10th Anniversary of the Scottish Guardianship Service

That the Parliament recognises that September 2020 marks 10 years of the Scottish Guardianship Service and the partnership between Aberlour and the Scottish Refugee Council supporting trafficked and unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and young people arriving alone in Scotland; understands that, in that time, the service has been by the side and on the side of nearly 700 children and young people across 29 local authorities, supporting them to navigate the complexities of the UK asylum and immigration systems, engage with statutory services and support them to build new lives in Scotland; considers that the service is an exemplar of a human rights approach to how a country should care for and support trafficked and unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and young people and has influenced the development of similar provision in Northern Ireland; commends what it considers the successful conclusion of its pilot in 2013, whereby the Scottish Government has provided statutory funding to the Scottish Guardianship Service and, in 2015, committed to long-term support for guardianship of separated children in the Human Trafficking and Exploitation (Scotland) Act 2015; believes that the partnership between Aberlour and the Scottish Refugee Council exemplifies Scotland’s commitment to international human rights frameworks, including the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and has been key to ensuring separated children and young people's rights are protected and promoted, and considers that, at a time when so many children and young people around the world are fleeing conflict or persecution or are the victims of international trafficking, the Scottish Guardianship Service has never been more needed to ensure vulnerable children and young people arriving alone in Scotland are cared for, protected, integrated and seen as assets to Scotland.