MCR Pathways' relationship based practice at scale: revolutionising educational outcomes for care-experienced young people

Abstract

Scottish mentoring charity MCR Pathways' founder reflects on the transformational impact relationships and mentoring is having on Scottish care-experienced young people, mentors and organisations in Glasgow and other local authorities in Scotland. Using pioneering embedded partnerships with local authorities and schools, the MCR model is aiming for long term system and culture change to the education system. While focused on the Scottish system, the author took his original motivation from five years of working in the residential care system in England and increasingly from witnessing the same issues in other western countries. The article explores the challenges preventing policy makers from creating a consistent impact on the educational outcome of Scotland's most disadvantaged young people relative to their peers. With young people leading the debate, it proposes simple changes to Scottish corporate parenting and widening access policies and practices, based on statistical evidence and 12 years of powerful stories.

Keywords

• care experience young people
• looked after children
• mentoring
• education