Well-being among children in state care

Research presentation by Professor Julie Selwyn (Oxford) and Linda Briheim-Crookall (Coram Voice) delivered under the title ‘The Subjective Wellbeing of Children in Care of the State’ as part of Breakout Session #4: Wellbeing in education, at the inaugural Wellbeing Research and Policy Conference in 2022.

The Wellbeing Research and Policy Conference, led by the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford, brought together scholars and policymakers to discuss the latest research, insights, and developments in the field of wellbeing science.

The conference was held over three days at the Sultan Nazrin Shah Centre in Worcester College, University of Oxford, in July 2022.

Exploring local authority variation in looked after young people’s subjective wellbeing

A purple icon of a house and two people demonstrating 'subjective well-being'
A purple icon of a house and two people demonstrating 'subjective well-being'

Ellie Suh and Julie Selwyn

British Journal of Social Work (2022)

There has been growing interest in the Local Authority (LA) variation in rates of admission to care and provision of services but less is known about whether young people’s experience of care varies by LA.

Using survey data from 4,994 looked after young people (aged eleven to eighteen years) from thirty-six English LAs, the analyses focused on LA variation in their subjective well-being.

There was a statistically small LA variation in young people’s responses to individual survey questions except for a question that asked if young people felt they had a trusted adult in their lives. Between 66 per cent and 100 per cent of young people had a trusted adult depending on the LA caring for them.

Positively associated with overall well-being were, being looked after by a non-London LA, a longer length of time in care, fewer placement moves, children’s positive perceptions of a reciprocal trusting relationship with their carer, having a good friend and being male.

Counter-intuitively, LAs with an outstanding or good Ofsted social care or education judgement were associated with a higher proportion of their young people having low well-being.

Read the full article

What matters to children in care and care leavers’ well-being

This webinar, hosted by Research in Practice and hosted by the Bright Spots team, shares key learning from the Bright Spots programme so that professionals can better support children in care and care leavers.

    • The key well-being indicators that are important for children and young people in care and care leavers.
    • The factors that are associated with very high well-being and low well-being for children and young people in care and care leavers.
    • The changes local authorities who have taken part in the Bright Spots programme have made.
Watch the webinar

The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on care leavers’ well-being

Anita Chandra, Sarah Taylor, Sam Shorto, Vanessa Patel, Lizzie Gilbert

Coram Impact and Evaluation Team

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 pre-pandemic data collected between 2017 and 2019 through the Your Life Beyond Care survey. In this follow-up report, we compare the ‘What Makes Life Good?’ pre-pandemic data from 1,804 care leavers to data from 2,476 care leavers in 2020 to
2021, since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.

This has allowed us to identify priority areas that have emerged recently. We asked care leavers aged 16 to 25 the same questions at both time points; about their living arrangements and safety, financial well-being, relationship with care workers, emotional support, stress, loneliness, overall well-being, and more.

The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on care leavers’ well-being

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Dissemination of Bright Spots survey findings

Why?

Sheffield city council were keen to maximize the impact of the Bright Spots findings with a focus on individual reflection and collective action across the service. Due to Covid-19 an in-person event was not possible so the council worked with Coram Voice to design online events.

Sheffield: Dissemination of Bright Spots survey findings

What did they do?

Sheffield wanted all of their workforce to hear the findings from their children in care and have space to reflect on what this meant for their practice. A two-part dissemination session was developed for all those working with children in care e.g. children social workers, IRO, Personal Advisers, designated teachers, foster carers and associated team managers etc. The expectation was that delegates attended both sessions.

  • Session 1 – opportunity to hear the findings and use the reflection sheet to think about own practice and actions in response to how children were feeling (July 2021)
  • Discussion held in-between sessions – teams were encouraged to review the findings in relation to their own work and commit to changes based on how their children were feeling
  • Session 2 – representatives from different services presented their collective actions and commitments (Sept 2021)
  • Ideas from the session informed the development of the Corporate parenting plan

Over 70 people attended the event.

Sheffield: Dissemination of Bright Spots survey findings

What difference is it making?

Each service has committed to a range of actions to progress in the coming year linked to the Bright Spots findings . Progress against the individual actions is rigorously challenged by the young person’s reverse scrutiny panel, and by the Corporate Parenting Board.  The young people (on the panel) also offer advice and consultation direct to Service Managers.

Regular sharing and linking meetings are held where each service manager updates on what they are doing to ensure synergy and identify opportunities for services to work together on actions.