Why is Ask Me What Matters needed?
The Bright Spots Programme shows how valuable it is to ask children in care and care leavers about their well-being. However, Bright Spots data is collected anonymously and only at population level, which means that it only highlights trends and doesn’t help adults to respond to each child in real time.
This leaves a gap: children’s voices are heard in surveys, but not always in their everyday care.
Thanks to funding from the Hadley Trust, Ask Me What Matters (AMWM) aims to remove this gap. It ensures children and young people’s voices are gathered regularly, recognised, and used to shape the support they receive.
We have been working hard to embed subjective well-being into everyday practice and recording systems. This helps practitioners and leaders to act quickly and effectively, ensuring services truly respond to what matters most to children in care and care leavers.
AMWM is guided by three core principles:
1. No voice without action – Change will be based on what children and young people say matters most to them.
2. Co-production – AMWM works with local authorities to co-produce improvements with children and young people.
3. Change to practice at every level – From individual support to strategic decision-making.
Who’s involved?
Local authorities who had run the Bright Spots surveys within the last three years were invited to apply to this pilot project. They needed a proven track record of using children’s voices to improve practice and services.
After applications and interviews, four local authorities were selected to take part in AMWM:
- Coventry
- Dorset
- St. Helens
- Surrey
Progress So Far
Phase one: Mapping and scoping
Coram Voice supported local authorities to work alongside their children and young people to discuss and prioritise which well-being areas matter most to young people, and which should be embedded into everyday systems. The focus was on mapping current recording tools, exploring how the chosen well-being questions could be integrated into everyday practice and processes like care plans or pathway plans, and engaging staff and young people to shape the changes.
Phase two: Embedding well-being priorities
Each local authority co-produced a bespoke action plan with children and young people to embed the agreed well-being areas into everyday conversations and systems. Plans included IT and case management changes. Young people developed guidance for staff on how they would like to be asked questions.
Phase three: Informing practice
Local authorities are now starting to use AMWM to make sure children’s voices are part of everyday decisions. Children and young people have helped create AMWM guides, training, peer learning, and films explaining why the well-being areas they chose matter.
Workers are receiving training and tools to help them ask the right questions, record children’s answers and act on them. IT and recording systems are being adapted and starting to record data.
What else have we been doing?
- Regular learning sets bringing colleagues from the four local authorities together.
- A day in London with young people from different areas to share experiences and learning.
- A strategic advisory group (academics, local authority representatives and care-experienced consultants) guiding the work.
What’s next?
We are learning as we go along – so check back here for updates. Case studies, webinars and resources will be released in late Spring 2026.
To keep up-to-date with the project, sign up for the Coram Voice newsletter here.