 That's broadcasting back on, and the final item of business today is a member's business debate on motion 711, in the name of Christine Grahame, on St Andrew's Children's Society. The debate will be concluded without any votes being asked. I would ask members wishing to participate to press the request-to-speak buttons now or as soon as possible. I invite Christine Grahame to open the debate for around about seven minutes, Ms Grahame. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I understand that this is the highlight of today. Deputy Presiding Officer, can I first congratulate members of the society who would have been here had decision time been at 5 p.m. Fortunately, I was able to alert them, there's a delay. And thank those who signed my motion to allow the debate and those who have stayed behind in the face, as I say, of competing attractions on this suspicious day. The motion marks the centenary of the society, understood to be the oldest adoption and fostering agency in Scotland, and its history and procedures today reflect the changing societal attitudes to single mothers, which were addressed so poignantly in the chamber last week, when the then First Minister offered an apology to those who were forced to give up their babies born then out of what we call wedlock. I'm old enough to recall the attitudes of those days, and I'll expand on that shortly. Recently, I sponsored an event here to commemorate the centenary of the society and was very moved by the accounts of two recent adopters, but first I must mention Maureen McEvoy, a founding member of the society who has written a commemorative booklet on the history of the society, an extraordinary woman, foster carer and adopter herself. I will quote from her first experience. It's 55 years since my husband and I approached the Catholic Social Services Centre with the hope of adopting a child. I'd like to share a reflection on our first adoption experience. On Monday 1 July 1968, life changed forever for my husband Jim and me, because that was the day that we brought home our first adopted daughter. We'd always hoped to have children, but after years of unsuccessful tests we decided in 1967 that adoption would be the route to our family. On Tuesday 28 June 1968, Jim's birthday, we received a letter telling us about Jenny, who was three months old. We went to see her at her foster family on Wednesday and then began a hectic whirl of activity. I handed in my notice and my employers, who knew of our adoption plans, allowed me to leave work on the Friday. Work was hectic as I finished off as much as I could and handed over the rest of my work to sympathetic colleagues. We had to collect the pram that we had ordered and buy lots of baby paraffinalia, including lots of territowling nappies. I remember those. We'd been waiting nine months for news of a baby and had been too worried that it was never going to happen, so it bought very little. There was no paternal leave in those days and after we got home, buying formula milk on the way, Jim just had time for a cup of tea before going back to the office. No sooner had he gone than Jenny started crying and I had to set about her first feed, boiling the water, mixing the feed, then cooling the bottle seemed to take forever and her whales got louder and louder. I felt a total failure in that first hour. Both of our families welcomed Jenny into the wider family and although we had never heard of funnalling in those days, we were very gradual in introducing her to our many family members. Jim's sister and husband lived in Edinburgh with their five children and Jenny loved spending time with her cousins. When I learned now of the phased introductions for adopted children and hear of continued contact with foster parents, I realised that Jenny's move to our home was harder for her than it needed to be and only her sunny nature seemed to make it so easy. No life story book for her, all we got was about 10 lines of information and no photos of her before she came to us. In 1968, babies were placed with families, some straight from hospital, but the birth mother was unable to give full consent for a child to be adopted until three months after giving birth and she was able to reclaim her child at any time during that period. After three months, adopters could launch a petition to adopt the child and if the mother changed her mind before the adoption order was granted, there had to be a legal hearing to decide the best interests of the child. Change times, thankfully, for birth parents, foster parents and adopters and most importantly, the children. When the agency was established in Edinburgh in 1922, it helped unmarried mums find homes of their babies as were the social norms at that time. Now it helps to find homes for vulnerable children and welcomes adoption and fostering inquiries from all members of the community, including single people, people who follow faith, those who do not, and members of the LGBTQI+, through its offices in Edinburgh and Aberdeen. In 2010, it entered into partnership with After Adoption in England and Wales to be their exclusive providers in Scotland for their groundbreaking parenting programme, Safebase. It was supported by the Scottish Government to get this initiative off the ground and it has presented courses in many locations throughout Scotland. It also offers courses on therapy to all its adopters to help them to reduce the development gaps that many adopted children have experienced in their early life because children adopted today may very well suffer from the physical effects of parental alcohol or drug addiction. The centennial event in itself was a delight and heartwarming and it exemplified how far adoption has come. Two parents with their children present told us their stories. One a single gay male with his adopted teenage son, another gay male couple who had adopted three siblings, two little girls and a boy. All the children were in their best behaviour and beautifully turned out. The wee girls were in tartan skirts with ardent sweaters and their brother in marching trws. Dad told us how he and his partner had intended to adopt just one child but when they were introduced to the wee trio there was only one decision for them. From no family to having three children was quite a life-changing experience. No more exotic holidays are posh restaurants for them, more like burger bars and play areas. As dad said, he wouldn't change it for the world. Throughout his speech you could hear his wee family seated with his partner, encouraging them with cries of Daddy Daddy. He wasn't dry eyed and neither was I and neither was the minister who is now sitting in front of me. In conclusion it is appropriate this debate follows on from the statement of the First Minister last week apologising behalf of us all for the way the state treated unwedd mothers in past decades, which St Andrew's Children's Society fully recognises to where we and the society are now and I wish them and all their foster adoptive parents and their children well. I now call Ross McCall to be followed by Kenneth Gibson around four minutes. I always welcome the chance to further the awareness of all forms of care experienced children and it is a pleasure to speak in the debate today. The importance of understanding the issues affecting care experienced people is the key to changing many lives for the better and sadly we have not done enough in Scotland yet to make that happen. I would like to add my congratulations to St Andrew's Children's Society on its centenary, making it the oldest adoption and fostering agency in existence in Scotland, which has already been mentioned, and over that hundred years adoption and fostering has changed so much. Practices such as forced adoption are thankfully a thing of the past and briefly on that I would like to mention that as much as the apology last week was a great start there is still so much more that needs to be done to fix the ongoing problems facing forced adopters and adult adoptees and I look forward to working with the new Scottish Government on that. I also want to applaud St Andrew's Children's Society for their understanding. Any society working in this field for over 100 years will have seen massive changes to wider societal view, especially on adoption and fostering and I am delighted to see that the society provides support for women to help them cope with lifelong emotional impact of having a child adopted. I would also like to praise St Andrew's Children's Society for their use of the safe base programme, often known as the secure base model. Deputy Presiding Officer, I am sure that you are aware that therapy principles of safe base helps adopted parents understand the impact of the child's past experiences of trauma and of loss. When my husband and I adopted our daughters, we were given the following analogy just for how the brain develops in a child and has experienced attachment issues in early years trauma. Imagine a mind is being built up like a wall, every brick is a literal building block to brain development. For example, if a baby is not held, emotional and visual responses are not met and then that building block is not formed, creating a gap in the wall. Now move on in life building another layer of brick on the wall. Every brick built on top of a gap is built on top of nothing, a literal unstable foundation. Our daughters came to live with us when they were five and two, very young ages but even at this age the gaps in their development were very obvious. My eldest daughter at the age of five had such emotional gaps that for over a year I cradled her in my arms as you would a baby to try and build that emotional and visual connection in a hope to plug that gap in her development. Deputy Presiding Officer, every time there is a lack of positive parenting or trauma, there is a gap in the wall and understanding this is the essential to supporting adopted and fostered children through the milestones of their life. Using programmes like Safebase, St Andrew's Children's Society are giving children adopted through their agency and their parents the real chance of fixing the wall without it coming tumbling down. So in closing I would like to thank St Andrew's Children's Society for all the work they do. I heard from in some inspiring families when they came to the parliamentary event that has already been mentioned. The positive and grateful testimonies are credit if it was needed to the support and assistance that society gives to care-experienced children and their families and to them I thank you. I congratulate my colleague Christine Gray on securing its important debate to Madison Teeners and Andrew's Children's Society celebrated in 2022. While providing adoption and foster care services since 1922 by ensuring families are prepared to meet the needs of vulnerable children, the agency has also supported thousands of birth mothers coping with the loss of a child through adoption. Their staff are striving to show compassion to all that has passed through their doors and continue to do so present, highlighting the essential wider work that the agency carries out. I speak as someone whose grandmother was adopted in very difficult circumstances, albeit in 1905, long before the St Andrew's Society came into existence. With 13,500 children being looked after in Scotland, it is imperative to celebrate when agencies are getting it right. It is also vital to reflect and learn from the stories of care-experienced children and adults to improve the services and support and offer for both the children and their parents. St Andrew's Children's Society is a brilliant example of an agency getting it right, particularly with its implementation of the safe-base parenting programme. As it is only Scottish-aged in offering the service, the therapeutic programme for parents who have adopted and fostered children who have attachment issues is essential to ensure that key psychological building blocks typically developed in the first 18 months of life are stimulated using play. It is encouraging to see the effectiveness of the programme, ultimately improving the relationship between foster parents and their children, and reducing any behavioural issues. I encourage the minister to explore the benefits of the safe-base parenting programme further and the possibility of supporting its extension to agencies across Scotland to ensure that the needs of care-experienced children are met, while also reducing adoption breakdowns. Foster carers play an intrinsic role in allowing the important work of St Andrew's Children's Society to take place. In Scotland, there are approximately 3,415 approved foster care homes, but a shortage of almost 500 foster carers. It is encouraging that the Scottish Government is working with key national and local partners, including the third sector, to identify action to increase the number of Scots willing to foster, whilst providing £145,000 in funding to the fostering network annually to raise the profile of foster caring and encourage the recruitment of new carers. Becoming a foster carer is a significant commitment, and it is essential that local authorities have the funding to provide a fair weekly fostering allowance to cover the cost of caring for a child. However, with only one local authority in Scotland, Argyll and Bute, paying above England, Wales and national minimum allowance across all five age ranges, I urge the minister to consider the implementation of a Scottish minimum allowance to encourage potential foster parents to apply, knowing that they will have the financial support to care for a child. Minimal allowance ensures that payments increase in line with inflation, particularly important during the cost of lowering crisis, as the cost of food, toiletries, clothes and travel are all increasing. Exclu the Scottish Government is dedicated to ensuring that our care system is developed with care experience people at its heart. The independent care reviewer's research into Scotland's care system listened to over 5,500 lived experiences to identify where improvements are required. The promise is built on five key foundations—voice, family, care, people and scaffolding and voice. It recognises that children must be listened to. Children must stay in homes where they feel safe and loved. Children should always live with their siblings where they are safe to do so. Careers must be supported to develop relationships, and both children and their families should be supported by a system that is there when it is needed. As per the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, all children should grow up feeling safe and loved. However, it is important to recognise that care experience children require these extra protections even more so. I again congratulate St Andrew's Children's Society for Marketing and Centenary on 100 years of dedicated work to better the lives of care experience children, foster and adoptive families, helping birth mothers and their families wronged by the adoption system. The work of agencies across Scotland is essential, and I look forward to seeing improvements being implemented by Scottish ministers to help to ensure that all vulnerable children receive the love and safety that they require. I again thank Christine Grahame for bringing this debate to the chamber. Thank you very much, Mr Gibson. I call the final speaker in the open debate, Mr Whitefield, around four minutes, please. I am very grateful, Deputy Presiding Officer. It is a great pleasure, as it nearly always is, to follow Kenneth Gibson's contribution. His notes and comments about fostering and about the struggles that local authorities and individuals have in finding foster parents is one that we need to do much greater work at. In passing, I would mention the challenge that perhaps exists between payments from different local authorities close to each other of differing amounts and also the different approaches that are taken depending on the challenge of the young person that is seeking to be fostered, and perhaps that could be looked at. Today is a fascinating day, and I think that it is a privilege to take part in the debate that Christine Grahame has successfully brought to the chamber about an organisation that was last year 100 years old and has indeed sat over so many changes in Scotland looking on as the entity was. It is perhaps fitting that it is today that this has brought, given the circumstances of the political changes that are happening in this country. As has been pointed out, it was founded in 1922, and it is important to say that it was founded by a group of women. That speaks volumes again about the attitude towards young people and the attitude when women in particular see young people in distress, particularly vulnerable children. The commitment from this organisation over the 100 years has grown and evolved, but it has always been on the basis of helping the most vulnerable children and families, and that has remained unwavering. In 1952, it changed its name to become the advisory committee for social services, and in 1963 it divided into two separate organisations, the Catholic Inquiry Service, which dealt with general social services, and the Catholic Social Service Centre, which dealt solely with adoption and foster care. It is very important to mention that it speaks to the founding of the organisation within the Catholic Church, and the fact that, as times have changed and the attitude from those within the service progressed, it felt that they had to step away from the Catholic Church but to continue to serve the most vulnerable young people. I think that it shows great prescient about the people who worked in the society at that time that they were happy to make that change. During the 50s and 60s, many thousands of children were placed for adoption, and, again, it has been mentioned significantly because of the perception of the time that a single mother could not provide the care that perhaps a married couple could bring. Also, in respect of the age of the children that we were discussing, because at that time it was predominantly babies and children under one that were being placed more than welcome to them. Christine Grahame? It was worse than saying that an unwed mother couldn't take care of them. They were looked upon as being disgraceful, so it was even harder for them because there would be bad women. I'm very grateful for that intervention. It is right that the social stigma was not just towards the young children but also to those young and single mothers. It's interesting when you look at the records of St Andrew's children's society. They are, in fact, able to show a number of single, predominantly women who decided to keep their baby in the face of that community adverse approach and were, indeed, supported by the children's society to make that a success. I think that it speaks volumes for a very small number, I accept, but a significantly strong group of women who were able to stand up significantly against their community, but also against their families to do what they think was best, which was bringing up their child. As the society progressed, obviously the age of children that were being sought to be adopted and fostered changed and became one that I think we recognise more today, which is older children, particularly those who perhaps have significant needs and require support as they move through fostering but also into adoption. Again, it speaks volumes for the St Andrew's children's society that they are able to support families into doing this. I realise that time is tight and people perhaps have other things, but I would like to mention one event that speaks to the strength of this organisation. That occurred in 2015, when Scotland's national adoption register, shall we say, found themselves in trouble at very short notice and effectively had to step away from commitments they had given. Without hesitance of a doubt, the St Andrew's children's society stepped in and agreed to run that register for a period of two years up until 2017 when other provisions could be made. In closing, can I congratulate the St Andrew's children's society on its 100th anniversary? For a century, this organisation has been a shining example of what can be achieved when people come together to support those in need. I look forward to a future where I hope, as has been echoed today, we can redouble our efforts to genuinely build a better world for our children and families across Scotland. I'm grateful to you. I would like to add my thanks to Christine Grahame for initiating today's debate and thank members from across the chamber for their contributions this afternoon. The debate has enabled us, as a Parliament, to congratulate St Andrew's children's society on marking its centenary last year. I welcome the opportunity to celebrate this significant milestone and to acknowledge all those who have played a part in the society's important work. As was referenced by other speakers in the debate, there was a parliamentary reception earlier this year, and it gave me the chance to offer my congratulations in person and to hear first-hand the experiences of many of those who are involved with the society. The reception was, Presiding Officer, a profoundly moving event with a number of people sharing personal testimonies about their adoption journeys. We heard from an adoptee who is now a young adult and has become an adoption panel member. We heard from the first single gay man to adopt a child in Scotland, and we heard from a couple who had adopted a sibling group, as Christine Grahame mentioned in her speech. Those testimonies and the stories that they shared really illustrate the fantastic support that the society has provided for so many years. However, as Christine Grahame highlighted in the motion for today's debate, the celebration of Scotland's oldest adoption and fostering agency does not just enable us to pay credit to the staff and volunteers who have supported the society over the past 100 years. Importantly, it also enables us to pay credit to adoptive parents and foster carers. I would like to put on record my sincere thanks to all caregivers, including adoptive families and foster carers and practitioners working in these sectors. We absolutely recognise the vital part that you play in providing nurturing homes and support and love for children and young people across Scotland, and we value the positive difference that it can make to their lives. Today's debate also enables us to reflect on our work to keep the promise by 2030, and it is vital that the Scottish Government leads from the front to ensure that all care-experienced children and young people are supported to grow up loved, safe and respected. We set out a commitment to do that in the Promise Implementation Plan, which was published last year. In the plan, we outlined our vision for delivering a good childhood to ensure that every child lives in a safe and loving home, and our families are given the support to overcome difficulties and stay together. Our work to keep the promise includes the whole family wellbeing programme of activity with an investment of £500 million over the course of this Parliament, and that will transform services to ensure families, including adoptive and foster families, can access the support that they need, when and where they need it. We have 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 have also provided over £350,000 in 2022-23 to third sector organisations that provide support at a national level for those affected by adoption, including children, young people, families and adult adoptees. That includes funding for adoption week, a national helpline and support for adoptive families to help minimise adoption breakdowns, the TESA programme, which provides therapeutic input for adoptive families, services for professionals and practitioners in the adoption sector, and the adoption contact register for Scotland, which is hosted by birthlink, to facilitate contact between adoptees, birth parents and birth relatives. We also fund Scotland's adoption register to support finding a family as easily as possible for children identified as needing adoptive placements. As the former First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, mentioned in the national apology that she made last week, we are also funding a scoping study looking at what support is required for those that have been affected by historical adoption practices, including adult adoptees. However, I know that St Andrew's Children's Society extends beyond adoption, and so I will briefly mention foster care too. We are absolutely committed to helping foster carers to provide a range of specific support, and that includes over £150,000 to the Fostering Network Scotland this year. That funding supports Foster Line Scotland's service training for foster carers, raising the profile of foster caring and encouraging the recruitment of new carers. I want to reassure Parliament that a priority for me is delivering a Scottish recommended allowance for foster and kinship carers as soon as possible. It has taken far longer than we originally anticipated, and I recognise the frustrations of caregivers and stakeholders. I mean that we are committed to working constructively with COSLA to deliver this as quickly as possible, and we are exploring all available options to do this. More broadly, the foundation of all our work is getting it right for every child or girffec, as it is known. This is the Scottish Government's commitment to ensuring that all children and young people and their families are offered the right support at the right time so that every child and young person in Scotland can reach their full potential. We are continuing work through the national trauma training programme to ensure that our workforce is trauma informed, recognises the impact of adverse experiences on children and provides the right support to ensure that no further harm is done. While today's debate is an important opportunity to reflect on our collective work to keep the promise, in closing this debate, let me return to the celebration at the heart of this motion and extend my congratulations once again to St Andrew's Children's Society on their centenary.