We realised that services are better for young people when they are informed by young people’s views…

New Belongings Programme participant

Over 3 years Coram Voice worked with 8 local authorities, from Dorset in the South to North Tyneside in the North, to help them understand the views and experiences of their young people and find new ways of making their lives better through co-production.

The authorities developed lots of different ways to support care leavers which you can read about in The Story of New Belongings report. We want these examples to inspire you to go on your own co-production journey.

Whilst there were many great ideas we do not want other local authorities to see these as off the peg solutions to just pick up and roll out in their local areas.

The important lesson from New Belongings is that the value comes from working with young people locally to develop solutions that they feel will make the most difference to them.

Not only does this identify the changes that are relevant to care leavers in their particular area, but the process itself has benefits for the young people participating.

The report explores the cornerstones that made the New Belongings approach successful:

1. Co-production

2. Senior leadership commitment

3. Resources to engage and deliver

4. Partnership working

5. Peer learning

As well as the key tools we used to support this work (the Your Life Beyond Care survey & self-assessment). They helped local authorities understand how they and their care leavers were doing at the beginning and end of the programme and informed the development of action plans to improve support for care leavers.

An image with a triangle table showing the co-production process for New Belongings

Listening and acting on young people’s voices should be at the heart of children’s social care. With this report we encourage all services that work with care experienced young people to embed participation and co-production in service development.

Download The Story of New Belongings report

Full research report

Explore individual chapters below:

 

Find out more

[The data] really drove things, for example with the housing. There were things being thought about, but it helped push things over the line, because the evidence was there for what we were doing, rather than it seems like a good idea… the survey really helped, that was one of the key things.

We had a really good response rate in the first survey, of care leavers responding to that, it’s harder to argue with that when several hundred care leavers say they need support with that…

Local authority lead