Ask Me What Matters: St Helens’ story

Why did St Helens decide to develop Ask Me What Matters locally?

St Helens see Ask Me What Matters (AMWM) as a core part of their strategic commitment to care‑experienced children and young people. Leaders view the project as a way to deepen child‑friendly practice and gain richer, real‑time insight into how their children feel they are doing. Building on their strong Bright Spots track record, AMWM offers a way to understand individual experiences more closely. It aligns with St Helens’ ambition for every young person to have strong, loving relationships and is part of the way they can monitor progress towards this vision.

How have St Helens involved children and young people?

More than 30 children in care and care leavers took part through the Inner Spark Outer Voice (ISOV) group, reviewing local Bright Spots findings and shaping the well-being indicators and questions. Using a Coram Voice toolkit, they explored what matters to them, identified gaps, and directly influenced the design, tone and priorities of the local AMWM approach.

What question areas have been chosen?

Children have been instrumental in selecting the areas, each time outlining their rationale as to why the area is important and offering pointers on how and why the area is important. For example, in relation to asking about feeling safe, children emphasised the myriad reasons that may sit behind how a child answers this: it may be they do not feel safe in an area due to drugs or crime; or they don’t feel safe as they have just moved into their new home or because there is shouting in the house. Young people thought some of the AMWM questions and subsequent conversations could be something explored in visits to check in with children. They wanted to make sure workers see the child on their own.

Young people from St Helen’s made a film explaining why the changes AMWM brings are important, and this has been shared with staff.

After much debate, St Helens selected 16 questions to pilot in everyday practice. Some mirror Bright Spots indicators, such as asking whether young people spend time with people who matter to them or whether they understand why they are in care. Others were added directly by children, including questions about building trust, trying new things and identifying changes they want to see in their lives.

How is it working in practice?

After the initial mapping stage, St Helens moved into implementation, guided by children’s input. Young people emphasised that AMWM must keep trust at its core and remain flexible and conversational, with the focus on what matters to the child rather than procedural compliance. The approach is now part of the induction for new workers and ongoing training delivered with young people (“In Our Shoes”).

Project work has included developing an action plan, working with data and IT colleagues to embed the questions into the case management system, and creating youth‑led guidance explaining the purpose of AMWM and how staff should use it.

An AMWM statutory visit template and a parallel child‑friendly visual tool sit alongside the professional guidance. The children’s visual tool has space for young people to capture their views and feelings in their own words. The emphasis is firmly on relationships: ensuring the right trusted adult has regular, meaningful conversations with each child, shaped by their individual needs. Guidance emphasises that the tool belongs to the child, and updating it regularly should reduce the need for them to retell their story; something they have consistently said matters. System guidance reinforces that the tool is adaptable, child‑led and can be supported by any trusted adult.

Social workers (from Children We Look After Teams), senior leaders and managers have received ‘In Our Shoes’ training, and elected members are due to be trained soon too. Training was co-designed and delivered by care-experienced young people and includes information about AMWM.

There have also been visits to the family help and protection managers’ meeting, adoption team meeting, children we look after team meetings and a development day for family help and protection social workers to support them to understand and embed AMWM practice.

Initial feedback from workers is broadly positive. Staff have reflected on the value of the AMWM tool in capturing the child’s voice, supporting relationship‑based practice and informing planning and reviews, as well as practical challenges linked to its length, frequency of completion, and suitability for all age groups and needs.

Overall, the AMWM tools were viewed as potentially powerful and strengths‑based when used flexibly and proportionately, as an ongoing record rather than a rigid visit template.

What’s next for St Helens and Ask Me What Matters?

Since going live, many children and young people have completed the AMWM tool, supporting more consistent recording. Insights gathered are qualitative, and St Helens are following their work plan of regular deep‑dive reviews to identify emerging themes along with the roll out of their new practice standards and co-produced training. There have been challenges in working out how best to measure impact, ensuring consistency and improving data interpretation.

Ultimately, St Helens want to see improved quality of conversations, deeper understanding of children’s experiences and a stronger focus on relationships and wellbeing from the child’s perspective. They want to hear directly from children and the workforce about how these approaches are being experienced and whether practice behaviours are shifting.

Strategically, the aim is to embed children’s insights across local authority planning, moving AMWM from a stand‑alone initiative to a whole‑system shift towards more relational, child‑led practice. The St Helens AMWM model shows that meaningful change comes from: listening to children properly; embedding their voices in everyday practice and supporting practitioners to work relationally.

The focus now moves from implementation to demonstrating impact, sustaining change and adapting the approach in response to learning, always in partnership with children and young people.