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Corporate Parenting

The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland is proud to be a corporate parent.

We are committed to improving the lives of care-experienced and estranged young people. We aim to provide support to ensure that students who are care-experienced or estranged are not disadvantaged.

Being a parent isn’t always easy. We know we have to work hard to ensure the care we provide is fair, meaningful and focused. By working with an extended family of care-experienced and estranged young people, organisations and caregivers, we promise to provide a safe environment with good access to services and support for those who need it.

To that end, we strive to develop relationships with our care-experienced and estranged students so that we can provide tailored support. To achieve this, listen to our students to understand their experiences and involve them in designing the support we offer.

What is Corporate Parenting?

Corporate Parenting is “an organisation’s performance of actions necessary to uphold the rights and safeguard the well-being of a looked-after child or care leaver, and through which physical, emotional, spiritual, social and educational development is promoted” (The Scottish Government, 2015).

Corporate parents are public bodies named in law as having responsibilities to safeguard young people who are looked after and care-experienced (The Children and Young People Scotland Act, 2014). These public bodies include educational institutions like RCS.

RCS promotes the well-being of care-experienced and estranged learners by listening, communicating, and connecting with these learners to understand their journeys to inform decisions across our institution.

Young students in a short course follow their acting teacher during an exercise. They all are smiling and chanting.

What Does Care-experienced and Estranged Mean?

Students learn how to use a professional video camera during the Film Open Day. The instructor gives instructions and guidance. Two students look into the video screen.

Care-Experienced
Estranged

Corporate parenting duties extend to each care-experienced child or young person age 26 or younger.
You are care experienced if you are, or have ever been:

Looked after at home whilst subject to a supervision order from a Children’s Panel
In kinship care, i.e. you have not been cared for by your birth parents rather than by relatives such as siblings, grandparents, aunts or uncles
In foster care
Living in residential care with other young people and being looked after by Local Authority staff
Living in secure care

Care-experienced students can find more useful information via UCAS and SASS.

RCS has signed the Stand Alone Pledge and is now working towards better supporting our estranged students.

Estranged students are usually younger than 25 years old and at the start of the academic year. These students are studying without the support and approval of a family network. Young people in this position have either removed themselves from a dysfunctional situation or have been distant or disowned from their families. These situations may be caused by:

Emotional, physical or sexual abuse
Mismatched expectations about family roles and relationships
Clashing personalities or values including social and cultural expectations

Estranged students can find more useful information via UCAS and SAAS.

How We Can Support You

We want to ensure that all young people have access to creative arts education at all levels. Here is a guide to the ways we can support you:

Care experienced or estranged students thinking of applying for an undergraduate programme at RCS can benefit from:

1:1 support for your application process
Contextualised admissions processes which take your care experience into account

Care-experienced or estranged students currently studying an undergraduate programme at RCS can benefit from:

Learning agreement to help identify any extra support you might need
Participation in our coaching programme
Participating in and contributing to our care-experienced and estranged working group
Drop-ins to chat informally with key staff members
Advice, guidance and priority for accommodation
Opportunities for paid work with the Fair Access department
1:1 support to apply for discretionary funding

Care-experienced or estranged students participating in Fair Access programmes at RCS can benefit from:

Discussing learning needs and any extra support you might need
Participating in our coaching programme
Participating in and contributing to our care-experienced and estranged working group
Drop-ins to chat informally with key staff members

Transitions and Widening Access to the Creative Industries are Fair Access programmes focusing on the widening participation of marginalised communities.

Transitions
Widening Access

The Scottish Funding Council funds and supports students’ transitions into higher education.

Our activities focus on creative learning. They are designed to nurture your understanding of art training at the conservatoire level and equip you with the transferable skills and qualities you need to excel as a student and beyond.

Widening Access to the Creative Industries is funded by the Scottish Funding Council.

We offer a wide variety of opportunities for young people in Scotland. We support young people in their journey to study the performing and production arts at college, university or conservatoire level.