Scotland: The Personal Plan

Scotland: The Personal Plan

Every child at a Scottish setting needs a Personal Plan — a statutory Care Inspectorate document covering their needs, the support you've agreed to provide, and their well-being goals, co-signed by you and the parent and reviewed at least once every 180 days. It's a different thing from the one-off registration signature mentioned in the Family Onboarding Link guide — that's a single acknowledgement collected once during onboarding, whereas the Personal Plan is a living document you and the parent revisit and re-sign every six months for as long as the child is in your care.

Where to Find It

The Personal Plan lives on the Reports & Analytics screen:

1. Go to the Tools tab
2. Tap Reports & Analytics
3. Tap the Personal Plan card

You can also open it directly from a child's own record: on their profile, open the GIRFEC tab and tap the Personal Plan banner — it shows whether a plan is due for creation or review. If a plan is overdue, a Statutory Timers card on the child's Journey Overview links straight there too, so you're never relying on remembering the date yourself.

Creating or Reviewing a Plan

If you weren't already on a specific child's record, select them from the child picker first. From there:

1. Professional Judgement — mark the review as good progress, a focus area, or needing targeted support.
2. Child's Needs — describe their current needs across health, care, development, and relationships.
3. Agreed Support — what support you'll provide and how care is tailored to this child.
4. Possible Developmental Goals — key goals for this review period, aligned to the SHANARRI wellbeing indicators.
5. Private Note (optional) — for anything you want on record for yourself or a co-childminder but never shown to the parent.
6. Toggle Signed by Childminder to confirm the plan accurately reflects the child's needs, then tap Save Personal Plan.

The SHANARRI Framework

Your developmental goals should map to Scotland's SHANARRI wellbeing indicators — the same eight-indicator framework used in the 27-30 Month Health Visitor Report: Safe, Healthy, Achieving, Nurtured, Active, Respected, Responsible, Included. Writing goals against these indicators, rather than as a generic list, is what makes the plan legible to an inspector as GIRFEC-aligned practice rather than just a set of personal notes.

Getting the Parent's Co-Signature

Saving the plan doesn't complete it on its own — a parent has to review and co-sign it too. Once you save, it appears in their Parent App for them to read and sign digitally; the Signing the Personal Plan guide covers exactly what they see. Until they've signed, the plan shows as Awaiting Signature; once they have, it updates to Co-signed via Parent Portal with the date, and the plan is marked complete.

Review Cycle & Retention Lock

Saving a fully co-signed plan resets the 180-day review countdown — you'll see the next review date on the child's Personal Plan history. Past plans stay listed with their creation and review-due dates, with overdue reviews flagged in red.