Scottish Fire and Rescue Service
/The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service pledge to:
Challenge ourselves to increase the positive impact we make on our local community.
We will do the following things that we don’t do at the moment to improve our social impact.
Signed by Dr. Kirsty L. Darwent, Chair of the Board, December 2025
1st Commitment
As Corporate Parents, we will continue to develop and deliver our work to ‘The Promise’ to attract and encourage care experienced individuals to consider working in the emergency services sector.
Geographical location of impact: Nationwide
Contact details: Louise Patrick, Strategic Planning and Partnerships Coordinator, email louise.patrick@firescotland.gov.uk
2nd Commitment
We will collaborate with partners to share our facilities, providing welcoming, friendly environments for the public and community groups to come together and improve their safety, health and wellbeing.
Geographical location of impact: Nationwide
Contact details: Louise Patrick, Strategic Planning and Partnerships Coordinator, email louise.patrick@firescotland.gov.uk
3rd Commitment
We will work with partners to provide life skills and education to those leaving prison, helping with the transition of returning home or taking on a tenancy.
Geographical location of impact: Nationwide
Contact details: Louise Patrick, Strategic Planning and Partnerships Coordinator, email louise.patrick@firescotland.gov.uk
Additional information
Pledge 1: As Corporate Parents, we will continue to develop and deliver our work to ‘The Promise’ to attract and encourage care experienced individuals to consider working in the emergency services sector.
Location: Nationwide
Background: The Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 defines corporate parenting as "the formal and local partnerships between all services responsible for working together to meet the needs of looked after children, young people and care leavers". The 2014 Act introduced new duties and responsibilities for Scottish public bodies defined as corporate parents, effective from April 2015.
The basic principle of corporate parenting relates to improving the experience of looked after children and those who have left care. In addition, Scottish Government also introduced ‘The Promise’ in 2021 as a long-term change programme for the improvement of Scotland’s care system spanning 10 years.
Approximately 0.5% of the population are in care or have left care, this includes children and young people who may be staying at home and have a social worker involved in their lives, living with a foster family or living in a residential care setting. Unfortunately, the challenges faced by people who are care experienced are considerable. These include a greater likelihood of offending; being less likely to gain and sustain employment; digital exclusion; less likely to gain qualifications; and a greater likelihood of mental health issues compared to the general population.
As corporate parents, we are required to create and implement a Corporate Parenting Plan, in which, we set out our actions that we will take to meet our duties on how we support and have a positive impact and improve the lives of people who are ‘care experienced.’
Our current Corporate Parenting Plans set out intended outcomes with a range of nationwide commitments we have made or are making to try and achieve those outcomes. Examples of these include the introduction of guaranteed interview schemes; providing mentors for young people in partnership with MCR pathways; and more working collaboratively with a range of partners (and specifically Who Cares Scotland) to host Emergency Services Engagement Events.
There are also several local initiatives that feed into this commitment. In Argyll & Bute, for example, we have worked with charity, New Reflexions, to develop a Firefighter Experience Day for young people who may be disengaged from education.
Our aim is to offer an insight into the life of a firefighter including duties, discipline, careers, and the understanding of giving back to the community by keeping it safe. We also use the engagement to give various prevention presentations and deliver a CPR awareness session to allow the young people to learn new skills.
Pledge 2: We will collaborate with partners to share our facilities, providing welcoming, friendly environments for the public and community groups to come together and improve their safety, health and wellbeing.
Location: Nationwide
Background: We want our Community Fire Stations to be a central hub within our communities. A place that offers warmth and support to communities.
Across the country, this commitment takes shape in a number of ways. For example, in Lanarkshire, we have signed up for the Breastfeeding Friendly Scotland Scheme. This innovative nationally recognised scheme aims to help organisations, colleagues, visitors, and people who breastfeed to know their rights and responsibilities. Several of our facilities and Community Fire Stations have been identified as breastfeeding-friendly places and now display the necessary certificate and stickers in prominent, easy-to-see locations.
In Blairgowrie in Aberdeenshire, we work alongside partners to provide Breakfast Clubs in the Station to help those families who endure financial hardship when they have to provide meals to their children when the school is closed. We also host the Firefighter Charity initiative ‘Brew with the Crew.’ A programme that aims to tackle the cost-of-living crisis, fuel poverty, and social isolation by providing a comfortable place for the local community to enjoy warm refreshments and open discussions, whilst providing increased access to vital support services.
Sitting at the heart of communities, you will also find crews within our stations hosting cultural events and support groups; safety events; recruitment events; sharing facilities with emergency service partners; providing CPR training; providing community gardens; and more.
Pledge 3: We will work with partners to provide life skills and education to those leaving prison, helping with the transition of returning home or taking on a tenancy.
Location: Nationwide
Background: Across Scotland, we work with a range of partners to support individuals who are soon to be released from prison.
The aim of these programmes is to aid and educate individuals on their return to the community, having served a custodial sentence, by providing life skills and education to help with the transition from prison to returning home/taking on a tenancy.
To support this programme, our Teams provide a range of safety and wellbeing information, as well as practical life skills such as cardiopulmonary resuscitation and defibrillator training.
As well as helping to provide a smoother transition from prison back into the community, it is hoped that these initiatives will also help to break down barriers and build trusted relationships between the services involved and individuals going through this journey.
