Permanently Progressing? Building secure futures for children in Scotland
Phase 3: Adolescence and early adulthood
Since 2014 the Permanently Progressing? study has been exploring the experiences, and routes and timeframes to permanence (or impermanence), for 1,836 children who became looked after in Scotland in 2012-13, aged five and under. The study focuses on children living with kinship carers, foster carers or who are adopted. It is the largest longitudinal cohort study in the UK into care-experienced children’s pathways to permanence.
Phase 1 (2014-18) analysed children’s pre-care experiences, pathways and early outcomes. Phase 2 (2020-24) revisited children in middle childhood and reported in September 2024.
Phase 3 of the study started on 1st February 2026 and runs to 31st January 2030. In Phase 3, the cohort will be in adolescence/early adulthood (aged 12-23).
Phase 3 of the study draws on different forms of data (information about young people and their lives) to explore experiences and build up a picture of young people’s lives over time. This includes administrative data collected by the Scottish Government and Scottish Children’s Reporters Administration about children and young people who are looked after, surveys of caregivers and young people, interviews with young people, carers, adoptive parents, and parents whose children are no longer living with them, and focus groups with professionals.
Information on children’s pathways, legal permanence status, and wellbeing is drawn from administrative data. This provides the bigger picture but doesn’t provide the important details about young people’s day-to-day lives. As permanence and wellbeing involves ‘feeling’ secure as well as ‘being’ legally secure, we will explore young people’s experiences and sense of belonging, through interviews, surveys and focus groups. This will enable the study to build a unique understanding of the lives of young people and their families which has both breadth and depth.
In May 2025, in recognition of the impact of the research, Phase 2 won The Herald Research Study of the Year. Our aim is that findings from Phase 3 will make a difference to the lives of care-experienced children, young people, and their families by building on Phases 1 and 2 and continuing to provide a robust evidence base for policy and practice.
All reports and summaries for Phase 1 and Phase 2 can be accessed on this website.
Phase 3 will examine the lives and relationships of our cohort in adolescence/early adulthood, identifying stability and change for young people and those who are important to them.
There are 32 Local Authorities in Scotland. In Phase 1, 19 Local Authorities opted in to interviews and surveys and in Phase 2, this increased to 27. In Phase 3, we hope that this will increase even further.
The study is a collaboration between the University of Stirling, Lancaster University, and Adoption and Fostering Alliance (AFA) Scotland, led by Stirling.
Phase 3 is being jointly funded by a philanthropic donor and the Nuffield Foundation.
The Nuffield Foundation is an independent charitable trust with a mission to advance social well-being. It funds research that informs social policy, primarily in Education, Welfare, and Justice. It also funds student programmes that provide opportunities for young people to develop skills in quantitative and scientific methods. The Nuffield Foundation is the founder and co-funder of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics and the Ada Lovelace Institute. The Foundation has funded this project, but the views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily the Foundation. Visit www.nuffieldfoundation.org
If you are interested in finding out more about the study, please email Helen Whincup on helen.whincup@stir.ac.uk
