Keeping The Promise: Inspiring Change for Scotland’s Care-Experienced Young People
Inspire are proud to highlight the significant contributions of our Promise Development Worker, Nicole Mulheron. Nicole recently served as a guest speaker at the Next Steps for the Children’s Care System in Scotland and Implementing the Promise conference, organised by Scotland Policy Conferences. During her presentation, she emphasised Inspire’s dedication to The Promise and outlined our strategies for improving care experiences and outcomes for children and young people.
The Promise represents Scotland’s commitment to ensuring that every care-experienced child and young person grows up loved, safe, and respected. With a target of 2030, its goal is to reduce the number of children in care and enhance the experiences of those who remain within the system. Based on the findings of the Independent Care Review, The Promise calls for a restructured care system that places children and families at its core.
Nicole began her role as Inspire’s Promise Development Worker in January 2024, a newly created position designed to embed The Promise across all aspects of Inspire’s work. In a short time, she has led and implemented meaningful changes that have had a profound impact on the lives of young people within the Inspire Scotland family.
One of her key achievements has been the establishment of the Bee Inspired Champions Board—a platform that prioritises the voices of young people, ensuring their experiences, opinions, and ideas are heard and valued. This initiative enables them to actively influence positive change within Inspire. Additionally, Nicole has organised events such as football tournaments and careers fairs, fostering a sense of belonging and value among the young people in our care.
The Next Steps for the Children’s Care System in Scotland and Implementing The Promise conference provided a platform to evaluate progress toward the 2030 targets. Discussions focused on several critical areas, including:
Establishing comprehensive support systems for children in care.
Providing stable, long-term housing for care leavers.
Enhancing training and support for the care workforce to increase capacity.
Strengthening coordination and collaboration between agencies and services to ensure holistic support for care-experienced children.
Nicole joined esteemed professionals to share insights on strategies for improving care experiences and outcomes. She highlighted the importance of fostering a culture of love within the care system, supporting the workforce through leadership that emphasises containment and guidance, and integrating the Solihull Approach within Inspire’s care model. This framework ensures a sustained focus on building loving, stable relationships with children and young people.
Speaking about Inspire’s commitment to The Promise, Nicole reflected on the fundamental role of relationships in residential childcare:
“As residential childcare workers, in many ways, we have the easiest part. We get to spend every day with children and young people, building loving relationships, creating memories, and celebrating milestones. I say this is the easiest part, not to downplay the crucial role we play in these young people’s lives, but because if you spend enough time with them, you can’t help but form loving, genuine relationships.
But the real challenge is this: how do you strategize a loving culture? How do you take something so deeply relational, so instinctive, and ensure it isn’t just happening in isolated moments but is embedded across an entire organisation? How do we ensure that love, care, and connection are not just values written in a policy but are felt in every interaction, every decision, every home, and by every young person?
That’s the work. That’s where The Promise has made us stop—to go beyond good intentions and actively design roles, opportunities, training, and leadership that protect and prioritise relationships.”
Nicole’s relational approach has provided valuable insights into what both young people and care teams need to implement The Promise effectively and create lasting, meaningful change. Her dedication has strengthened Inspire’s commitment to this mission, and we are incredibly proud of her achievements. By showcasing Inspire’s work at this conference, she has reaffirmed our pledge to ensuring The Promise is upheld—not just in principle, but in practice.