ALLIANCE Live interview with Linda Jardine, Director of Children & Family Services at Children 1st

Find out how children and families have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“To meet the needs of children to be safe and  nurtured, we need to tend to the needs and resources that parents have and make sure they are adequate to enable them to meet the needs of their children and keep them safe in their families, wherever possible.”

Linda discussed how families and children had been coping with COVID-19, how Children 1st has adapted their services to the pandemic and how they are planning for the future.

You can read more about this on Children’s 1st website (this link will take you away from our website), and learn more about the different services mentioned in the interview: Kitbag (this link will take you away from our website), Moneyworries (this link will take you away from our website) and Parentline (08000 28 22 33) (this link will take you away from our website).

You can watch the full interview by visiting the 

Time stamps:

• 0 min 57s – Linda Jardine discusses her background, and what has driven her to work for Children 1st
• 3 mins 21s – Linda Jardine explains what Children 1st does, what kind of services it provides locally, regionally and nationally, and for who
• 5 mins 32 – Linda Jardine talks about the main issues, from the perspective of Children 1st, that children and families have faced during the pandemic
• 11 mins 55 – Linda Jardine goes through what has changed, and what has not, in the way Children 1st provide their services during the pandemic
• 18 mins 57 – Linda Jardine discusses Parentline, and what has changed in the number and type of calls received to the service
• 23 mins 50 – After having talked about what Children 1st has done during COVID-19, Linda Jardine touches upon the subject of the aftermath and planning for the future
• 31 mins 07 – Linda Jardine tackles what the pandemic has shown about the role of the third sector in supporting children and families
• 35 mins 05 – Linda Jardine answers a question about multi-agency working: despite all the challenges, there’s also been opportunities for multi-agency working. Looking to the future, can Children 1st collaborate with speech and language therapy services in sharing accessible information with families, to get the most from positive play and interaction opportunities at home; and would a named link of language therapy services for universal target support in each region be helpful in order to respond to local needs and services?

ALLIANCE Live highlights emerging issues, examples of good practice and innovation taking place within health and social care in Scotland.

End of page.