New Belongings baseline evaluation report published

26 Aug 21

Last week Coram Impact and Evaluation team published the independent baseline evaluation report from our New Belongings programme.

New Belongings is a three-year programme being delivered by Coram Voice. The programme works with eight local authorities in England, supporting them to engage care leavers in service improvements using a co-production approach. With funding from the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and the Segelman Trust the programme began in July 2019 and will run until July 2022.

Using a range of tools such as the Baker and Dixon self-assessment for local authorities and the Your Life Beyond Care survey for care leavers, this evaluation report provides a baseline assessment of the starting point for the eight participating local authorities. 1,258 young people completed the survey mostly during March-May 2020.

These tools will be administered again in spring 2022, allowing pre- and post- data to be compared, which will enable the final evaluation report to describe any changes the New Belongings approach contributes to improving services for care leavers in participating local authorities.

The New Belongings baseline report gives us some interesting insight into how young people felt during the beginning of the pandemic and some a key message about their lives as care leavers.

  • High levels of anxiety, loneliness, low life satisfaction and lack of close friendship were as common among care leavers during this period as before the pandemic, but did not increase.
  • A higher proportion in our sample felt able to cope financially and reported lower levels of stress than a pre-pandemic group of care leavers.
  • Access to the internet and being able to afford smart phones also increased.

The leaving care support in the local authorities involved in New Belongings had been assessed as good or outstanding in six of the eight local authorities, with the other two judged as requires improvement.  The Baker-Dixon self-assessment mirrored Ofsted findings with those judged outstanding scoring themselves highest and those requiring improvement scoring themselves the lowest. Yet all the local authorities felt their services were ok or better. Despite this a significant proportion of care leavers in these local authorities were still struggling:

  • 32% of them did not feel safe where they lived
  • 29% felt unable to control the important things in their lives and
  • 21% felt lonely often or always

The findings shows the need for continuous improvement in leaving care services with a renewed focus on the issues that care leavers report are important to them. It could also indicate that some of the additional support introduced during the first lockdown had a positive impact on care leavers lives.

Read the full report

The Independent Review of Children’s Social Care Initial Responses

25 Aug 21

Following the release of the Case for Change produced by the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care, our A National Voice Ambassadors developed workshop materials that were used by Children in Care Councils and participation teams from across the country.

The materials were used to run sessions and holding conversations with their care experienced young people to give them a voice in the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care.

We want to say a huge thank you to all the young people that have shared their thoughts, feelings and hopes for the future as well as the great staff who have supported them to participate and have their voices heard.

We received so many comments, pictures and responses that we are currently collating and we have met with members of the review team to feedback your words. We are busy working on a full report that gives a little more detail about what you have all been saying and the picture across England.

Some of the key themes included:

Care is…?

Young people were asked to respond to answer the question Care is…?

We have grouped these into broadly positive/broadly negative and have created these weighted word clouds to illustrate the responses.

Postcode Lottery

Having a group of ambassadors from across England in the room, looking at responses from an even wider group of young people, really highlighted the lottery of services young people have to deal with and how different young people’s experience of care can be.

We even discovered that within the group, twin sisters in the care of the same authority had experienced such a huge difference in services, staff support and financial support.

A system not designed for children and young people

Another emerging theme from the responses across the country highlighted how much of the social care system is designed to meet the needs of the adults, local authorities, government (and sometimes computer systems or processes) rather than the young people within it.

We will be looking in more detail at the comments and responses around this as well as the suggestions young people have to change these, some of the key areas we will be focussing on are:

  • Staying Put – Overwhelmingly young people don’t know about it.
  • Complaints – The process is too long, not transparent, not designed for young people. Should there be a national body/national reporting of complaints? Timescales are too long for young people needing change.
  • Advocacy – Many don’t know about it or don’t know how to access it. Should advocacy be an opt out service so all young people know about it?
  • Meetings – There’s lots of meetings in young people’s lives and mixed messages are given to young people, (treated as a child yet given adult sized tasks).
  • Notes/Recordings/Records/Language – Words that we should never see/hear, Problematic words (ask us), Delays in accessing records, too much redaction, too many acronyms.
  • Delegated Responsibility/Red tape – Sleepovers, Tech Access,
  • Staff – Staff are time poor and overstretched, No time for relationship building, too much staff turnover.

Next steps

This is just a sample of some of the conversations we had. We are still combing through the hundreds of responses from children and young people so may not have captured everything here fully, but our A National Voice ambassadors are working hard to ensure everyone’s views are heard loud and clear by the care review.

We will continue to feed back to the team and you as we build our report.

If you have taken part in a workshop and haven’t fed back your results yet, please do so as soon as possible by emailing ANV@Coramvoice.org.uk.

We won’t be able to include any new feedback in the report that the ANV Ambassadors are producing, but we will pass on any workshop feedback and responses we receive before the end of the month, directly to the Care review team.

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

17 Aug 21

Coram Voice has today (17th August 2021) published our organisational response to the Independent Review for Children’s Social Care’s Case for Change.

The response draws on our work to give children and young people a voice in their care. Through the Bright Spots programme we have gathered their opinions on everything from frontline advocacy to research and practice improvement. Coram Voice has also been working with the Review team to give children and young people the opportunity to feed into the Review through A National Voice, the National Children in Care Council. Their views are being collated by our A National Voice ambassadors and will be published and shared with the Review team separately.

Coram Voice organisational response to the Case for Change focuses on the important role of independent advocacy in improving children’s services. It also draws on the learning from the Bright Spots Programme and what the over 15,000 children and young people who participated have reported makes their lives good.

The Review asks the core question of us all, what the purpose of children’s social care should be. We believe that the aim must be to make the lives of care experienced children and young people better, by focusing on the issues that matter most to them. To do this we need to ensure that their voices are at the heart of the care system, and as our response highlights, independent advocacy is an important part of making sure that this happens.

Download and read Coram Voice response to the Case for Change

Voices 2021 winners revealed at virtual ceremony hosted by Peter Capaldi

15 Jul 21

Last night (Wednesday 14 July), Coram Voice announced the winners of Voices 2021, its sixth annual national creative writing competition for children in care and young care leavers, sponsored by UK management consultancy Cadence Innova.

The awards ceremony took place online again this year due to ongoing pandemic restrictions and were hosted by award-winning actor Peter Capaldi, and Voices 2019 winner Sophia Alexandra Hall.

The awards, which were broadcast on the Coram Voice YouTube channel, featured members of this year’s judging panel including children’s authors Abi Elphinstone and Cynthia Murphy, novelist Kirsty Capes and the poet Joelle Taylor, alongside the young writers reading their winning pieces.

Peter Capaldi, a long-standing supporter of the competition, said: “It is an honour to host the Voices awards ceremony again this year. The competition is a fantastic opportunity to showcase the creativity and talent of care-experienced young people and builds greater understanding around their lives and experiences.”

This year’s competition received over 250 entries on the theme of ‘What Makes Life Good’ submitted from across the country. Just 24 of these were shortlisted, with winners announced across four age categories: primary (age 4-10), lower secondary (age 11-14), upper secondary (age 15-17) and care leavers (age 18-25).

The Voices 2021 winners are:

Winner of the Primary category: ‘What Makes Life Good’ by Jessica, age 10

Judges Em Norry and Alan Dapre said: “This piece buzzes with high energy and made us smile. There was obviously a cheeky, fun personality behind these words. It has upbeat verses that clearly express many positive situations, actions and relationships in this writer’s life.”

Winner of the Lower Secondary category: ‘My Family’ by Cody, age 14

Judges Abi Elphinstone and Cynthia Murphy said: “There are some truly heart-warming images here. We loved the contemplative nature of the phrase: ‘I see the same moon every night, it is always the same, it always looks different’ and the openness and variety of the travelling life. This piece beautifully stirs up memories, hopes and dreams.”

Winner of the Upper Secondary category: ‘Keys’ by Claire, age 17

Judges Christel Dee and Callen Martin said: “Thank you so much for sharing this personal and touching story with us. Your words had us gripped from the start.”

Winner of the Care Leaver category: ‘Happiness in Dark Places’ by Carla, age 20

Judges Kirsty Capes and Joelle Taylor said: “The poem is so evocative, so heart-breaking in its rendering of the mundanities of life and the grief over a lost relationship. We particularly loved the small details in this poem: the poorly cut mangoes, the NCIS box set and dressing gowns. The ‘P.S.’ of the last line was such a hopeful way to end.”

Brigid Robinson, Managing Director of Coram Voice, said: “The uncertainty and disruption of the pandemic has made the past year incredibly challenging for many children and young people in and leaving the care system. But reading the competition entries, we have been so inspired by the stories and poems that show how children and young people are using their strength and creativity to deal with these difficult experiences. Their motivation and resilience is an inspiration to all.”

Read the winning and shortlisted pieces 

Watch the Voices 2021 awards event 

Voices 2021 all you need to know

13 Jul 21

Coram Voice will celebrate the Voices 2021 awards tomorrow (14 July 2021) with a virtual ceremony on our YouTube Channel.  

Voices is our national creative writing competition for children in care and young care leavers, this years theme was “What Makes Life Good“.

The ceremony will be open for everyone to watch and streamed on the Coram Voice YouTube channel from 5.00pm on 14 July and will be co-hosted by award-winning Scottish actor and former Doctor Who star Peter Capaldi, a long-standing supporter of the competition, and Voices 2019 winner Sophia Alexandra Hall.

We will also feature members of the competition judging panel announcing this year’s winners, including the children’s authors Abi Elphinstone and Cynthia Murphy, novelist Kirsty Capes and the poet Joelle Tay.

Be sure to join us for an excellent night of creative writing and celebrating the writing of care experienced children and young people.

Voices 2021 Info

Voices winners 2021 

Download the PDF of all the Voices 2021 shortlist entries and winners