Children and young people in Care

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	Participation for Children and Young People in Care

Looked after child is a child/young person for who the Local Authority has taken responsibility for placing in some form of accommodation. The Local Authority subsequently has a statutory duty to monitor the young person and support them in this accommodation.

Approximately 60,00 children and young people are looked after by local authorities at any one time, with up to 90,000 young people passing through the care system in any year. Each year around 8,000 young people aged 16 or over leave care.

Children and young people in local authority care are greatly affected by the policies and decisions of the authority as their ‘corporate parent’. Being able to influence those decisions is a fundamental right. Enabling young people in care to work together to create change for themselves and their peers is a crucial role for both local authorities, and third sector organisations working with young people in care. The particular challenges faced by children young people in care can be significant. In 2006, only 12% of young people in care achieved 5 A*-C grades at GCSE level (or equivalent) compared to 59% of all children and children and young people in care are far more likely to miss school or be excluded from school. Over 50% of children in care responding to the Care Matters consultation said that they had difficulties accessing positive activities.

Participation for children and young people in care can range from having a say over their individual circumstances and being able to express one-off views about the quality of provision (for example, through complaints and comments procedures), through to young people collectively campaigning for changes in local authority policy.

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The resources below provide pointers to help organisations working with young people in care to explore ways of building in more opportunities for young people to participate and create real, meaningful and positive change.

Resources

CROA Total Respect Training (Version 2)
Children's Rights Officers and Advocates (CROA) have developed an updated version of the award winning Total Respect training resource for introducing listening, hearing and participation into care settings. The Total Respect training packing is designed to be delivered to front line professionals and managers by young people and adults working in partnership. CROA also offer a range of other training and resource packages for building the capacity of young people, staff and organisations for positive participation.

SCIE: Case studies of participation in social care settings
18 case studies of different forms of participation work. A number explore projects specifically working with young people in care or care leavers.

SCIE: Involving children and young people in developing social care
This online and downloadable guide, designed primarily for managers and practitioners provides a detailed theoretical and practice overview of how a 'whole systems' approach, covering culture, structures, practice and review mechanisms can support the participation of children and young people in social care settings.

CAFCASS: My Needs, Wishes and Feelings
Resource pack developed by the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service to support young people's individual participation in family court settings. With version for young children and older young people.

SCIE: Resource Toolbox
This resource toolbox accompanies the 'Involving children and young people in developing social care' report and case studies from the Social Care Institute for Excellence, and offers references to practical and academic texts to support practitioners developing the participation of young people in social care settings.

Links

A National Voice
A National Voice (ANV) is an independent organisation run for and by young people who are or have been in care. ANV aim to support young people in care to have an individual and collective voice and to ensure young people from care have a say in all decisions that affect them. Their website includes a wealth of information about the services and support they can offer, as well as publications and reports for download.

Children's Rights Director - Reports
The office of the Children's Rights Director is charged with listening to the voice of young people in care across England. These reports share some of the findings from recent research and work with young people about their experiences of the care system.

National Centre for Excellence in Residential Child Care
Participation resources in the practice documents library of the NCB hosted National Centre for Excellence in Residential Child Care.

Practice example: Hear by Right in Richmond
The London Borough of Richmond Upon Thames used the Hear by Right participation standards as part of a widespread consultation, mapping and planning exercise with many of the different groups of young people they work with - including young people in care. The results of the consultation are available on the Hear by Right shared learning website.

RAW4Us -
Example from Bedfordshire of resources directed at young people to promote their individual and collective participation in social care settings. Including information and resources for individuals reviews, and details of wider participation programmes.

Social Care Online: Journal Search
Search Social Care Online for journal articles relating to the participation of children and young people in social care settings.

The Who Cares? Trust
The Who Cares? Trust was established as a charity in 1992 to address the needs of the 60,000 young people in public care in the UK. They work to improve public care for children and young people who are separated from their families and living in residential or foster care.

Voice of the Child in Care
Voice - the working name of 'Voice of the Child in Care' provide advocacy services for young people in care - and have a range of resources designed for practitioners and young people that explain advocacy and young people's rights.

The Government has published its White Paper, ...

Children in Care Speak Out

10% of children in care took part in a consult...

Blog Posts

Children Web Mag: In Care

Participation Works for the Statutory Sector

Participation Works is the key hub for voluntary and community organisations wanting to build their capacity to involve young people in decision making and influencing change in their organisations.

But Participation Works is not only providing support for the voluntary and community sector. Across our online gateway you will find a wealth of resources, news stories and training and development opportunities for statutory sector organisations.

This short tour will give you an overview of some of the things you will find.

Click next to proceed through the tour. You can exit the tour at any time.

About Participation - the rooms

The 'About Participation' section of the gateway is made up of thematic 'rooms' - each packed with useful information and links to resources on that theme.

To make it easy for you to locate resources which were developed in the statutory sector, or which apply across the statutory sector (for example, government policies) we have used this icon:

Resources which may have been developed in the voluntary sector, or which may be particularly relevant to both the statutory and voluntary sector are marked with this icon:

Putting Participation Into Context: Rights

Young people have right to be involved in decisions that affect them. In the rights section you can find out about these rights, and what they mean for government and statutory sector organisations.

Putting Participation Into Context: Policy

International agreement, UK law and government policy places requirements on statutory sector bodies to involve young people in decision making. In the policy section you can explore the legislative and policy foundations for youth participation.

Getting Started: Training Resources

Whether you are just getting started with young people’s participation, or you have established participation work that you want to build upon – good quality training and training resources can play an important role.

The training room includes details of training packages that are available and links to training providers and consultants who can support practical skills building and organisational change for the participation of children and young people.

Getting Started: Training

Participation Works also provides a wide range of training courses directly and through our partner organisations.

Training is free to voluntary sector organisations, and is available to statutory sector organisations for £85 per session.

Hear by Right workshops support organisations to explore the current level of young people’s participation in their work, and to create a sustainable plan for improving youth participation. Hear by Right also explores the importance of participation leading to real change for young people, and includes a focus on practical methods for recording and measuring change.

Ready Steady Change uses an interactive set of training tools to build participants skills and knowledge in increasing children and young people’s participation in decision-making. It approaches participation from a children’s rights framework.

Building a Culture of Participation explores how an organisation’s culture can be established and embedded to support children and young people’s active and meaningful participation within the organisational infrastructure.

Safeguarding in Youth Participation is a one day course that aims to provide delegates with a better insight into safeguarding issues when working with children and young people and on ways to improve and provide a safe environment for children and young people.

You can find a list of upcoming course dates and can book online through the training page.

Getting Into The Details: Resources

Participation Works have produced a wide range of practical How To Guides on participation, as well as a series of publications on young people’s rights and the state of youth participation in the UK.

All these guides are available as free downloads.

Getting Into The Details: Rooms

Participation Works thematic ‘rooms’ of content cover many of the practical issues that children’s trusts, local authorities, government departments and agencies and other statutory sector bodies will come across in building the participation of children and young people in their work.

The standards room focuses on how standards can be used to drive organisational change for young people’s participation.

The measuring change room provides practical tools for seeing what has changed as a result of young people’s involvement.

Participation online explores a range of practical methods for engaging with children and young people through the internet and multi-media methods.

Getting Into The Details: Resources Hub

The Participation Works resource hub is packed full of information and resources from Participation Works partners about how to involve children and young people.

You can search for case studies of participation projects, stories of change, examples of policy and practice, training resources and more.

Keeping Up To Date: News

The Participation Works news service includes regular updates on participation policy and practice.

You can subscribe to received news updates by e-mail and you can browse the extensive news archive to find out about the background of local and national government participation initiatives and action.

Get Networked: PWNE

The Participation Works Network for England is the place where you can find and network with other professionals working on the participation of children and young people.

Once your registration has been approved you can let others know about what you are doing through your profile, and you can search for others with interests similar to your in the Full Member Directory.

The PWNE also has regional networks which run events and convene meetings for local knowledge sharing and learning.

Get More Support: Enquiry Line

Participation Works run a telephone enquiry line set up specially to help sign post you to the information you need.

You can give the enquiry line a call to talk through your needs and to help identify the resources, training and support most relevant to you.