Coram Voice response to the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care Report

23 May 22

Coram Voice recognises the report of the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care and welcomes that, at its centre, is the need for urgent reform to meet the needs of children and young people.

We welcome the focus on giving children and young people a genuine voice in their care, through the provision of independent advocacy and by judging the success of the care system by focusing on what matters to children and families.

We know from our Bright Spots work that trusting relationships are key to children and young people’s well-being and we welcome the focus on supporting and building these relationships for all children in care and care leavers.

We await the Government’s response and a timetable for change and encourage children and young people to read the review and let those in power know what you think.

A National Voice, the national children in care council, will continue to champion children and young people’s views in the implementation of the Review’s recommendations.  Do share your thoughts and ideas with us about what you think about the review and what should happen next, so that this can inform our future work. You can do this through social media using the hashtag #ANV or email us directly.

Over the next few days we will read and respond fully to the recommendations, having taken the opportunity to consider how it addresses the issues that children and young people have told us are important to them.

Link to further info:

A National Voice (ANV) announce new ambassadors

10 May 22

Coram Voice have welcomed a new group of ambassadors for A National Voice (ANV), the National Children in Care Council for England.

The 18 ANV Ambassadors aged 16-25 represent England (divided into nine regions) and will come together to work on campaigns, hold events and work to ensure that children in care councils are given a voice.

The new recruits began the year as Ambassadors in March 2022 and have been working on getting to know each other and their role.

To start their year off, the ambassadors wanted to introduce themselves along with what they are looking forward to and hoping to do in the year ahead. Crucially they have also been working on their next campaign, which was chosen as mental health and wellbeing, following a national survey voted for by care experienced child and young people.

The survey was influenced by the Bright Spots survey, which has spoken to over 17,000 children in and leaving care identified four top areas

  • Enable better relationships with family and friends.
  • Help us to have trusted adults.
  • Make us feel safe and settled at home.
  • Support our mental health and wellbeing.

The survey was shared with Children in Care Councils and  on social media for any with ‘mental health and wellbeing’ receiving 42% of the votes.

ANV Ambassadors have also been involved in the Independent Care Review, submitting their ‘what children and young people want to tell the independent care review’ which involved 31 local authorities and over 300 children and young people. The Independent Care Review are due to release their recommendations report in June 2022. In preparation for this, ANV Ambassadors have joined with other children’s charities to plan ‘It’s Our Care day of action’ at the Houses of Parliament on Wednesday 22 June. ANV will join over 100 other care experienced young people to talk to MPs and Minsters about the recommendations and what they would like to see happen next.

ANV Ambassadors would like any children in care councils or individuals to get in contact with them. They can be contacted through ANV@coramvoice.org.uk’

Always Heard Report 2022

30 Mar 22

We have today (30 March 2022) released our Always Heard Report 2022 which gives an overview of how the service has performed in the last year and the barriers faced by children and young people in care who have accessed the service.

We are the only national service that provides the No Child Turned Away advocacy guarantee. Our team has worked incredibly hard to maintain this guarantee throughout last year by:

  • Ensuring every young person who contacts us looking for advocacy gets an advocate. We do this by supporting young people to access their local advocacy service. If young people’s local service cannot help we give them an Always Heard advocate so they get the support they need.
  • Bringing about wider change to the systemic barriers to access to advocacy.
  • Sharing the voice and experience of young people who face barriers to advocacy with their local authorities.
  • Supporting and challenge local authorities to put in place the advocacy service their young people are entitled to.
  • Sharing information about barriers to advocacy with the Department for Education, Ofsted and the Children’s Commissioner to help them address these.

In the last year  we have continued to find that too many young people are being denied the local independent advocacy they are entitled to. We have increased our work with young people on the edges of care denied the support they need. This includes children seeking asylum who are being disbelieved and treated as adults through to children who are homeless.

Despite the challenge of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the difference we made in 2021 includes:

  • Supporting more children and young people to access advocacy from their local advocacy services. Helped these services reach more children and young people.
  • Provided more children and young people with direct Safety Net advocacy.
  • Helping some of the most vulnerable and excluded children get the care and stability they needed.
  • Promoted advocacy and challenged local authorities to focus on the need to have a proper advocacy service in place for the children and young people who need their care.
  • Amplified the voice of children and young people by sharing local authority data and young people’s stories with Ofsted, the Department for Education, and the Children’s Commissioner to help them target local issues and tackle national problems.

READ THE FULL REPORT

Coram Voice are recruiting Independent Visitors

10 Feb 22

Coram Voice are looking for role models to make a difference in young people’s lives.

Our Independent Visitors scheme, matches young people in social care to adults in their community who will be a role model and friend.

Children in care often do not have access to consistent, healthy relationships, with adults who are not paid to be there. An opportunity to talk to someone older, who is not a social worker or part of children’s services, is crucial for their development.

Boys and young men, in particular, often need male role models who are prepared to give up a few hours per month to volunteer to talk and do things such as play football or computer games, or go to the cinema or for a cup of coffee.

We are looking for people who are prepared to give up a small amount of time each month, which can be very flexible, to volunteer and make a positive impact on a young person’s life.

To get involved please contact.

London: IVLondon@coramvoice.org.uk

Manchester:  IVManchester@coramvoice.org.uk

Shropshire: shropshire@coramvoice.org.uk

Swindon:  IVSwindon@coramvoice.org.uk

Stockport: stockport@coramvoice.org.uk

Worcestershire: IVWorcestershire@coramvoice.org.uk

Or call: 020 7833 5792

Coram Voice report finds positive extra measures for care leavers in Covid response

27 Jan 22

In a report released today (27 January 2022), Coram Voice has found that during the Covid pandemic, care leavers well-being did not decline as expected and in some areas improved slightly, suggesting additional support made available at this time made the difference to young people’s lives.

This report is a follow up to our ‘What Makes Life Good?’ report published in 2020 about the views of care leavers on their well-being using responses collected between 2017 and 2019 through the Your Life beyond Care survey. In this report we compare the ‘What Makes Life Good?’ pre-pandemic data from 1,804 care leavers to data from 2,476 care leavers who responded to the survey in the first year of the pandemic (2020-2021).

We asked care leavers aged 16 to 25 the same questions at both time points; about where they lived, feeling safe, financial well-being, and relationship with workers, emotional support, stress, loneliness, overall well-being, and more.

Pre-pandemic we found that, when compared to the general population, a higher proportion of care leavers experienced anxiety, felt lonely, struggled financially, had lower life satisfaction and lacked good friends.

Given the greater challenges care leavers faced we expected that their well-being could have deteriorated further during the pandemic given the additional strain Covid-19 placed on everyone’s lives. However, on most measures we found few differences in care leavers well-being. They experienced similar levels of stress, anxiety, life satisfaction and loneliness as care leavers pre-pandemic. Indeed, the proportion struggling financially and having access to internet at home had decreased. Our own work and research from the University of Bedfordshire has shown that many local authorities put in place additional support for care leavers during this period. There were also national initiatives that supported care leavers including the uplift to Universal Credit and free laptops and internet access for care leavers. There appears to have been a greater focus on well-being and challenges that young people were experiencing during this period, which may have staved off a decline in well-being and accounted for some of these slight improvements.  Care leavers’ own hard-won personal resilience may also explain the improvements.

Trusting and supportive relationships are essential to care leavers well-being and leaving care services play an important role in building these. Half of care leavers reported that their leaving care advisors were a source of emotional support, up from 47% pre pandemic.

“The support given to me recently from Social services has been phenomenal as due to Covid I lost my job and have been struggling to pay my bills ever since… I have little to no work and can’t claim universal credit, so without the help of social services I really don’t know what I would do!” – Care leaver

Head of Policy and Practice Development, Linda Briheim-Crookall says: “This report shows that challenging times do not inevitably lead to a decline in well-being for care leavers. Investment in support can start to chip away at the gap between care leavers and their peers.  It is now all the more imperative that the gains made during the pandemic are not lost. We need to explore further and share the practice that makes care leavers lives better. With the independent review of children’s social care

“We also need to recognise that many of the challenges that were there before the pandemic are still there and it continues to be imperative to recognise and address them.”

“While the pandemic has highlighted the strengths of local authorities and practitioners in responding to the needs of care leavers in challenging times, the report also shows that local authorities and practitioners need to continue to be proactive in contacting care leavers and responding to their needs, offering financial and digital support and keeping in touch more frequently and in different ways in order to secure a long term impact.”

READ THE FULL REPORT