Learning Story: Falkirk Family Firm

Over the last three years, The Promise Implementation Team in Falkirk Council has worked in partnership, as part of the Falkirk Family and Friends group, to find ways to improve the lives of the young people in their care.

The group discussed a number of areas, but found a regular issue young people faced was the lack of opportunities for young people who have been in care.

Chris Walsh, Falkirk Community Partnership Promise Coordinator said:

“For many young people with a stable home life, they’ll have exposure to a trade or a family business that their parents or extended family will work in, they’ll often find their first job or apprenticeship that way. But for many of the young people who’ve experienced care, that won’t be the case, and they won’t have this opportunity.

“So it became clear to the group that what we were all talking about was a Family Firm Model. The idea is that as corporate parents, we’d look to provide that same kind of opportunity to the young people we care for.”

The group successfully applied to the Whole Family Wellbeing Fund for funds to set up and run the programme until early 2027, and recruited Gareth Thomas in June 2025 to run the programme.

Young people are referred into the programme from several sources: the leaving care team, Skills Development Scotland, or others who are work with young people who are struggling with taking that next step at 16. The young people involved may have struggled in education, and as a result lack employment prospects, or the experience to get into work.

Recognition for skills and contributions

Gareth Thomas Family Firm Co-ordinator said:

When a young person is referred to us, we start by spending some time with them, finding out what skills and interests they have. This won’t be sitting down with a form and ticking boxes: we’ll go out into the community, museums, parks, care homes. We’ll just go together and explore, look at what’s been done and see where they think they might be able to fit.

We usually spend about 10 hours with a young person before their first placement, although sometimes longer is needed. It’s not a one size fits all approach: it needs to be tailored to them and involves a lot of one-to-one work.

The young people get to try placements in several places. developing skills and experience that help them to work out what they are good at, what they want to do going forward— and crucially, they are paid for their time.

The young people receive tailored support depending on what they need and are allowed to go at their own pace with how often they work, what kind of work they do, and what they move on to.

For some this will be moving on to full employment, and for others this will be back into education. But for everyone, it’s a chance to have positive interactions with adults in a workplace and be recognised for their skills and contributions, often for the first time in this way.

A lot of work goes into finding the placements, then working closely with organisations to get the climate right for the young people to come into. Most of that involves building relationships, helping the people at the placements to understand what the young people need and how to connect with them, and helping the young people to build those relationships with the people they’re working with in turn. It also includes other tailored support that is needed, such as travel support, making sure young people can get themselves lunch, and that they have the right clothes for interviews and the workplace.

The Family Firm has been hugely impactful in the lives of the young people. The next steps are seeing how they can identify permanent jobs for young people when they’re ready, and potentially expanding the capacity of the project so they can take on more young people sustainably— with the project already oversubscribed.

Gareth concluded:

As well as the skills and experience that the young people gain, there’s also a huge benefit to the community. A lot of the placements are with charities and community organisations that have things they’d like to do, but which would struggle without this programme.

For instance, at the moment five of our young people are helping to decorate a new creche with bright colours and murals. Not only will this be a great benefit to the community when finished, but every time the young people involved walk past here now, they’ll be able to say to themselves, I helped make that. They’ll know that they are valued, and useful, and people will have told them that.