Overview
The Promise is a national commitment by the Scottish Government to transform the lives of children and young people with care experience, ensuring they grow up loved, safe and respected, with the support they need to realise their full potential.
It sets out a long-term vision for systemic change across children’s services, based on the findings of the Independent Care Review. The Promise calls for a shift away from crisis-driven systems towards early intervention, strong relationships and coordinated support that puts young people first.
For organisations working to prevent youth homelessness, The Promise provides a critical policy framework for understanding risk, responsibility and long-term outcomes for care-experienced young people.
What The Promise sets out to achieve
The Promise outlines a fundamental change in how Scotland supports children, young people and families. Its key ambitions include:
- Keeping families together wherever it is safe to do so, through early help and preventative support.
- Ensuring care-experienced young people are supported into adulthood, without abrupt cliff edges at 18 or 21.
- Building systems around relationships, not thresholds, bureaucracy or crisis points.
- Listening to children and young people, and acting on what they say they need.
- Creating joined-up public services that work together around the young person, not in silos.
These principles are designed to improve long-term outcomes across housing, health, education, employment and wellbeing.
Why this matters for youth homelessness
Care-experienced young people are significantly more likely to experience homelessness than their peers. Transitions out of care often coincide with:
- Sudden loss of accommodation or support.
- Limited access to stable, affordable housing.
- Poor mental health and reduced support networks.
- Increased exposure to poverty and insecure employment.
The Promise recognises that homelessness is not an isolated housing issue, but the result of systems failing to provide continuity, stability and care during key life transitions. Its emphasis on early intervention, sustained relationships and long-term support directly aligns with what we know prevents youth homelessness.
Rock Trust’s perspective
Rock Trust works with young people who have experienced care, family breakdown and instability, many of whom face heightened risk of homelessness as they move into adulthood.
The principles of The Promise strongly align with our approach to ending youth homelessness by making it rare, brief and non-recurring. In practice, this means:
- Preventing crisis through early intervention and youth-specific support.
- Supporting transitions, particularly from care into independent living.
- Providing stable housing alongside wraparound support, not short-term fixes.
- Championing young people’s voices in service design and policy change.
We use The Promise as a key reference point in our policy work and partnerships, and as a framework for advocating for systems that work better for care-experienced young people.