Welcome to the Friendship Project’s Resources. We designed them to help everyone in the ‘care system’ better understand the importance of friendship, and give them practical ideas and strategies for the best ways to support friendship. Whilst large scale changes in policy can make a difference, we also learned through this project that the small things really do matter. We hope these resources will offer insight and ideas that can inspire you and influence your daily interactions.

NEW The Friendship Anthology

A tough life needs a tough language – and that is what poetry is.

The Friendship Anthology is a powerful ‘finding place’ where care experienced artists explore what friendship means - its joys, its losses, its challenges, and its deep importance in our lives.

It brings together creative work from people who know what it’s like to move through the care system. Their voices - poetic, visual, reflective - speak to the universal human need for friendship: to be understood, supported, defended, and celebrated.

The anthology grew from the Transforming Friendship Focused Support Project. Across this project, we found talking about friendship connects us, whatever our backgrounds and experiences. These themes resonate in every page of the anthology.

Inside the collection, you’ll find:

• Submissions from an open call issued in summer 2025
• Four moving poems first published in Take A Walk In My Shoes by the #Shetland Crew, created through the Home and Belonging Project (UHI Shetland and Who Cares? Scotland)
• Generous contributions from acclaimed writers Jackie Kay and Louise Wallwein

Together, these works reveal the strength, empathy and loyalty that care experienced people bring to friendship - often in the face of great obstacles.

Friendships are a source of care, love and hope for people of all ages. Yet the experience of being in care can make sustaining friendships harder than it should be. By sharing and celebrating the creativity in this anthology, we take a step toward changing that, together.

Reports

The Theory and Practice Guide comes from a research collaboration between care-experienced people, practitioners and academics on the Transforming Friendship .Together, we aimed to explore care experienced peoples experiences of friendship in Scotland, asking what challenges or supports those experiences of friendship, and how friendship might be better recognised and supported in both policy and practice. This is an offering of theories, reflective prompts, and practical resources developed from the findings of the project. It has been designed to help practitioners working with children and young people in care to consider how they can support friendships more intentionally in their practice.

Supporting Friendship: Theories and Research to Support Practice

You can access Jamie Campbell and Ruth Emond’s report based on their research, which explores the experiences of students with care experience at Scottish Universities in relation to friendships.

Care Experienced Students and Friendship-Building in Scottish Universities

Guides

The following guides provide information and advice from Llana and Jordan who were part of the Friendship Project Team, based on their lived experiences.

Advice from those who know: Care experience, the online world and friendship

Llana’s tips for support: Friendship, ADHD and care experience

Case studies

The Friendship Project Team have produced a number of case studies based on their discussions with different service providers and projects who provide friendship focused support. You can find out more about what they do and their key messages below.

Carefree Cornwall

East Renfrewshire: Youth Intensive Support Service

The Hub for Success: We Care Fest

Harmeny School

The National House Project: Living Connected and Fulfilling Lives

Staf

The Why Not? Trust

Other resources

Here you can explore some of the creative activities and games we used and discussed on the Transforming Friendship Focused Support project. These can be used with children and young people and teams.

Creative resources for talking about friendship

This beautiful comic book was created by Daphne Mcclellan with the support of Niamh McCrossan at the Hub for Success. It is based on the voices of people with lived experience of the care system in Scotland. Its aim is to guide better practice across Scotland for care experienced people, by encouraging us all to think about enablers and barriers to friendship. It has different visual scenarios, featuring ‘Sky’ which is represented with familiar toys and objects and a series of activities and questions to support discussions

Sky's Stories comic book - young people

Sky's Stories comic book - practitioners