To deliver the best support and services to care leavers we must work alongside young people.
This is the message at the heart of Coram Voice’s final report from the New Belongings programme: The Story of New Belongings. The programme highlights the value of working with care leavers on local solutions that they feel will make the most difference to them.
We realised that services are better for young people when informed by young people's views.
New Belongings participant, local authority dissemination events
The report identifies five cornerstones of this approach that all services could use:
- Co-production
- Senior leadership commitment
- Resources to engage and deliver
- Partnership working
- Peer learning
The New Belongings programme
Over three years, Coram Voice worked with eight local authorities to help them understand the views and experiences of their care leavers and find new ways of making their lives better through co-production. The work was funded by the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation and Segelman Trust.
In an evaluation of the programme, local authorities reported:
- Increased funding.
- Improved relational practice.
- Additional resources for care leavers.
- A greater focus on important issues such as suitable accommodation.
- Better awareness of young people’s views.
- Increased confidence in working together (and development of roles such as Taskforce leaders).
The use of two tools gave the eight authorities a strong evidence base for their work. The Your Life Beyond Care survey (completed by over 1,200 care leavers during the programme) and the leaving care services self-assessment helped local authorities understand how they and their care leavers were doing currently and informed the development of action plans to improve support for care leavers.
The report highlights how co-production and participation is a journey. With the right commitment, professionals and young people can work together to make things better. Although it is not always perfect, continually aiming to bring people together to listen and to act on what you hear is what is important.
Local authority practice examples
In partnership with young people, local authorities developed different ways to support their care leavers. Some examples include:
- Wandsworth developed services to meet the emotional health and wellbeing needs of their young people.
- Stockport introduced Ring doorbells to support young people to feel safer where they lived.
- Oldham developed a group for care experienced young people affected by adoption.
These examples can be found in the Story of New Belongings along with many other examples of local authorities working with care leavers to improve services, including leaving care services, accommodation, emotional health, education, employment and financial support.
Co-production process
Just because you can’t do it as well as you would like to, does not mean you shouldn’t do it at all.
Professor Laura Lundy, Co-Director of the Centre for Children’s Rights and Professor of Children's Rights at Queen’s University, Belfast
This ethos was echoed by Hertfordshire, in their video about their journey to co-production.
The programme developed a triangle of young people’s involvement to reflect the work of the eight local authorities involved. The triangle is divided into five levels of involvement:
- Setting expectations by asking local authorities and senior leaders to set out their commitment to co-production and involving young people from the beginning.
- Young people’s priorities - Work with young people to identify what is important to them through an authority wide survey (Your Life Beyond Care) and by follow up work to identify their priorities for action.
- Working together to develop and deliver action plans with suggested changes.
- Continuously sharing progress with staff, young people and others.
- Staff and young people jointly reviewing progress and developing further plans.
What can you do?
To learn more about New Belongings, you can read the full report, watch a short film on the report findings, and find more practice examples within the Bright Spots Resource Bank.
If you are interested in the Your Life Beyond Care survey or support based on the New Belongings learning, contact Brightspots@coramvoice.org.uk.
Research in Practice resources to support children and care leavers
Learn more about involving children and young people from the following Research in Practice resources:
This briefing provides an overview of the key messages from the Bright Spots Programme. Although it is aimed at strategic leads and senior managers, the contents are of relevance to anyone working with children in care and care leavers.
This video 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.
This practice tool considers the degree to which children can actively take part in decision-making processes that affect their safety and security.
These videos and resources share learning from the Bright Spots programme. They present the views of children in care and care leavers about staying connected to the people who are important to them, and principles and tools for developing practice in this area.
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. We encourage all services that work with care experienced young people to embed participation and co-production in service development.
10,000 voices Bright Spots report: What is important to children and young people in care?
A new report by Bright Spots highlights what children in care have said about what is important to them and their wellbeing.
Supporting young people to stay connected to the people who matter: Video learning resources
These videos and resources share learning from the Bright Spots programme. They present the views of children in care and care leavers about staying connected to the people who are important to them, and principles and tools for developing practice in this area.