needs could include assessment and training prior to approval as a foster carer, attendance at panel for approval, child review meetings, annual foster care review meetings and training. In short, it prepares people to become foster carers and allows them to take time off work without losing holidays or some money, and it has a very little impact to the business. In conclusion, together we could transform and support and recognise foster carers in the workplace, which would in turn encourage more people to foster. Employers can play a critical part in creating fostering communities by supporting foster carers to give children a loving home, and surely that is the greatest gift of all. I now call Ruth McGuire to be followed by Rose McCall around four minutes. I thank Rona Mackay for securing this debate on supporting foster carers in the workplace. I would like to recognise and applaud her personal commitment in that regard. Foster care provides care for children in a family setting who can't live with their own families, and there are many reasons why children come into care. Foster care can last weeks, months or for the rest of a childhood, depending on the child's circumstances. We are... Foster care fortnight is happening right now, May 15 to 28. I know that in my local area, the council's families for children team are keen to attract new carers and to support that they are hosting an information event in Irvine's volunteer rooms from 10 to 3 on Monday, June 5. For people who are interested in becoming a foster carer, it is going to be a relaxed drop-in session that will provide information on fostering and adoption opportunities to people who would like to know more. Some of North Ayrshire's foster carers will be there on the day and share their experience. I understand that the team are particularly keen to hear from those who feel that they could offer a home to children who have disabilities and those who could take a small family group so that siblings can remain together. There is no such thing as a typical foster carer. You can be single, cohabiting or married. There are flexible options to foster care with different arrangements possible. It can include providing short breaks, interim fostering and longer term support for young people. I was struck by some of the personal testimony of North Ayrshire foster carers who shared their experience ahead of the event. I would like to share some of that with the chamber of Amae. Suzanne has been a foster carer in North Ayrshire for six years, mainly providing short breaks for young people. She said, I became a foster carer because one of my friends was a foster carer and I witnessed how she had made such a difference to the wee boy that she was looking after. She had made such a difference to his life and I thought that would be something that I would like to give another child. I enjoy seeing the progress that the children in my carer are making. It is really good to see them thrive and be part of the community and just see them progressing. She says that she feels that there is a good network with carers at the council and that there are training facilities, they meet up for training and socially for a coffee. She urges folk, if they are thinking of becoming a foster carer, then to pick up the phone and contact the health and social care partnership. She says that getting more information speaking to carers and having a chat on a more informal basis can be helpful. Sonja is another foster carer in North Ayrshire. She is experienced and has been looking after children for almost 20 years and is currently caring for young people on long-term, short-term and respite basis and is also an adoptive parent. She shared, at the moment I have three children and one young person on a continuing care basis, which is when you look after a child who reaches the age of 18 and they can stay with you for as long as you wish. They go on to be supported by through-care services, which offer support up to the age of 26. Sonja decided to investigate fostering after seeing an advert in her local newspaper and she initially cared for two young boys who came into her family when they were aged just two and fifteen months old. They have now moved on to live with a family member. She describes them as being the light of her life adding, they came in and they made our whole family's life great. That is the only way to describe it. Now they visit me every year. The bond that me and the boys have is second to none. It is like having your own birth child. There is no difference there. For me that is what fostering is about. If you can take a child on, they do not need to be your birth child to love them and give them the security that they need. Figures from the fostering network reports state that nearly 40 per cent of foster carers combine fostering with other work. Those who do say that a supportive employer can make all the difference, enabling them to balance employment with looking after children. I will be following Rona Mackay's lead in exploring how an employer I can sign up and would encourage employers of all sizes in my constituency to have a look at the scheme. It is a real opportunity to make a difference for families and children in our local community and to provide improved support for your employees. I will win for everyone. I now call Rose McCall to be followed by Pam Duncan-Glancy. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I would also like to thank Rona Mackay for bringing this to the chamber today and for her detailed explanation of the scheme. I think that it is well known by now that I relish the opportunity to speak on this topic, and I hope that you do not mind, but I will take a slightly wider view. I make no apologies for stating that we must do more for the vulnerable in our society. In most cases, we are talking about children and young people who have lived through multiple traumatic events, heightened uncertainties and delayed brain development. In many cases, those children are in their infancy and the shocking statistics that a quarter of child protection orders are for children under 20 days old just highlights the urgency in this matter. I appreciate charity groups such as Waves Trust and NSPCC to highlight the plight for vulnerable children, and I applaud their efforts in successfully drawing attention to Scotland's maybe blind spot initiatives such as the 7030, which works towards 70% reduction in the levels of children who meet maltreatment by 2030, and that is a target that we must meet. Right now, we have 3,716 families who have stepped forward to provide that sense of stability and safety for our most vulnerable children and are fostering in Scotland. 3,716 fostering families are trying to repair the psychological effects of trauma and to ensure a secure environment with care and love for the 4,623 children that currently need to be fostered. That is 3,716 fostering families that should be valued in more ways than just words of support spoken within those chamber walls. Foster parents and kinship carers in Scotland live in the only area of the United Kingdom not to have a minimum care allowance, and it would be remiss of me not to mention this again as time keeps marching on and nothing seems to change on that count. I'm glad we're taking the time today to focus on the fostering friendly employer scheme and I fully back anything that will help foster carers and adoption families to support the child in their care, but I do have a cautionary note because it is imperative that businesses, regardless of size, can buy into the scheme as easily as it states. Over the years, businesses have managed to adapt to changes in working practices and when I started working, and yeah, that wasn't yesterday, in fact it was so long ago, Flexi-Stine was still new. Most people used it to swing a work either side of their working day, start an hour earlier and leave it for or come in slightly later and work till six, which was excellent for working parents and easy for many large businesses to accommodate. Smaller businesses could not. The process simply needed the economies of scale to make variable working work and small independently owned businesses couldn't and still don't operate that way. We have come a long way from the nine to five working days in the office and I am encouraged by working flexibility and work from home practices that are accepted now, especially as we know this helps working carers. Small businesses still find it difficult to embrace those processes, so continued work efficiencies and that has to be recognised, and I think that it also has to be recognised in this case. To make it work for fostering families, we have to ensure that small businesses in all communities can buy into the scheme. I would also like to draw attention to kinship carers and adopted parents. As we all too often forget that the same issues apply directly from fosterer to adopter to kinship carer. All children who live with a family member or an adopter or a foster family have experienced the same levels of trauma and uncertainties in their early life, so it goes without saying that all those families would benefit from a more understanding workplace. We must ensure that, regardless of the care provider, the benefits are accessible if we truly want a system that puts the welfare of the child at its heart. These children are the most vulnerable in our society, it's time we raise the profile and truly start to value the people who care for them. It's a privilege to speak on behalf of Scottish Labour today, and I want to thank Rona Mackay for securing this debate. Fostercare Fortnite provides us with a welcome opportunity to reflect on the importance of fostering, but it also is a chance to highlight that there is much more to do to support those who foster. Currently, 41 per cent of foster carers in Scotland juggle fostering duties with other employment, which demonstrates the remarkable commitment and dedication. We must do more to help them by creating an environment where foster carers can balance their fostering roles with their professional ones. According to research carried out by the Fostering Network, 60 per cent of foster carers believe that a fostering-friendly HR policy would help them to do that. Making workplaces that accommodate the unique demands placed on foster carers by being both supportive and flexible is crucial. By becoming foster-friendly employers, workplaces not only provide additional support to foster carers, but also raise awareness of the invaluable role that they play, as we have already heard from contributions today. In Scotland, there are currently 4,623 children in foster care, and I would like to thank the 3,716 fostering families across Scotland who care for them. I want to take a moment to pay tribute to one particular foster carer in Ruthergwyn, Margaret Cowie. Margaret has dedicated over 30 years to fostering, providing unwavering love and a stabling, nurturing environment for children in her care, enabling them to grow and to thrive. Her hard work and dedication and that of the thousands of others across the country who do the same is truly remarkable. If you will indulge me a moment more in wishing Margaret a happy 60th birthday this week, I know that she is looking forward to celebrating with her foster children this weekend. However, while there are absolute gems like Margaret right across the country, there are simply not enough foster carers here. There is a shortfall of around 500 fostering families in Scotland, and this shortage emphasises the urgency to create an environment that attracts more people and families to become foster carers. By participating in foster friendly employer schemes, foster carers can access crucial benefits such as paid leave for training, respite meetings and other essential requirements, and those provisions support foster carers to fulfil that vital role effectively. This year, foster care fortnight, of course, as we have heard, focuses on the theme of fostering communities. Becoming a foster friendly employer is a prime example of how the wider fostering community can come together and provide support, understanding and respite for foster carers. By embracing the initiative, we demonstrate our commitment to the promise and reaffirm our dedication to nurturing looked after children. Fostering is not just the responsibility of foster carers alone. There is a well known saying that it takes a village to raise a child. We need entire communities to come together to support those families in their selfless commitment to the children that they care for. It is our collective duty to create a network of support that extends beyond foster carers and their families themselves to schools, employers, healthcare providers, social workers and local organisations who all must work hand in hand to provide a holistic support to foster carers. We must develop a culture of understanding, compassion and respect for those families who open their hearts and their homes. As we celebrate foster care fortnight 2023, let us recommit ourselves to the principles of the promise, ensuring that every child in foster care receives the love, care and opportunities that they deserve. Together, let us build a future where no child feels alone or neglected and where every child knows the warmth of a nurturing family. I now call on Minister Natalie Donne to respond to the debate. I would like to thank Volnam Kye for initiating today's debate and thank members for your contributions this afternoon. That is a really important issue and I am completely supportive of ensuring that workplaces are more flexible for foster carers. This debate, my first in government, has provided us collectively as a Parliament an opportunity to recognise the fostering networks annual foster care fortnight. It is also an excellent opportunity for us all to recognise foster carers and acknowledge the vital difference they make to the lives of our children and young people. Today, I published a letter to all foster carers thanking them for all that they do, but I would also like to put on the record just now my sincere and heartfelt thanks to all foster carers and practitioners working in the sector. We absolutely recognise the key role that you play in providing secure, nurturing and supportive homes for children and young people across Scotland. What you do day in and day out positively transforms lives. I would also like to take this opportunity to add my thanks to the Fostering Network Scotland, who are here with us today and who I met with prior to this debate, for all the work that they do organising foster care fortnight and in raising the profile and awareness of fostering more generally. As Rona Mackay highlighted in her motion and others have raised in their contributions to today's debate, there are challenges, including the retention and recruitment of foster carers. However, there are also opportunities for everyone across the chamber, national and local government, the third sector, local communities and, importantly, employers in supporting our foster carers. There is absolutely no doubt that the pressure within the foster care system is an area that we need to address collectively in order to fully deliver on the promise. I am absolutely clear that it is vital that the Scottish Government leads from the front if we are to ensure that all care-experienced children and young people are supported to grow up loved, safe and respected. We set out our commitment to do that in the promise implementation plan, which was published last year. Within the plan, we outlined our vision for delivering a good childhood to ensure that every child lives in a safe and loving home and where families are given support to overcome difficulties and stay together. We were also clear that investing in a programme of comprehensive and on-going support for caregivers is key to ensuring that they have the skills, knowledge and confidence to continue to nurture the children in their care and build stable and loving relationships. Work has begun on delivering that vision. We have committed to an investment of £500 million over the course of the Parliament to our whole family wellbeing programme of activity. That will transform services to ensure families, including foster families, can access the support that they need, where and when they need it. We also allocated £50 million in this year's budget, including £32 million, provided directly to children's service planning partnerships to enable work at a local level. We provide funding to the third sector to support foster carers. That includes more than £150,000 to the Fostering Network Scotland this year to support the Foster Line Scotland service training for foster carers and encouraging the recruitment of new carers. The Scottish Government is also working with a small group of partners, including the Fostering Network, the Promised Scotland, local authorities and others, to look at how we attract and retain foster carers and what action we can take collectively to make this happen. This group is expected to conclude its work over the coming months, but I know that it is considering a package of support for foster carers, which includes both financial and practical elements, so that caregivers feel better valued and better supported. On the financial side, I want to reassure Parliament that it remains a priority of this Government to deliver Scottish-recommended allowance for foster and kinship carers to meet the needs of children in their care as soon as possible. It has taken far longer than originally anticipated, and I recognise the frustrations of caregivers and stakeholders, but positive progress is being made with COSLA and we are working at pace to make that happen. Allowances are important, of course, but that is not the whole picture. Foster carers need to be supported so that they can, in turn, support children who have often had a very difficult start in life to grow and develop in a stable and nurturing family home. We have already committed, in our promise implementation plan, to publishing what we will do to provide trauma training and support for adoptive parents, kinship and foster carers, and the group that I mentioned earlier is also considering wider learning and development, including peer support. As Pam Duncan-Glancy highlighted, foster carers are often juggling looking after children with other employment, and I am well aware of how hard that can be. The group is actively considering how employers and the wider community can support foster carers. The fostering-friendly employers scheme is a positive example of how supportive and flexible employers can help foster carers combine employment with the vital role that they play in looking after some of our most vulnerable children and young people. I am absolutely committed to ensuring the voices of those with lived experience are at the heart of everything that we do, and I am committed to working with foster carers in Scotland and stakeholders who represent fostering as we develop any changes to policy and practice on our journey to keep the promise. That is why today, in recognition of the positive benefits that the fostering-friendly employer scheme brings, I will commit to the Scottish Government considering how it can become a more flexible workplace for foster carers, as well as exploring take-up of the scheme in order to support and promote it further. I thank Rona Mackay on being the first MSP to sign her office up to the scheme, and I encourage others to do so. Finally, I thank Rona Mackay for today's debate, as it has given us the opportunity to debate foster carers and everything that they do and consider how they can be further supported. I want to thank Scotland's foster carers once again for their service and commitment. There is absolutely no doubt that they have improved the lives of children and young people in their care and made our collective vision for children in Scotland to grow up safe and loved a reality.