Leaving care workers celebrate successes with individual young people, positive achievements are highlighted in team meetings and an annual awards ceremony all contribute to a culture of celebrating success.

Why?

Care leavers who were involved in developing the Your Life Beyond Care survey stressed how important it was to know that they had people in their lives who encouraged them, believed in them and were there for them in both “good and dark times”.

What?

Coventry have placed great importance on developing a culture across the local authority of celebrating the success of its care leavers. Leaving care workers celebrate with individual young people; meals out together, cards and gifts in recognition of achievements are all common place. The importance of this is supported by having a team budget to cover this expenditure and workers having access to purchase cards to enable spontaneity and reduce unnecessary admin time.

Recognizing success is a central part of team meeting: using the sign of safety model and a strengths based approach workers are encouraged at the start of team meetings to share examples of their young people’s successes, good news stories and talk about why they are proud of them.

There is also a strong emphasis on Corporate Parents recognizing achievements. The wider community have been invited to show their support to Coventry’s care leavers. One example of this is through the annual awards event for care leavers – local businesses can sponsor different awards. Judging of the different awards is now no longer done by Children services staff but by the sponsors. When nominating their young people for an award the worker has to capture young people’s success and describe any obstacles they have overcome in reaching their goals.

Corporate sponsorship has helped promote a wider awareness of care leavers with offers of apprenticeships and companies being urged to become ‘fostering friendly’ work places.

Like any parent, we have big aspirations for our children and young people and are immensely proud of their incredible achievements. This is why we bring young people, carers, support staff and organisations together to celebrate them.

 

Council worker
Impact

Results from the Your Life Beyond Care survey showed that compared to care leavers (87%) in other local authorities, more care leavers in Coventry (92%) felt they have someone in their lives who told them when they had done well. This was a Bright Spot of practice.