ool still within the next six months because his behaviour within our programme within the school has been that poor, and that for him will be a massive achievement. We'll lose the chance to engage him when he steps out S2 or S3 because the programme doesn't continue beyond that, but for me that would be achievement, and I'm not even looking at attainment, I just want to make sure that that young boy stays in school because if he can do that, that provides him with a chance to go on and sit some form of qualification when he goes out in S4, S5 and S6, so you look at that from one aspect and I've got the other aspect, I've actually got pupils in the programme who are very, very intelligent, and then we look to use the programme to really try and just enthuse them to stay in school to make sure that attendance is really, really high, and then their achievement then becomes of what qualifications we can try and help them get. I think now that the schools are being banned in our programme, we're starting to now roll out S3 with a lot of the schools. It actually provides us now with a chance to shape how this S3 programme is going to look. If I think to the work that we're doing with Craig Royce and Ingressment in particular at the moment, they've both looked at S3 as opposed to just going in there and the people just playing football once a day. It's how we shape the linen during that period, so when they then step in S4 straight away they're ready to go and sit on national 4 or national 5 in PE. Now a lot of these pupils, boys and girls, are pupils who you wouldn't probably be looking at presenting them at that level, but the fact that we're getting to work with them at S3 and we can actually devise our programme, that might be something that I think in the long term for us might be a chance, might be a way in which we can kind of close that attainment gap, certainly the boys and girls we're working with. I'm going to have to stop you there because I've got a number of members who still want to get in times against us. Colin. I was quite interested in the evidence supplied by the SFA. Admittedly it seems to be mainly connected to the school of football, but there does seem to be a lot of assertions there about engagement of the young people as opposed to attainment. Is there any evidence that the evidence of engagement that's shown here in terms of football extends to other sports or to the arts? We always ask our pupils to go and engage with extracurricular clubs. I think that when a young boy or young girl is coming to high school in S1, yes, if they're involved in our programme, they're going to get football five days a week. But for us, for me, especially, they have to go and be involved in other sports. There has to be other aspects of their life because when they're that age that you're looking at that general broad education, you're looking for them to go and develop themselves as a person. I think that there's real life examples of that. I think that there's a young boy, Daniel, who was at Nubal High School, for example, who, after S1 and S2, has real passion for his music. When he's offered a chance to go to S3, he actually wanted to go and take music on board, so he stepped out of football completely with our full support. I know that he's now down at university and leads and doing a complete degree in music, so there's certainly a lot of cross-curricular work going on from our programme. I think that you're talking about anecdotal evidence here where you have knowledge of individual cases. Is there any body of statistics that have been gathered, figures, anything that would support the fact that young people are engaging more with learning and with school-based education in other sports and in the arts? To be honest, I'm probably the wrong man for that question. That's probably where my colleague Donald who should have been here would be far more versed to answer that. I can only really speak from the experience that I have, which is probably a wee bit more localised in working with the schools that I have, but I think that they do. I think that the engagement comes across a number of factors. I think that a lot of it leads from the staff that we put in place to the leading schools on a daily basis to make sure that they're going to work with the rest of the school staff to make sure that they are engaging in a number of other subjects. The cultural sector, Creif Sparks, is definitely Edinburgh-based, who are gathering evidence across most of our key venues in Scotland, and Creif Scotland supports that piece of work. It's looking at the behaviours of audiences. In some cases, there's been some evidence to show where active participation is happening, then there's a broader level of engagement to the art forms itself. For our own organisation, and I will provide evidence if need be, we've gone up to our fifth major celebration, and the work that we've done in the deprived communities of Dumfries has had an impact. Just by matching the postcode, we can see that the audience is now starting to buy tickets, and it's happening at a rate much quicker than we anticipated. That said, there's an awful lot of investment that we're doing in that community to achieve that. I think that what you're discussing there is evidence of participation in the arts, as opposed to evidence that, by participating in the arts, it leads to young people having better engagement with school education and with learning in general. I think that, at the risk of repeating myself, what's quite clear is that the young people who engage in the arts in school are, by virtue of the kind of skills that they're learning, are much more employable at the end of that. I think that maybe if we were to put the same question to the CBI or something like that, they would say that the end product, if you like, the young person who goes out of school and university will display enhanced qualities because of that. Graham mentioned earlier on that if we have a specific event like the festival of dangerous ideas or something like that, then it's easy to measure outcomes. On an on-going basis, there are very few organisations who have the resources in addition to what they're trying to deliver to try and do an in-depth study of impact as well. I think that everybody that you've listened to this morning, we've all spent a lot of time in a lot of places with a lot of young people and the experiences in my case have been uniformly positive and the reaction of the teachers to how these people have blossomed has been uniformly positive. I think that the problem is not that they're trying to find out if it works, the problem is trying to find a methodology of proving to you that it works. The difficulty for this committee is that we're always looking for evidence and without an improvement in engagement, we're not going to get an improvement in attainment. That's a simple fact. How can we measure this? I mean, where can it be measured? We all have this feeling that participation in sport, participation in the arts and so on is a good and positive thing. We all have anecdotal evidence that it seems to be a good thing, but we haven't got the hard facts. Of course, class is hard facts because of attendance records at school. It's part of it. Because if you get attendance records, it's certainly for our programme. Your average attendance in S1 and S2 is around about 92 per cent, whereas the average attendance for the school if it boasts it's around about 96, 97 per cent. In terms of engagement and making sure that the pupils that we work with are in school on a daily basis, that for me is the first and foremost part. That would be a fair bit of evidence of what I thought. I've just referred to your evidence where you say that the attendance in school is an average of 4 per cent higher for the school of football than none of the school of football pupils, which is significant, but it's not a huge figure, is it? Oh, I'd say that that's pretty big. I mean, 4 per cent when you're looking at the course of 180 days in the years, a fair number of days to miss school. I'm not a mathematician at all, but I think that we are a fairly high number. I think that again when you look at the individual cases, and that might start going down to the anecdotal evidence which I was talking about earlier, but when you look at some of the individual cases, we could have a total of 96, 97 per cent for the school of football, yet we might have two pupils out of 12 whose attendance is 60 per cent, 70 per cent, purely because their home life in the social environment is that poor. So then if you take that into consideration and we still yet have a 96, 97 per cent total, then I think that then paints us a bigger picture for it. I think that the measurement question is a very valid question. How do you measure those things, the impact of the environment, the school, the home, the intervention within arts, music, sport? It's a very difficult thing to measure, but I would welcome a research into this area because from anecdotal evidence, you hear it all the time, now we need to move the anecdotal into actual, well, this is what we're doing, this is the results, surely we can go round the schools that have recognised sport and music programmes and we can do a government research round about what are the benefits? Are the children that are in these cultures, in these environments, are they attaining more than others? Maybe that's a piece of research that needs to happen. I'm not sure if we're allowed to ask the committee members questions, but I would throw back at you, imagine what would happen, measure what would happen if those kinds of programmes weren't happening, because there are absolutely vital lifelines for a lot of young people. I spend a lot of time apart of Glasgow where you see kids being dropped off at Saturday morning music school and whatnot by parents who are really involved and really supportive and all of that, and they've got their violin case over their shoulder and whatnot. What we need to provide is for all the kids who don't have that supportive home environment or don't have the money to have all of those things, the youth music initiative and all of those programmes, the youth hubs, the sports clubs, all of those programmes, keep kids, I'm not going to see on the straight and narrow because that's ridiculous, but they do keep kids in a positive framework and that to me is at least as important as a piece of paper with an exam result on it. I don't doubt you're absolutely correct and I don't think anybody around this table would argue anything but the fact that sport and the arts do enhance the experience of pupils and turn out a better well-turned person. It's just back to the old thing, evidence. How do you produce a well-turned-out person? No evidence. How many of them? How many of them? The difficulty as well is that I don't know about your work but most of the young hard-to-reach young people that we work with have this kind of resurrection point, which is way after school and it could be with their 21-22 and they come back into the work that we do and they're ready. It's like they've matured but had it not been for the introduction that they had in second year or third year they wouldn't know that we exist. It's about making a very brief introduction to them at some point during their development that you can come back at some point if you have gone off the straight and narrow. It's whether we're actually focused to make sure that we have these community resources that are there to deliver that and I welcome the idea about a community hub and I wonder if it's maybe something that our future skills should be looking at in more detail. I just find it sometimes quite galling when we have these really high-profile art centres that are well-to-do areas but why don't we have that in some of our most deprived areas? It's obvious. George, a very quick supplement to follow on from what the column was saying. Is it not just the case that the west of Scotland cliche is that someone from a working-class background that's rock and roller football, you know that's always been the way out of poverty and is this not just a case of repackaging everything that's gone on before because that's why there's not much actual evidence as such because it's been going on for time and memorial from a point of view but it has worked in areas. It used to be the churches and uniformed youth organisations that did it but now it's been branded slightly different and we're actually aiming for to try and see if we can get either educational attainment or attainment just a career path in general because that was one of the things that was brought up last week by one of the building contracting companies was the fact that surveyors was that they talked about the career path of the person which wasn't necessarily academic you know it was to go down the idea of just either a trade or something else as well. Does anyone disagree with that? No. Well yes I disagree that we're repackaging an old song because you know it's a quite if you look at the some of the most successful companies there were just now the googles and the apples and all of these these are full of free creative thinkers they're not full of people with a batch of advanced hires. Brian, was it Brian Steven? The problem we are getting is faced with all the great education in schools but a lot of the kids that we are working with on the streets again back at night time is a lot of the kids have dropped out of school they don't have education they can't even spell to say Carole Dwyer you know people wouldn't even understand who this was let alone spell it but these kids you know they still need somewhere to go somebody to trust somebody to know they can open up to and that's been with them all the time you know working with them. I think the beauty again coming back into the football club or the sports industry is the club itself they've got a lot of links into the wider businesses so we're bringing in kids through work experience school based programmes linking them through sport and we do like photography classes that are picked side on match days so they're linking them in national media but then the businesses there we're asking these people for the kids to get a chance to go on who don't have the qualifications but known the trust of the links that they've made through the club they're taking that chance with the young people that they're never going to get going to the job centre you've not going to get on your CV the CVs are the same but you're trying to change it a wee bit to give them that experience which is real life experience and this is what the kids need but you're trying to use the sport side of it just to give them that you know and that's obviously the values that we're getting from it and the guys are getting the same. Mark Thanks, convener. I just want to ask a question about cashback and I'll cut across the programmes that most of the panel members operate under whether that's diversionary activities whether that's funding for sport facilities whether that's cashback for creativity and I wanted to ask the question in the context that we're under today about addressing the attainment gap, reducing inequality. The members of the panel think that the funding for cashback for communities is targeted properly. Do you think that with our renewed focus on tackling inequality those hardest to reach young men and women that cashback funding being spread over the whole of Scotland is actually the right approach or whether we should be focusing in the same areas that the Government is on the attainment fund? The position has never received cashback funding so I have any interesting question for us really despite the fact that we've actually applied but I'll leave that for another committee. There is something that you've said there that I'm slightly anxious about actually that the attainment challenge fund seems to replicate certainly for our sector what Creative Scotland is doing with the youth arts hubs. In fact, the living youth arts hubs are included in some of the areas that are included in the same fund and I bet again that some of those communities are benefiting from the cashback and I think we need to be very careful that we're not just seeing a league table in terms of poverty and saying that's where that exists because certainly for our community our young people are living, I feel, in an acute sense of poverty because they're often quite isolated, there's nothing round them for maybe 50 miles so I worry about that actually that we're just going for the target zones too too much. I don't think that we've got to be realistic about this. Creative Scotland gets £3 million for cashback for creativity over three years you know and in a pan-scotland context that's going to be spread pretty thinly. From myself, if funding based on the programme here to apply to local area committees to receive funding for the programme we had to run, only that there was a part by Scottish FFA this year we managed to receive some money through through Scottish FFA and cashback for the midnight league programme, a small part but again the amount of money that gets delivered through the whole of the country it doesn't go off a long way but it gives you a small part but the way it goes to me it should go locally and not nationally into these bodies because I think it would be better coming into the local area then it can be divided up better instead of going into the main ports and then let's see where it all goes for there to be fed out that way because I think it would hit the areas a wee bit better. Chris, did you want to go on? I think the money with the cashback first and foremost is vital for us it's I mean it's absolutely massive the funding that we get in terms of the inequalities in the areas that it's spent when we were provided with the funding we looked at the areas where we wanted to spend it and I think that if you look at the table the Scottish Model Index, the deprivation table, we have schools of football in the top 10 areas and that was one of our targets that we set ourselves and we looked at these areas that's where we need to get now. I think then when you're looking at how we spent it there with the school of football it is an S1 and S2 programme in the main. I have had a discussion with a headteacher recently about whether or not he thought that programme should change for his school and become an S4, 5 and 6 programme. The difficulty being that he then have missed the years of engagement with these young pupils and the difficult pupils that we were getting in from these difficult areas, making sure they stay in school till S4. If you don't engage with them S1, S2 and S3 then you lose that chance so I think we've identified the right areas in which in the right areas to work in terms of local authorities. I think we've identified the right areas at the moment for our programme and what we're seeing now is that the schools are now starting to see that and starting to try to match the investment from cashback with their own investment to make sure that programme can then continue in S4, 5 and 6. I know the programme again going back to what we do diversionally based, harder to reach areas, as the colleague is saying. Is it no then something again at looking at the partners within the area to say okay S1, S2, we're doing this, who's in the area that could do the same thing, that could work with these harder to reach kids, could then take that programme on S3, S4, because S5, S6, we're then looking to take these kids back into employment because the harder to reach kids are the ones that may be missing out, but if you're then working with them in the establishment within a partnership approach, it's going to be better for the young person and obviously collectively to make the programmes work a lot better, but again being faced with that challenge, no getting your foot in the door first, it's trying to get to that part. Sorry Colin. Cashback funding we have received and is gratefully received and it's against certain outcomes being set which we deliver against and external evaluation round about that. We focus the money back to communities and across 32 local authorities so we try to get the money down to where it is round about club development officers working with partner organisations to employ club development officers to put in place 30 schools of rugby and from that and diversion activities and from that we then use that money and money of our own as a multiplication to get further funds out of local authority and that's the partnership approach. As I go back to one of the points I made earlier, things generally work where you have strong partnerships in place and when you have leadership round about education especially to make it work and then you can bolt everything else on to that plan. Without cashback funding we wouldn't be in a lot of places. Okay. Again, going back to these other sports, again it's great to hear all these kind of things working but back to diversion based activities I've been on in a programme six years in the Renfrewshire area and I'm yet to be working at night time with all these other sports you know is it something that could be brought back into the streets at night to give these kids out with school another opportunity out with the education system to get back on the street for these kids who do not get the opportunity to go after school or be involved in these clubs who then don't want to be pushed in because they can't afford it. Give them something that's on street based that should be there but it's not getting a chance to do it because the funding's not getting put in to the places that's where it's needed for the kids on the street at night. Okay, thank you. Gordon. Can I say that I'm already convinced that sport and arts does have a positive effect on children's wellbeing and their education attainment whether it's about developing and reinforcing people's skills or making them more confident or improving their self-image. You know they can only have a positive effect on people's education but what I'm keen to understand particularly about the arts but also in sport in my own area in my own constituency I'm fortunate in that I have whale arts in western hills which do a fantastic job with the local community. I also have the big project who sang at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games from the broom house area both areas that I would describe as having challenges and what I would like to know is I've seen the benefits of these two projects in my areas what apart from finance what are the challenges you guys face in rolling out the provision that you currently have to other areas and what would you say was the soft skills that you help improve when you come into an area to young people? Again many many challenges that you'll face that I think one of the first thing ever when I went into an area was a case of who are you, why are you here, why are you coming to work with me. You know the kids that you've got to build trust up with them before they'll start to work with you start to open up and then realise what their backgrounds are and that are still things that is taking time but for every four years you move on as a new group it comes through and you've got to keep working away as far as you know you can throw money all day to programs to projects and it would never be enough it would never be enough to fix things but kids have to trust you believe in you understand that you're going to help them and if you've got a team of people that's prepared to do that every single night every day the week where they stand on the streets where they're going to be they'll come back at you and they'll change because we'll get proof that they are changing they are going into employment they are running programs they are taking charge so you have to still be there but they have to understand you that you believe in them because they're living a chaotic lifestyle that you know they're living the day today you know minute by minute you know so they want to know there's somebody actually cares for them first and foremost and then you start to get the best out of the kid so it's picking that person first we can pick a sports coach who's great at putting a drill out all day but you have to get the person who can understand the person understand the kid understand what they're going through and if you can understand what they're going through you'll make a difference to the life of that kid and you make a difference to the community and that's the most important thing as we say through sport sport sexy yes it's great you can get them involved in it but if you don't care about the kid the kid of the child you're never going to win you'll never make a difference we asked that same question in Dumfries and Galloway through our arts hub kind of process about you know what is what are the challenges that people are facing and something really interesting came up actually which was that specialists like youth arts people or youth development people they're actually a very specialist worker because they embody both the youth worker and the you know the artist or the leader in their field and they're quite hard to come by actually because they might they might have a good talent and can inspire and motivate young people to to achieve and to take part but it's it's for us often the best workers where we have qualified youth staff with us and that can be costly so suppose our sector responded by saying we need to have a more rounded development pathway for for us as practitioners so that when young people present you with problems that you're actually giving them the right advice and that you actually because you know when you mean I deliver face to face youth arts work in our company and always will some of the stuff that comes at you is not about the sport or the art it's about benefits it's about it's about my pals going through this and I think it's about as we have to make sure that the people that are only delivering this across our country are actually qualified going back to the skills that that they learn and I'm sure my colleagues will talk about their skills but the idea that to increase their creative thinking skills it's hugely important for us as a nation to develop that because you know when our parents were younger on dealing with some of you guys but you know you knew which job you were going into there was a pathway there was an apprenticeship most of the young people are what we know 25 to 30 have had about 10 or 12 jobs already even just being at uni so we really need to support our young people to be creative thinkers and to be flexible so that the jobs that come up when they're older they'll have that very important thing that they need which is create flexibility you know that they can actually adapt to those situations yeah I think I would say that the two things well three things but you need leadership you know leadership's absolutely crucial in a school or in a club or in anything you need leadership you need the kind of proper professional skills that that Graham's just flagged up to go into that but I mean I'll give you two examples where I think that there is and Dumfries and Galloway seems to be getting a lot of good publicity today but it happened that there was a an expressive arts teacher in Dumfries and Galloway who managed to persuade her heady to come off curriculum for a whole week obviously out with the pressurised run into the exams but the whole school was then able to do a project for that week and get it so everybody was involved and I think that's quite important too because just like with academic skills everybody's gifted but they're gifted in different ways and when Scottish screen was alive and before creative scotland came into being it did a project in five on filmmaking but it meant everybody all the kids whether they were sewing the costumes or whether they were making the scenery or whether they were behind a camera or whether they were acting everybody had a buy-in everybody was part of that project I'm sure you find that all the time Graham so we need enough people who have got the the skills to make that happen in schools and we need people in schools to be sufficiently receptive and sufficiently confident to come out of the tram lines because one of the things we found at creative scotland one of the shortfalls we've got at the moment are enough teachers with the confidence to teach creativity and to teach creatively and that's going to take time I mean it's not that old a curriculum Colin yeah I'm just echo all that's been said for me what I'm hearing is good old fashion teaching skills and good old fashion teachers the good ones were the ones that spent an awful lot of time with with children and they were the ones that usually got the result from children I'm sure you can all remember your own teachers they're generally the ones that spent went over and above and spent a lot of time what we've got to accept is in the modern world the chaotic world or the different challenges in this world is that where you can get teachers that are teaching beyond the curriculum and by mean by that mean the people the inspirational people that are working on the streets they're not might be teachers by by profession but they are absolutely teachers in the way that they go about their business and it's about people and developing people and getting people to spend time with children and make a difference to young people's lives and that's the biggest challenge is to get more people out there who can think creatively and also to open up the confines of education to be receptive to that and go back to my earlier point where that happens it works very well but it doesn't happen you have this silo mentality of things happening lots of good initiatives but it doesn't change culture and I think what we're looking at is a change of culture here okay thank you Chris I think in terms of the softer skills that we're touching on first and foremost but the big big role for us working with the the children at the edges that we're working at is teaching it would be confident first and foremost I think that's a skill in itself I think any child who has a level of confidence where they can stand up and speak in front of a group where they can speak to an adult and be polite and be respectful and speak to adult that is a massive skill I remember having a conversation with a university lecturer who was doing the interviews for pupils who were in their plan and it's not what they have on their CV they get some in that gets them in the interview but it's then having that confidence to speak having a passion to speak up with something they've been involved in and that for me is a massive soft skill the amount of time these pupils spend on a programme they understand their commitment I think that's something that seems to be disappearing very very quickly in society at the moment I've always been taught when you commit to something you commit to it you see that through at the moment certainly within football it seems to be you commit to something and it doesn't work quite work for you you step out of it and again that's something over the last kind of two or three years with our young pupils we're making sure that they're aware that when they step in the programme they're making a commitment for two years and there will be rough times in those two years there'll be challenges in those two years but they have to kind of see that through so those kind of softer skills for us are massive in terms of the challenges there's always a challenge when you step into a new school for the first time when you're telling a teacher when a teacher finds out that they might be losing some of the pupils for a period of week because they're now going to go and play football that is a challenge and that challenge is always met with ourself a chance for us to sit down and discuss what the impacts of our programme is the fact that when we look to our programme when they change to the critical for excellence we have to sit down and go through our programme and look at well what outcomes and expectations do we actually hit through the school of football and we have to sit down and show that and we have to put together a curriculum map to show that we actually hit these ease of nose across probably six or seven of the areas which is massive for us so that becomes a challenge but it's one that we've met and every time we seem to mash to turn everybody around the other challenge is engaging with the parents and that's huge and I think that's something I've really got a chance to touch on later on but the way in which we engage with parents is massive because the programme sits in areas of real deprivation getting those parents into school can be really quite tough so we need to look at ways in which we can do that so the first part is any pupil that comes in our programme they have to go through an interview process so you're then looking at a pupil at 11 years old p7 coming in with her parents to sit through an interview very very informed on an interview for a p7 but that first step is really quite important for us there'll then be an information that when the pupils are selected for the programme you'll engage with them through whether it's nutrition evenings during the year whether it's the school reports so we have a presence at every single reporter night in school so the parents again have a chance to meet with us so it's providing up to them with three or four different opportunities where we can get a chance to actually sit down with the parents and discuss how we think that our pupil's doing and how we think we can engage with that pupil to make them a little bit better. Okay thank you all for coming along this morning it's been a very interesting session and it's been very helpful in terms of our inquiry into educational attainment in its widest sense so clearly we've still got a lot of work to do on this and we'll be carrying on with our inquiry over the coming weeks and months but once again can I thank you very much for ticking the time to come along particularly Chris at the last minute so thank you very much for stepping in and can I suspend briefly. Okay we're moving on to item 3 on our agenda our next item is to receive an update from the Scottish Government on issues arising from the continuing care Scotland order 2015 and after care eligible needs of Scotland order 2015 we consider these affirmative instruments so I'm sure that committee members will remember our meeting on the 24th of March this year when the minister committed to providing further information so welcome back minister and can I welcome Fiona McLeod formally the acting minister for showing young people to the committee and also David Blair, head of Lutawther Children's Units Scottish Government. So welcome to you both this morning minister I believe you've got a statement you wish to make. A short statement compared to last time thank you convener good afternoon committee I offered to return to update the committee on two things firstly the draft guidance on parts 10 and 11 of the children and young people Scotland act and secondly to report on progress towards setting up the expert working group which will consider specific policies on aftercare and return to care and I'll be happy to take any questions after this brief statement. On the consultation on the draft guidance from January to April this year there has been a series of meetings, workshops and conferences involving local authorities, the third sector, practitioners, electric members and perhaps most importantly care experienced young people as we outlined to the committee in March. So far there have been 22 such events attended by about 250 people. These will continue over the next few months reaching a further 200 people. The workshops were jointly facilitated with the Scottish throughcare and aftercare forum for our next steps in producing the draft guidance will be incorporating feedback from these events and it's now almost complete so the next step is for both the draft guidance documents to be circulated to key stakeholders ahead of the next series of consultation events which begin on the 7th of May. The draft guidance will be accompanied by a set of companion questions to help to focus feedback specifically on the content and usefulness and we will of course invite and welcome written and verbal feedback on these as a crucial part of us all working together to inform the final phase of the guidance development. I hope that the committee feels reassured over the level of discussion and consultation that has been undertaken towards framing these documents and continues and in a way that makes them worthy, these documents will be worthy of more detailed targeted discussion during the next phase of the consultation. On the expert working group, I'm happy to confirm that we have sent out invitations. The working group will look at describing additional cohorts of young people who could be made eligible for aftercare under the ministerial powers in section 66 of the act in addition to the return to care commitment made by Aileen Campbell when the act was going through Parliament. I'm able to confirm that a wide range of key stakeholders including local authority children and family and housing teams, third sector organisations including the coalition members, Celsys, COSLA, the Scottish Throughcare and Aftercare Forum and Social Work Scotland have been invited to be members of the working group. Subject to diaries, availability and the capacity within those organisations, I hope that the working group will meet for the first time in May to agree the terms of reference and also the membership of a wider consultative group to support them in the work that they'll be doing. I'm asking the working group to support the Scottish Government in mapping the resource and operational requirements of any proposed extension to aftercare eligibility and to help us to describe a brand new policy on return to care. As you'll appreciate, we discussed in March that developing these policies will be a massive undertaking, as they require flexibility and consideration of capacity in the system, as well as the current financial climate. I will task the group with reporting to either myself or whoever is the minister by the end of this year, but I'll expect them to inform me if this is an unrealistic timetable given the enormity of the task that we're undertaking. The committee is aware that the timeframe that was already set out by Scottish ministers on 14 January last year was when we announced at the minister at the time a number of measures to support care leavers over the next 10 to 12 years. We will work with the group meeting hopefully in May, as I say. We will task them with trying to be able to set a framework and report by the end of the year, but I want them to tell me if that's unrealistic, but I must remind committee members that this is a plan that we want to put in place over the next 10 to 12 years. In conclusion, convener, I say again that I'm sure that we're all aiming for the same positive outcomes for our care leavers. I look forward to continued productive collaborative working on those issues with the stakeholders, with the young people and with the committee. Thank you very much minister for that update. Clearly, the committee had some concerns on 24 March with some of the evidence that we received and also some of the comments that we received from outside organisations, particularly the coalition, members of the coalition for continuing care. I'm going to ask members now what questions they wish to ask when we're beginning with Liam McArthur. You referred towards the end of your opening comments to the fact that you would want the members of the working group to advise you probably in the early course if they felt that the timeframe that they were being asked to work to was unrealistic. You'll recall from our previous exchange that there were concerns there that in terms of the local authorities it's clear that they have put up some objections or some obstacles they believe exist to delivering what we thought as a committee and as a Parliament we'd help to put in place in terms of the passage of the original act. Can you be a bit clearer about what the hurdle is that those suggesting that the timeframe being proposed is unrealistic would have to get over? If you were to be persuaded that putting in place are coming forward with firm proposals for extending the coverage of those provisions by the end of the year, it's not to be achieved. I'm not aware of anybody saying that the timescale is unrealistic. I'm just very aware of the huge task that we're going to ask the working group to take on. I think that I just wanted to put a marker down now that I don't want to say to the working group that you must have completed everything by the end of the year if in trying to meet a timetable of the end of the year they don't take the time and the care to make sure that this is realistic and it's deliverable and that everybody has the capacity to do what we want to do and also remember that this is within the timeframe of extending eligibility over a 10 to 12-year period as the Minister and Parliament accepted last year. I think that we'd all accept the getting it right rather than necessarily getting done by a particular deadline is always going to be more important but I think that we recognise that we have different opinions within that working group and therefore what I wouldn't want to see is the message from yourself as Minister from the Government to that working group that you anticipate the timetable being very stretching and what you're asking possibly undeliverable by the end of the year and therefore for those who would quite happily put this off for a bit longer feeling emboldened to make that case while there'll be those in the group who are very keen to keep everybody's feet to the fire in terms of delivering that extension of eligibility. That is not the message I'm sending out and a few you know I listed all the different organisations that are going to be part of this working group it's a very balanced group you know which nobody will have it will work as a group that's what I really want to see. Yeah I think the other question I had I mean obviously during the exchanges last time round there was reference made to the non-stratuary guidance which came as something that's a surprise that this had not been shared by with members of the the coalition at that stage and I think there was an undertaking given by yourself at that committee meeting at the end of end of March that this would be remedied and rectified as a matter of urgency so I was slightly confused and a bit concerned to note Mark Ballard's email to committee members last night that while welcoming the establishment of the working group and the invitation to themselves among others to form part of it he goes on to say we hope that the first meeting of the of this group will also give us an opportunity to view and discuss the non-stratuary guidance that was also mentioned by the minister at the education and culture committee meeting on the 24th of March. I have to say I'd rather assume that following our exchange on the 24th of March that that non-stratuary guidance would have been passed on to members of the coalition and others within the week certainly before the end of that that month and that clearly doesn't appear to be the case. I think that we seem to be conflating the two issues here. The draft guidance there has been since January of this year there's been 22 events covering workshops, conferences, one-to-ones with organisations, 22 events from January to April, the next one will be on the 7th of May each of those events has been part of the process of producing the draft guidance so it's live guidance you know it's an iterative process and for the next meeting on the 7th of May the latest iteration of the draft guidance will be going out to everybody. It appears as if that guidance and my recollection was that the first iteration of it, the first draft of it was produced around September last year maybe wrong but it was around that time. Yet Mark Ballard on behalf of the coalition appears to be suggesting that they're looking forward to an opportunity to view and discuss the non-statuary guidance that was mentioned by the minister of the meeting. Now that to me suggests that while they may be part of the iterative process they clearly haven't been presented with the latest iteration of it during the course of those many meetings which what she suggests have taken place. 22 events over a couple of months and every time the the you know all all that we're learning at each event is fed in so the latest iteration of the draft guidance will go out to everybody that's going to the 7th of May meeting and that is still being worked on even up to this weekend when I was yet again going through it reading it asking questions making my comments on it so this really is a live process so everybody's been involved all the way along the line I mean I'm trying if I can quickly scan this I'm looking at dates in March I'm looking at dates in April and and on as I say you know working towards the next meeting on the 7th of May with this. So what you're saying is that at those meetings the latest iteration of the guidance will have been presented to those participating so that they can comment, feed in and suggest where amendments need to be made. So the next meeting will not be it will not be the first time that they have seen that they're after non-statutory guidance that was referred to in the meeting on the 24th of March. I mean as I said what we're doing is every time we have these meetings it comes back and then we can send it out again not necessarily the full draft guidance but another list of the latest meetings have raised questions, have thought of other ideas, can we put these in the mix for the next meeting but I know that for the 7th of May they are going to get you know after all this four months of work and all the questions come back feed in more questions we've been getting celsus to go through this that right celsus have been going through the feedback from each of the meetings to inform the questions we ask at the next meeting but on the 7th of May they will get the latest iteration of all the many pages of the draft guidance beforehand. Apologies for labour in this point but just to be clear that it's not just that they've been informed of the issues that have been raised by themselves and other stakeholders at these meetings that at those meetings they have been provided with or since the 24th of March they've been provided with a copy of the latest consolidated non-statuary guidance in a single form even if they're made aware that this is obviously not a final version that that will be subject to the consideration of the working group in due course. No, what I was looking at over the weekend is the final many page version of the draft guidance that they will get out for the 7th of May what we've done for each of the meetings has not been produced the document each time but is to set the questions to feed into what goes into the final. I have to say I find that slightly disappointing. I mean it's certainly my expectation from that meeting at the end of March was that the non-statuary guidance that had been produced as I say around about September last year would be presented to not just a coalition but probably other stakeholders as well and that that would then inform their input into those discussions and meetings which are very much welcome having taken place but to some extent you're asking a series of questions of people who haven't had the benefit of seeing where the guidance stands at this point even if the expectation is that it may change radically it may not change greatly before it's finally agreed and I think that's against the spirit of what I understood was the undertaking given by you minister when you appeared before us in March the 22 events that I talked about that have been held between January and March that timetable was already in place and had begun it had started in January it had continued throughout February throughout March and then into April at there's no point at that when you're in an iterative process where you are at every meeting you've got the practitioners there you've got the providing authorities there you've got everybody there at different meetings there's no point where you can produce a whole set and say this is what all the meetings have decided what you're doing throughout that process is saying these are the questions that the meetings are raising leading towards what I was looking at over the weekend which is here is the draft guidance based on what we have been working on over now six months more than six months and that's what we'll look at on the 7th of May but unless they've seen sight of where that guidance stands at any one time yes they'll be able to respond to the questions they ask but as you know yourself minister I mean you can only question the information that is in front of you you can't question the information that's not in front of you and it is only by looking at the non-statuary guidance as it stands even if it's in its draft form that you can answer the questions that have been asked of you but also comment on those things that may for whatever reason not be being asked of you but on which you have perhaps very strong views but when the invites go out to each of the meetings it's clear what you're coming to the meeting for so that you've got the opportunity to learn from what has gone at previous meetings to think about what you think about it to feed that in so that your input into that meeting on that particular date feeds forward into the next meetings the point of the way that we're doing this and it's very much based on the way that we've done others in the run-up to the children and young peoples act the way that we went out and consulted with as many people as possible involved as many people as possible and that you know my understanding from the back benches was that the children and young peoples act in the way that it came to parliament was one of the best examples of working with all stakeholders as much as possible to inform what we finally printed to actually produce as the bill and that has been what we've done in this process as well it's also very much part of the whole process of how you know we do the guidelines that we're producing now are based on experience that we've got and guidelines that we've got going back many years so this isn't all sort of in a vacuum this is all part of very much a live process that has now been working for many years where everybody comes together works together and feeds forward constantly but you'll be aware that when we were discussing this last time round that actually what the act said and what the what was being proposed and in fact what was then passed in the standing orders were not seen in alignment so actually seeing the detail of what these non statutory what this non statutory guidance says is vitally important yes the process leading up to the the introduction of the bill and the consideration of of that bill was seen as fairly exemplary but there were opportunities for us in consultation with the coalition and others to make amendments make changes and all the rest of it but we had the text in front of us and we were able to to comment not on just the things that the ministers wanted our views on but on any issues that we thought were relevant and what I can't understand is how you can have this consultation process going on the meetings I'm sure are very valuable but you'll only get answers to the questions you ask rather than comments from the stakeholders on the breadth of issues that may arise through the through the non statutory guidance unless they have a copy of the consolidated I don't think that's an accurate representation of what's happening you know because the guidance that we're working on is working from a history of guidance in this area so when the sectors come together at all these 22 odd events they are coming very informed about what they want to see the guidance becoming they're coming informed they know they're coming from I've already used the guidance for a lot of support for these caregivers as we have already which they were you had been part of producing I'm not going to apologise convener for the way we've done this process I think this process has been one that has really involved everybody all stakeholders has given them every opportunity possible I was out at who cares Scotland last week and none of these concerns were raised by me what we had was a very strong discussion about where we can go forward based on their experience of where we've been where we are and where we want to get I think to be fair minister you were quite accurate in terms of the the process that led up to the bill I mean that's I think that was a and everybody in this committee I think and others outside parliament felt that the problem I think we faced as a committee was that the evidence that we received from your officials was somewhat confusing shall we say on the 24th of march and that's left us with certain some doubts and I'm still and I would like some clarity you talk about a process that started in January and is ongoing your official and the 24th of march said it's been on going since last autumn and it would conclude by the end of April it's obviously not going to happen now I presume and you said that everybody's been involved and there's been all these meetings the organizations that Liam and others have referred to on the 24th of march took quite a different view about their involvement or lack of involvement and so I think the concerns that the committee expressed on the 24th of march led it was led by the confusion that I think was established in the minds of the committee members by your officials to be absolutely blunt about it and that left us with some you know questions about why organisations hadn't been involved why they'd been a consultation and they hadn't been included what was going on with his non-statuary guidance etc all of that stuff was was I think effectively why we asked you to come and gives an update to try and clear up some of these questions so it's entirely reasonable that we try and nail down some of the the questions that were erased by the evidence on that date and can we be clear then the consultation that you're talking about starting in January and ongoing at the moment is that different from the consultation that your official carline uni was talking about that started last autumn or is that the same consultation it's in phases so phase one from october to december 24 was the public consultation on the draft orders that we looked at and passed last when I was last here in march and the consultation on that fed into and what we learned from that fed into phase two which was the january 2 april 22 events I'm quite happy I've got a whole list of all the events and who was at it I'm quite happy to send a copy of that to the committee if that would reassure you that when I say it was 22 events with 250 people we absolutely believe you we're just trying to clarify because there was some confusion on the 24th of march thank you for that may this come can I just say I share the concerns of the convener and Liam McArthur but just two fairly short questions you've said several times today that you've had 22 events that's between january and today so pretty well an average of five a month now I would have thought that you would be making considerable progress but in your opening statement you talk about more detailed targeted discussions and you talk about the enormity of the task and I actually thought that we're making some progress in coming to some agreement and then that was followed when you said you were report by the end of the year and I think you used the word maybe unrealistic so my questions are you also mentioned the implementation over 10 or 12 years so first of all what are the main problems I mean why there must be a few stumbling blocks here why is it that you've got 22 events you know every man and his dog involved in this area attending these events and you're coming forward with different questions feeding into this and phase one and phase two and phase three so what's the main stumbling block why is it going to take till the end of the year or maybe even longer so my questions are what can we expect by the end of the year will it is it possible that it could even be extended beyond the next election when this committee would have totally changed I certainly won't be here and what are the stumbling blocks because obviously no member of this committee is party to the discussions but I think it's fair although I wasn't on the committee taking the evidence in the children's bell it was my colleague Liz Smith but what's the big problem and what's the reason for confusion between officials and the government and why is it you've got 22 events and a whole load more planned what what's the stumbling block what is it that can't be agreed on right we're conflating two different things here it's the guidance that we've had 22 events on in 200 odd people the end of the year is a target that we've set for the expert working group now the guidance is about guidance on implementing the statutory instruments that we passed at committee and in parliament in march the expert working group is at looking at can we extend continuing care and aftercare to an extra cohorts of care leavers two completely different things so what's the problems why can't why do you need so many further meetings and delays no no it's two things we're working on the draft guidance to support the statutory instruments that we passed that's what the 22 events have been about and which we will continue to work on so that we get the guidance to support the statutory instruments for continuing care and aftercare for the for young people who are in care but can continue to be in care from their 16th birthday onwards and perhaps be eligible up to their 26th birthday that's the guidance to go with the statutory instruments the expert working group which we're hoping will be able to come back with at least you know affirm ideas by the end of the year if that's realistic that expert working group is going to be looking at extending continuing care to extra cohorts of young people not just those that we've already agreed who will get continuing care and aftercare after their 16th birthday so it's two completely different issues so is the end of the year realistic is that when well that's why i said in my statement i hope that that's realistic but i don't want to put pressure on an expert working group to come forward with ideas of which extra cohorts of young people we could extend continuing care and aftercare to i don't want them to come back with that unless it's realistic that there is the capacity in the sector to do it that in this financial climate that we can do it and that it will fit in within the commitment that the minister gave over a year ago that this is a 10 to 12 year process of actually extending the cohorts okay um i don't think there are any further questions minister so um can i thank you very much for coming along this morning giving us the update i no doubt we will follow this process with interest um but can i thank you once again for your commitment to come back to the committee and keep us informed and for coming along this morning thank you very much thank you and with that can i close the meeting


Cultural variation, cultural variation refers to the rich diversity in social practices that different cultures exhibit around the world. Music, language, dance, cuisine and art all change from one culture to the next, but so do gender roles. Economic systems, and social hierarchy among any number of other humanly organized behaviors. Cultural variation can be studied across cultures for example, across cultural study of ritual in Indonesia and Brazil or across generations. For example, a comparison of generation X and generation Y and is often a subject studied by anthropologists, sociologists and cultural theorists with subspecialties in the fields of economic, anthropology, ethno-musicology, health sociology etc. In recent years, cultural variation has become a rich source of study in neuroanthropology, cultural neuroscience and social neuroscience.


Do you want to learn how to improve your footwork in soccer? In this video I'll show you 29 of the best soccer footwork drills and a simple strategy You can use to improve your footwork faster than you ever have before. Let's go I'm doing to be a progressive soccer and if you're new to this channel and you want to improve faster and achieve more Hit that subscribe button and push the bell notification So you never miss a video if you find this video helpful Please remember to like and share on social media. Thank you to everyone who has purchased my advanced training programs It's because of you. I have the freedom to make these free YouTube videos for everyone else Even though I started playing soccer later than most of my peers I was always one of the most technically skilled especially when it came to my footwork That wasn't because I was naturally talented. It was just because I spent more time with the ball at my feet I used to do footwork drills just like these in my basement and in backyard Every single day you can improve your footwork extremely fast If you're consistent with your training and you follow the advice I'm about to share with you watch this entire video because I will show you 29 of the best soccer footwork drills Some helpful tips to help you improve your skills faster and a simple strategy you can use to guarantee results As you may know, I'm all about teaching practical skills I want you to have incredibly fast and flashy feet But you have to be effective on the field for that reason all these drills will help you develop real skills That will help you get out of tight situations and beat defenders on the pitch The drills progress from beginner to advanced But never think you're too good for a basic drill even professionals practice the basics In fact, what makes them so good is the quality at which they perform basic skills At the end of the video, I'll give you a routine you can follow to get the most out of these drills Improve your skills as fast as possible make your feet stand out in games But most importantly make you a more effective player on match day Enjoy the video and please remember to hit that like button and share this on social media So we can inspire more players to improve faster and achieve more Here are a few tips to help you get more out of these drills and improve at a faster speed First, I want to talk about frustration If you struggle with a specific skill, don't lose your cool realize frustration does not make you better In fact, it makes you worse just as much as you're practicing technical skills You need to be practicing mental skills in your training Your ability to control your emotions and channel that energy positively Is something you need to master if you want to improve and succeed in this game Instead of getting frustrated breathe Compose yourself remain focused be persistent never give up tell yourself to keep going and eventually you will get it Always practice with both feet You may find that your weaker foot doesn't feel the same as your stronger foot when you're performing these drills Instead of giving up on your weaker foot try to compare it to your strong foot How do you hold it differently? Flex it move it. Where do you touch the ball? In the beginning it will feel weird But by comparing your feet and trying to replicate the same movements in your weaker foot Over time both of your feet will feel the same When performing these drills don't just focus on the quality of your touches Also focus on the quality of your body movement If you look at the best driblers in the world. Yes, they have great skills But what makes them extremely effective is usually their ability to control their body Keep balance and change direction efficiently Simply remind yourself to get lower to the ground bend your knees and be aware of your body as well as your touches As always, I cannot just have you watch a video. I need you to get results So here's what I want you to do in order to get faster feet number one complete these 29 drills every day For a minimum of one week. Honestly, you would feel better after one session But if you do it consistently for one week, you'll be feeling fast and effective on the field Number two perform each drill for 30 seconds. So that's about 14 and a half minutes of work Rest 15 to 30 seconds between exercises depending on how you're feeling You'll notice you'll get some great skill out of this training session But you'll also get a lot of fitness and that is a good thing Number three get the full list of exercises in the description below and number four Just feel the amazing emotion and experience of gaining skill and confidence every time you go to the field Remember guys, you can watch this video But if you don't put it into action nothing is going to come from it So don't let other people get faster feet while you sit there on the couch It's time to put in the work. It'll only take you a few minutes a day, but you'll get great results If you truly want to improve faster and achieve more go to my website progressivesocketraining.com And sign up for the free crash course if you find this video helpful Please remember to like and share on social media Thank you to all of my patrons who support me on patreon You are allowing me to turn my passion for football into a profession Thank you to everyone who has purchased my advanced training programs It's because of you. I have the freedom to make these free youtube videos for everyone else You can do this people are getting faster feet and improving their footwork every day So if they're doing it, why can't you it's all about the effort and time you put it? I guarantee if you follow the advice in this video, you will improve your footwork You're going to stand on the field. You're going to be more effective and you're going to have more confidence on the ball