Coram Impact Report 2022/23

Impact Report

2.3 MILLION CHILDREN IN THE UK LIVE WITH RISK

141,113 CHILDREN & CARERS SUPPORTED DIRECTLY

3,225,982 DIGITAL REACH & ADVICE

574,000 CHILDREN REACHED THROUGH SCHOOLS

Better chances for children, now and forever

The pandemic has left a generational impact in its wake, exacerbating existing trends, which were already seeing the lives of too many children and young people blighted by trauma, poverty and neglect.

As we continue to get to grips with the learning loss resulting from extended school closures, the cost of living crisis is now placing even greater strain on families.

All this is taking place against the backdrop of a digital world that is bringing new opportunities but also new risks to children’s safety, learning and identity.

The Coram Group works tirelessly to create better chances for hundreds of thousands of children and young people today through our schools programmes, our legal support and advocacy and best practice support for professionals. We work to change the odds for the next generation through our research and policy recommendations and make this report against the seven strategic outcomes we aim to deliver for children and young people.

Every day we work to give children a fair chance in life, providing in-person, phone and online advice to thousands of families every year who could not otherwise access legal support.

As the number of children in care reaches an all-time high, we continue to secure a loving home for children waiting for adoption, in the year we celebrate 50 years of Coram Adoption.

We ensure that children and young people in care have a voice that’s heard, placing their views on how the care system needs reforming at the heart of the national debate as the government responded to the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care.

We enable care-experienced young people to tell their stories and explore the story of care through our Voices Through Time programme, and the world’s biggest youth drama festival gave children across the country a chance to shine

Combining our expertise as the leading charity provider of health and relationships education, we provide volunteer reading support for children, we develop children’s skills for the future, and were proud to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Coram Beanstalk with a visit by our Patron, Her Majesty The Queen.

Children and young people deserve the best quality services no matter where they live, and we work with local authorities and partners to develop better solutions for children’s social care services across the UK. Coram International worked with 42 different countries to protect and improve the rights of children and young people.

To build a society that cares, we provide key reports and policy development on everything from childcare reform and free school meals in primary school to achieving a humane migration system for young people fleeing persecution, and much more.

This year we announced new partnerships with Newcastle University and the Churchill Fellowship, as we develop the Coram Institute for the Future of Children, turning insight into impact to meet the changing needs of children and young people, now and forever.

Inspired by our founder Thomas Coram and the children who need us, and with the help of the many generous trusts, companies and individuals who support us, we shall not rest until every child has the best possible chance in life.

Dr Carol Homden, Chief Executive Officer

Sir David Bell, President and Chairman

“The true character of society is revealed in how it treats its children”

– Nelson Mandela

A fair chance in life

Coram Children’s Legal Centre

is the country’s leading provider of specialist legal support for children and young people, championing children’s access to justice across family, education, community care and immigration law.

Legal advice and information

The Legal Practice was recognised with 29 points of excellence in its LEXCEL audits and increased its case volume by 12%. The Child Law Advice Service (childlawadvice.org.uk) this year supported two million downloads of its legal information on family and education matters whilst lawstuff.org.uk resources, designed to enable young people to understand their rights, reached 211,000 users.

The service gave personal case advice to 16,247 parents and carers with students in law volunteering to increase the capacity of the education helpline, developing their own careers whilst benefitting children and young people at risk of exclusion.

Feedback from users showed that 94% subsequently had a better understanding of the options available to them. With a cost per call of less than 2% of the total estimated cost to the state of each private law case, we know that our parents and carers are better able to resolve the issues for their child so helping to divert cases from court.

Vital support

Our thanks go to ajaz.org for their support for children and families who are without recourse to public funds; our corporate partners such as Baker McKenzie and all the law firms contributing pro bono hours; our grant funders including BBC Children in Need, the Paul Hamlyn Foundation and Pears Foundation.

Standing up for refugee and migrant children

In the face of unprecedented demand and challenges for children in resolving their immigration status, the legal practice expanded its immigration team and work with more than 250 pro bono volunteers to maximise access to justice for vulnerable and marginalised young people and families, a value of more than £1.5m in donated time with a success rate of 97% for applications made.

Training was provided to local authorities across London to support them in resolving the immigration issues of children in their care including

94%

those at risk of losing their right to remain following the deadline of the EU Settlement Scheme.

In addition, the Young Citizens group provided peer-led training and support to other young people experiencing the immigration system through colleges, enabling them to understand their rights and move their lives forward.

Coram’s Migrant Children’s Project team has continued active briefing of parliamentarians including hosting an event with young people in the House of Lords with a view to achieving amendments to the Illegal Migration Bill to protect children’s rights.

16,247 PARENTS AND CARERS SUPPORTED

Strategic litigation

The Minister of State for Health and Secondary Care, Will Quince MP, visited the Child Law Advice Service in his constituency. He met with our solicitors and clients in the Legal Practice to hear first-hand the challenges in relation to contact and parental disputes, domestic abuse, and access to support for young people in need.

This year we brought an important strategic judicial review to challenge the government’s policy which meant that a vulnerable, traumatised, pregnant Afghan woman and a child would have had to make the dangerous journey to Pakistan to register their biometrics prior to even submitting an application for family reunion with her refugee husband in the United Kingdom.

The policy and lack of sufficient discretion to waive the requirement in compelling circumstances was found unlawful, a precedent-setting judgement making reunification more accessible for Afghan families.

PARENTS AND CARERS HAD A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF THEIR OPTIONS

Supporting children to access education

Coram is the longest serving provider of the Civil Legal Aid contract for Education providing free access for those in need of legal support. Many cases feature the failure of statutory authorities to deliver the provisions of Education Health and Care Plans for children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND), contrary to law, and the majority of our appeals to the Tribunal are successful.

This year Qaisar Sheikh, head of education law, was recognised as the 2022 Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year for Public Law. He is seen here with Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves MP, on her visit to Coram’s office in her Leeds constituency to explore the issues facing children excluded from school and lack of access to early education. To help tackle school exclusion in North Kensington, we are combining legal advice with therapeutic case consultation in partnership with the Clement James Centre, supported by the local authority and grant funders and are now looking to replicate the approach in other communities.

Ed and Rainah’s story

Rainah is autistic and was nonverbal up until the age of five. After the local authority failed to place her in a specialist school for more than a year, the Coram team intervened to secure the place to which she was entitled. Her father, Ed McCarthy, says “Rainah’s speech has astounded everyone, particularly how quickly it is continuing to develop. Her reading is also light years ahead of where it was and her social interaction has also noticeably improved. We cannot thank CCLC enough for the professional and empathetic way in which the whole team dealt with Rainah’s appeal.”

Young people helping others

This year 865 young people helped 8,867 others through their volunteering, placements, and creative projects with Coram, building new futures for themselves and their peers.

Creating a HALO effect

Law students at the University of Essex worked in the Child Law Advice Service to increase access to advice on education law.

The care-experienced ambassadors of A National Voice supported young people to inspire change in the care system, completing the consultation for the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care, whilst young people aged 16-18 became reading leaders to help their younger peers.

Informing and inspiring change

The Coram Young Citizens have direct experience of the immigration system and deliver workshops in schools, colleges and youth clubs on everything from safeguarding to the asylum process to help other young people gain the skills they need to thrive in this country. They also work with Coram’s legal specialists to inform policy and legal developments and explain how they might affect the UK’s fulfilment of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the safety and opportunities for children and young people fleeing persecution.

In-Between Lines

Coram adoptee Anthony along with Zoe, Esther and Ocean (seen left to right), three fellow students who are adopted, created In-Between Lines to examine experiences of mixed race and adopted young people. Their display of art and texts, along with discussion and spoken word events on everything from colourism and hair to healing from trauma, enable the complex issues of identity to be explored. In the coming year Coram will support In-Between Lines through conferences, talks and the provision of infrastructure to realise the goal of creating a new young people led organisation.

“I’ve recently fundraised for Coram as I wanted to give back to an organisation that gave me the life I — and all other children in care — should have had: a life with a loving family that enabled me to fulfil my potential.”

Anthony, Coram Adoptee

“

By coming to Parliament and meeting with Peers I want to help make sure we are being heard. This is not the time to sit in a room and contemplate on what needs to be done – as young people and refugees we know what is needed and I believe our arguments are valid and should not go unheard.”

Amina, Coram Young Citizen

A loving home

Coram is distinctive for its work across all types of family placement, providing direct support to children and families in London through our outstanding voluntary adoption agency and Centre for Creative Therapies, as well as national practice development and matching services, policy and research.

A lifetime of difference – 50 years of Coram Adoption

Coram established its adoption agency in 1972 to find loving homes for children in the care system. In October, the 50th anniversary was marked with publication of a new report, A Lifetime of Difference, and a special event. Broadcaster James O’Brien (below left), himself adopted 50 years ago, Coram adopter The Rt Hon David Lammy MP (below right), Jeanne Kaniuk, who led the service for 38 years and former children’s minister Edward Timpson MP were among the speakers. In the coming year, we will publish the next stage of results of the continuing longitudinal research conducted with the Anna Freud Centre, demonstrating further the benefit and needs of adoption.

Coram Ambitious for Adoption regional adoption agency

We continued to provide adoption services for nine local authorities across London and Slough and were proud to be awarded the national Early Permanence Quality Mark.

Innovation in practice included the development of a new Step Up approach to finding loving homes for the children who wait the longest by combining direct family finding with use of Activity Days, and creation of dynamic profiles. In the coming year, a new outreach worker will develop further links and relationships across diverse communities to increase placement opportunities for children waiting the longest.

Advancing national standards in practice

Coram is the leading champion of early permanence, an umbrella term for certain types of adoption placements enabling a baby or young child to be matched with foster carers who are approved to adopt if the court decides they cannot be cared for permanently by their birth family.

This year, the Coram Centre for Early Permanence was commissioned by the leaders of the Regional Adoption Agencies to develop national practice standards to achieve consistency and coherence across the country with training provided by CoramBAAF whilst Coram-i supported the national data collection and analysis for the Department for Education.

Active Support

We are grateful to the cyclists of Club Peloton, who cycled to PedElle in 2022 and to MIPIM in March 2023, and all our partners for helping us to ensure that children have the loving home and support they need to thrive.

“The agency leads in early permanence and all aspects of adoption work”

Ofsted, 2022

23,392 PROSPECTIVE ADOPTERS FIRST4ADOPTION.ORG.UK

Fiona’s story

Fiona and her husband adopted a little girl, Olive* through Coram in 2018. Since 2020, Fiona’s sleepwear brand Their Nibs has partnered with Coram, donating a percentage of its profits to support mindfulness courses for adoptive parents.

“Adopting our daughter has been the best thing we’ve ever done. Being guided by Coram was key. It’s an extremely emotional journey, no doubt about it. It’s not an easy thing to do but nothing worth doing in life ever is. It feels like Olive’s never not been in the family, I can’t remember what life was like before her. She’s amazing and it’s a privilege to be her mum.

“I wanted to give something back to Coram who supported us so much along our journey. It’s an honour to be able to do that. We’re always looking for new initiatives, imaginative ways of helping Coram. People get a nice feeling buying from small businesses, and the support for Coram is another reason to buy from us, an absolutely valid one that’s close to our hearts. Coram brought us so much happiness – and a magic little person into all of our lives.

David and Marwan’s story

David and Marwan adopted Leila in 2022 when she was just eight months old.

“We did quite a lot of reading around child development and the importance of the early years and decided that early permanence would be right for us. We really wanted to influence and support a child from as early as possible in life…

“You hear from other adopters that they’ve tried four or five agencies but for us Coram felt really natural and right straight away.”

“Olive loves going to Coram and seeing the statue of Thomas Coram. It will be part of her life story”

National matching support

Exchange days for professionals and adopters from different agencies, together with Adoption Activity Days provide a unique national service enabling children who are waiting for the loving family they need to meet adopters from any agency.

This year some 400 children benefitted and one in four of them found the loving home they needed, continuing the high level of success and impact over more than a decade.

Mark Cleary, Social Worker, Regional Adoption Agency for Merseyside, has successfully used Coram’s Adoption Activity Days to connect families, most recently for two sisters aged two and four, who have now been successfully placed together. “The Activity Days are invaluable in getting children placed, particularly children who may be harder to place. We have also used the Activity Days for a chemistry meeting, which proved hugely successful in keeping a sibling group together.”

In the coming year, we will continue to pioneer use of the approach in fostering and to support potential adopters to consider long term fostering.

Looking to the future

Around 60 children from other countries are supported each year to join the loving home they need in the UK. The Intercountry Adoption Centre provides the specialist expertise and advice needed in this complex process.

We are proud to welcome this outstanding agency to the Coram group to advance and deliver best practice in partnership with local authorities.

Creative Therapies

In the face of growing demand for services, Coram this year increased the reach of therapeutic services to the most vulnerable children by 39% through direct therapeutic needs assessment and family and creative therapy interventions, and extended school work in Camden to an additional three schools in Lambeth.

In addition, our creative group-based intervention offered to children who have undergone care proceedings, known as Harmony, provided pioneering support to children under five years old and their carers and parents. We are very grateful to Comic Relief for supporting this vital work and for making a difference to children who have experienced trauma and loss.

In the coming year we are developing song writing workshops with the Institute of Contemporary Music and Performance and will advance Relational therapy solutions with families facing adversity under the Department for Work and Pensions’ Reducing Parental Conflict programme.

Parent whose children were supported

“The service provided a safe space for my children and myself to open up and discuss very difficult issues. Both my boys were very hard to reach due to traumatic experiences in the past. They both felt Coram and working with you was a place where they were heard and valued. Since our time with you we have learned invaluable skills that help us move forward. It’s had such a profound effect on us all. We are definitely in a much better place, our heartfelt thanks to you all.

1 IN 4

CHILDREN ATTENDING ACTIVITY DAYS FOUND THE LOVING HOME THEY NEEDED THAT DAY

A voice that’s heard

During the last year, Coram Voice supported 8,800 young people in and leaving care through advocacy and independent visitor services and the national Always Heard helpline and safety net, while 4,286 others were supported through our participatory research and young ambassador programmes.

National impact

The Always Heard national helpline supported over 1,830 children and young people from 126 local authorities to get the help they need to resolve challenges in safety, housing, and access to leaving care entitlements.

Always Heard provided a safety net advocate for 653 children and young people when no one else would help.

Extending regional reach

Local advocacy services were delivered for local authorities across 17 areas with Independent Visitors provided for 12 local authorities, including new work in Bournemouth, Poole and Christchurch whilst our Visiting Advocacy extended support to children in 20 residential settings.

Our specialist advocacy unit provided national training and support to the sector as well as providing specialist support to young people with disabilities and homeless outreach in London, Manchester and the North West of England.

Promoting Bright Spots

The Bright Spots programme surveys children and young people aged four to 25 in and leaving care, to measure subjective wellbeing. With more than 23,000 responses to date, it is the largest survey of its kind.

This year a further 16 local authorities participated in the My Life, My Care and My Life Beyond Care surveys to identify what matters most to their young people and to co-develop service improvements. The results from across the programme are now available through a dedicated Practice Bank at Bright Spots Resource Hub.

The 10,000 Voices report, published jointly with the University of Oxford, summarised responses collected from children and young people aged four to 18 years between 2016 and 2021, giving unprecedented insight into children in care’s views of what makes life good for them.

83% of children and young people asked felt that “life is getting better”, a tribute to the importance of support in their lives, even though a larger proportion of young people in care aged 11-18 years rated themselves as having ‘low life satisfaction’ compared with young people in the general population.

Sarah’s story, Independent Visitor since 2019

“I have been meeting with my young person for around four years and they are now 14 years old. We have built a very unique relationship. I really appreciate seeing the development of our relationship and connection over time …. when they trust me with small pieces of information about their life, I feel really privileged and can acknowledge that these small steps are actually large strides in the context. I find that making this regular commitment really adds to my life and confidence in myself, I think the fact that it is a long term commitment has meant we’ve spent lots of time getting to know each other gradually and you can really see our progress. This is by no means a simple or easy way to contribute to society, but it definitely feels very nourishing and mutually beneficial.”

13,086

YOUNG PEOPLE SUPPORTED TO GET THEIR VOICES HEARD

Kinship care analysis

A further analysis of the views and experiences of over 1,200 children and young people in kinship foster care in 38 local authorities is the first of its kind and found that, on a number of wellbeing indicators, children and young people in kinship foster care were doing better or at least as well as those in unrelated foster care. On some indicators, they scored the same or better than their peers in the general population, reinforcing existing evidence that kinship care can be a positive experience for children who cannot remain with their birth parents.

Future of care

A National Voice (ANV), the National Children’s in care council run by 24 care experienced ambassadors was commissioned to conduct a national consultation on young people’s views as part of the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care. From this four wide themes emerged: that children’s services should be designed with young people; the importance for young people of getting the same support wherever they are without a postcode lottery of care; feeling safe and supported and able to have fun, and the importance of trusted and well trained professionals and adults.

ANV made its own further recommendations to the government

which we published. These included: implementing an opt out model of independent advocacy support, where children are automatically connected with an advocate when entering care and for proper funding to be made available; a legal duty for local authorities to actively offer children in care and care leavers an Independent Visitor or befriending service up to the age of 25; and government to consult on the proposal to make care experience a protected characteristic.

In the coming year, we will consult on the implementation plan published by the government and work to pilot the extension of independent visitors for care leavers.

Rachel’s story, trustee of Coram Voice

Rachel was four years old when she first entered care in North Yorkshire and from the age of nine was looked after by her grandmother so she and her younger sister could stay together. Always encouraged to be ambitious in life, Rachel went to university in Birmingham and did her Masters in Beijing.

Today Rachel works at Citi; is co-chair of the Future Leaders Shadow Board for Women in Banking and Finance UK and is a One Young World Ambassador. “When I began living in London, I knew I wanted to give back. When the role of trustee came up for Coram Voice, I knew it would put me in a unique position to bring my experience of growing up in care with my corporate experience and achievements to really be a voice for young people.”

Vital support

Our thanks go to the Hadley Trust for their sustained commitment to the Bright Spots programme and for their investment in the first Churchill Fellows in children’s social care, and to the Department for Education for the continuation of the national advocacy safety net, as well as to all our volunteer Independent Visitors and helpline staff and supporters of our specialist disability and homeless outreach work .

“While there is good intention in the system, it is shocking that today there are still the same issues for children and young people in care that were there decades ago. So often they don’t feel safe.”

Rachel Malik, trustee of Coram Voice

Claire’s

story, care-experienced consultant, 19 years old

Claire was a winner of the 2020 Voices Creative Writing Competition in the Upper Secondary category. She says: “I wanted people to know my emotions and I ended up winning. I was shocked when I received the email that I’d been shortlisted and even more shocked when I heard that I’d won.”

Claire was taken into care at the age of 13 and lived with a foster family for three years before moving to supported lodgings from the age of 16 to 18. She has been very active in her role as a care experienced consultant with Coram Voice, including supporting Ofsted to create a film about social care inspections, participating in the youth steering group of the Independent Care Review and doing media interviews.

Claire says: “Coram has provided me with opportunities I could never have dreamt of. The care system was supposed to be a “stain on my record” but really it projected me into positions such as working with Parliament and Councils. Because of Coram, I have really become a better version of myself, and I can’t wait to continue growing.”

Claire is now planning to do a special education needs and British sign language degree followed by a teacher training course.

Voices through time

Voices Through Time

Voices Through Time: the Story of Care, funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund, is an ambitious four year programme to transcribe and digitise the most fragile parts of the Coram archive dating back to 1739. As well allowing public online access to this valuable resource, the programme and informs and inspires the public to understand the past, present and future of care through creative programmes with care-experienced young people telling the #realstoriesofcare.

This year, 3,000 volunteers transcribed 15,911 pages of records and our young Story of Interest volunteers delved into our archive to research the lives of individual ‘foundling’ children in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Inspired by our archive careexperienced young people worked with the artist Nicole Harris to create a narrative blanket inspired by the mothers’ petition letters of the 18th century and their own experiences of home. Find out more at coramstory.org.uk.

In the coming year – as government advances its implementation plan of the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care today – young people will co-create the first documentary on the lives of children in The Foundling Hospital and what it means to secure for them a loving home.

3,000 15,911

Coram Society

VOLUNTEER TRANSCRIBERS

PAGES OF RECORDS

Coram Society highlights in our public programme of discussion events this year which included a Tea and Talk with Dame Gillian Pugh, author of London’s Forgotten Children: Thomas Coram and The Foundling Hospital, to mark its new edition and exploration of the role of Nurses to the children in the 18th and 19th century featuring new research by Dr Kate Gibson published in History Today.

Tiny Traces

The Foundling Museum displays on loan Coram’s historic art collection. This year research in the Coram archive records of Asian and African children in our care in the 18th and 19th centuries was displayed in the Tiny Traces exhibition and the Museum interpreted items from the Coram art collection in Finding Family, its first exhibition co-created with care-experienced young people.

This Coram Century

In 1922, the first women became governors of The Foundling Hospital, which also held the premiere of the first film version of Oliver Twist. In his novel of 1837, Charles Dickens – who lived close by and wrote petition letters for mothers seeking admission for their child - had named Mr Brownlow, after the then Secretary of The Foundling Hospital. Child star Jackie Coogan (below right) who had previously played The Kid in Charlie Chaplin’s first full length movie inspired by his own experiences in a Lambeth workhouse as a child, made a donation to the charity. Our foyer display marks the key developments of the century for children and the Coram story, including the formation of Coram Voice as the first advocacy organisation for children and the creation of Coram Children’s Legal Centre as the UK’s response to the UNESCO International Year of the Child.

Feedback from the spoken word event What is in a Name

“I was inspired by how they reinvented their stories into something the public thinks as something pitiful or sorrowful into a performance of strength, hope and power.”

Old Coram Association

In June, Coram held its annual Coram Day, marking the final event of the Old Coram Association after 75 years of support to former pupils. These records will become part of the living archive at the heart of the Coram story, digitised and available for decades to come.

A chance to shine

10,864

YOUNG PEOPLE

What You Will

To mark the 400th anniversary of the publication of Shakespeare’s First Folio in 2023, we launched a new national creative competition inviting children and young people aged five to 25 to take a fresh look at Shakespeare’s plays and to create a new speech for one of the characters.

Supported by Cambridge Schools Shakespeare (part of Cambridge University Press), What You Will challenges children and young people to create a new, unspoken speech from any Shakespeare character, providing an opportunity to share new perspectives and make the characters their own.

Winning entries will be showcased in a gala performance event at the Criterion Theatre in Piccadilly Circus in November 2023.

“I

Championing wellbeing

This year more than 9,000 young people took part in the Theatre Festival, reinterpreting Shakespeare in their own way and exploring the full spectrum of life’s emotions from killer kings to star-cross’d lovers.

CSSF’s hands-on approach encourages pupils from upper primary to further education levels to stretch themselves, and boosts vital life skills including confidence, resilience, empathy, teamwork and communication skills, as well as contributing to national curriculum delivery.

As young people perform with others from primary, secondary, SEND schools, and Pupil Referral Units (PRUs) on a professional

58

PROFESSIONAL THEATRE STAGES

Writing a new future

The Voices writing competition enables children and young people aged eight to 25 who are in or leaving care to express their views and experiences and share their creative writing talent.

This year, the young winners from upper primary, lower secondary, upper secondary and care leaver categories were celebrated through awards supported by Cadence Innova, and had a further chance to shine by presenting their work to Her Majesty The Queen.

stage, a new world opens before their eyes. Teachers consistently report that participating in the festival has a positive impact across children’s entire education with improvements in literacy, school attendance, behaviour, motivation and better engagement with the core curriculum.

In the coming year, we will work with our partner Newcastle University to undertake further evaluation of the impact of the programme on current and past participants as we plan for the Silver Jubilee of the Festival in 2025.

We’ll also launch our inaugural Youth Board, bringing together young people from across the UK to have their say on school, Shakespeare and society and help shape the future of our programmes.

Matching support

This work is only possible with the generous support of individual donors and thanks go to The Childhood Trust and The Big Give for matching this support and enabling children and young people of all backgrounds and parts of the country to have a chance to shine.

would do it all again for just one second of feeling so proud.”

Kate Hopewell, Teacher-Director at Primrose Hill Primary School, London

Every child needs a chance to shine and be proud of who they are and the Coram Shakespeare Schools Festival – the largest annual youth drama programme in the world – has so far worked with more than 350,000 pupils to ensure they can build essential skills, confidence and aspiration.

“It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience to perform in a real theatre. If I could do it again I would.”

432 485 SCHOOLS ENGAGED TEACHERS TRAINED

“As the cost of living crisis intensifies, there are concerns that children from disadvantaged backgrounds are increasingly missing out on enriching extracurricular activities. Creative expression has a fundamental impact on children’s essential skills and wellbeing and we believe that every child should be entitled to participate in the arts. Whilst Shakespeare’s stories are over 400 years old, the themes such as friendship, rivalry, triumph, and love are still so relevant today and enable children to explore worlds beyond their own and build essential skills for the future.”

Mike Tucker, Head of Coram Shakespeare Schools Foundation.

Skills for the future

Coram Life Education supported 574,000 children in schools across England and Scotland to gain the skills and wellbeing they need for life, while we celebrated the 50th anniversary of Coram Beanstalk with our Patron Her Majesty The Queen.

Key life skills for children

Coram Life Education (CLE) is the leading charity provider of relationships, health, wellbeing, and drugs education to children across the UK working with our network of delivery partners and branches. Over the last year we have supported teachers in over 2,500 primary schools and 575,000 children nationwide through educator-led workshops and online curriculum resources, an increase of 49% in children reached.

Emma Appelby, head teacher at Horsenden Primary School, says: “Before, our children didn’t really understand what PSHE was. Now they are absolutely clear – in SCARF, we learn about our relationships, we learn about keeping ourselves safe...There has been a positive impact on children understanding their roles and responsibilities and their rights.”

1,681 READING VOLUNTEERS

Mental Health resources

Innovations during the year included the launch of a toolkit of resources for teachers to use with children during Children’s Mental Health Week, themed around our Coram SCARF values of safety, caring, achievement, resilience and friendship and including Wear Your Scarf to School Day.

UNICEF’s Rights Respecting Schools programme, the Association of Child and Adolescent Mental Health, and the drugs education charity The Daniel Spargo Mabbs Foundation are just three organisations collaborating with CLE to develop our teacher training, reinforcing Coram’s commitment to upholding children’s rights, empowering them and giving them a voice.

Looking forward

In the coming year, with support from the Education Endowment Foundation, educator-led workshops, practitioner training and online resources are being developed to help three and four year olds begin to build the foundations of emotional self-regulation, by showing an understanding of their own feelings and those of others, and begin to regulate their behaviour. We know that for many children, maths is a daunting subject and one that can cause feelings of anxiety and fear. We want all children to feel that they can do maths and so Coram Life Education and Coram Beanstalk are launching free school assemblies and parents’ resources to help with this with the support of TP ICAP.

Creating readers

Since its formation as the first reading volunteering charity in 1973, Coram Beanstalk has provided one-to-one support, enabling more than 250,000 children to develop a love of reading. Our impact evidence shows that through volunteers there are significant improvements in reading attainment, confidence, enjoyment, and emotional wellbeing.

This year 5,043 children were supported and our thanks go in particular to The Very Group, the Constance Travis Charitable Trust, and to the DHL Foundation. We are grateful to the Pears Foundation / DCMS Volunteering Futures Fund for a vital grant which encouraged new volunteers, particularly from diverse backgrounds. We developed the new Reading Leaders programme to train 16-18 year olds to support their younger peers, and to gain additional skills and recognition in the Duke of Edinburgh Awards.

Jan Forshaw, Head of Education for 30 years was recognised for her service to children in the pandemic with the award of MBE

SCARF RESOURCES BENEFITTED

52,268 TEACHERS

A retired dyslexia therapist, Peta Travis has been a volunteer at Ark Brunel Primary Academy in North Kensington (previously known as Middle Row Primary) one of the first to welcome reading volunteers, for 45 years. She has worked with more than 100 children and says, “The highlight for me is getting that first smile in the morning and seeing their love of reading, confidence and self-esteem improve. We’re lucky we can take children out of the classroom so we can improve their language skills as well as their reading - and of course all sorts of things come up in the books that we can talk about.”

Jade’s story

In November 2011, Kostyantyn Shevago donated £100,000 to Beanstalk and the Evening Standard’s ‘Get London Reading’ Campaign to fund up to 30 reading helpers at St Mary’s Catholic Primary in Battersea. Within a month 25 reading helpers had been recruited and trained by Beanstalk to start reading with 75 children at St Mary’s. One of these reading helpers was Jill Pay and one of the children she worked with was a little girl in year five called Jade, who was struggling with her reading because of dyslexia. Today Jade, now 19, is studying Marketing and Advertising at university and says that the Beanstalk sessions played a significant part in her success.

No matter where

Community of practice

CoramBAAF provides membership, training, advice, consultancy and practice publications to support all children’s services authorities and agencies across the UK in fulfilling their duties and securing consistent high quality services for children through adoption, fostering and kinship arrangements.

A new advisory forum on kinship care was formed to guide further practice development and calls to our specialist advice line grew by 13% reflecting the increasing complexity of cases.

54,206 PROFESSIONALS

Coram Innovation Incubator

The Coram Innovation Incubator unites the expertise of Coram, Microsoft, EY, and PA Consulting with 10 member local authorities to identify and address the challenges being faced in children’s social care.

The Innovation Collective report brings together a digest of innovation across the country and this year we launched the first Innovation Inset programme to build capacity for change and tackle specific problems from the ground up.

Innovation projects are now tackling access to care records and life story needs, social worker retention, and foster care capacity. More at www.coram-i.org.uk.

When Aneesha, Head of MASH, Referral & Assessment and EDT for Bromley joined the Innovation Inset, they were facing a common problem for local authorities of high turnover amongst social workers. “We thought the problem

CoramBAAF published three good practice guides and four books to address practice needs and reached 54,206 subscribing professionals across all four nations of the UK. Dr Dennis Golm, Lecturer in Psychology at the Centre for Innovation in Mental Health at the University of Southampton, became the

lay with our recruitment practices. The sessions helped us to think about the issue in different ways. We started looking at staff welfare and what we could do to make the lives of our social workers better.” Changing the approach to flexible hours has now made a difference and is being replicated across departments.

In the coming year we will welcome new kindred members – including Barnardo’s, Grosvenor, and Frontline - to the Innovation Incubator.

new Editor-in-Chief of Adoption and Fostering Journal

Training featured the delivery of early permanence practice for Regional Adoption Agency professionals and innovations included a specialist webinar for Social Work Week on Writing about children – recognising how language can impact a child’s journey as well as sessions on how professionals can support the LGBTQ+ community to become foster carers.

Churchill Fellowship

For the first time, the Churchill Fellowship – with support from the Hadley Trust – is supporting 30 fellows over three years to explore international practice and develop plans to improve the lives of children and young people with experience of care, with applications particularly encouraged from people with experience of care themselves. Coram is proud to be the knowledge partner to the programme to share learning and drive change.

We have worked with agencies across the UK to ensure that children and young people have access to high quality services no matter where they are.

“We are delighted to be partnering with Coram Group and the Hadley Trust to launch a new programme of Churchill Fellowships seeking ideas and solutions from around the world to improve the lives and outcomes of young people with experience of care.”

Julia Weston, CEO The Churchill Foundation

Research in action

Coram continues to be at the forefront of research and evaluation into the voice of children, young people and their parents/carers and in supporting services to demonstrate their impact. We work with a range of organisations including the Children’s Commissioner, the Local Government Association, the NHS and Integrated Care Partnerships, Violence Reduction Units and others.

Funded by the What Works for Early Intervention and Children’s Social Care this year Coram completed the world’s largest ever randomised control trial examining the impact of Family Group Conferences in pre-proceedings across 21 local authorities analysing data for over 2,500 children.

Parent Champions

Coram Family and Childcare run parent-led programmes, including Parent Champions, to improve marginalised communities’ access to information and services.

Parent Champions are trained and supported to provide practical help to families in understanding their rights and how to go about accessing childcare and other support and services. This year 274 volunteers reached almost 30,000 parents.

Carol Bennett, Parent Champion & Social Media Coordinator Wandsworth Participatory and Community Engagement said:

“Our Parent Champions programme has made such a difference in encouraging local families to take up their childcare entitlement. Just having someone with experience, speaking from one parent to another really helps.”

By convening and supporting the National Association of Family Information Services, we also enable and support the consistency and quality of information and support to families.

21,585 PARENTS/CARERS (4,990 IN 2022) AN INCREASE OF 333%

The findings were referenced in the government’s response to the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care and can be found at www.coram.org.uk.

The randomised controlled trial on therapeutic approaches to life story work in three local authorities in the North East was also published with a discussion conference attended by social workers, researchers, therapists and other practitioners: whatworks-csc. org.uk/wp-content/uploads/CLSW-RCTFinal-Report-19-Dec_acc.pdf.

In January 2023, the Children’s Commissioner published new analysis by Coram on responses from children in care to The Big Ask survey, the largest ever conducted with children. Coram’s analysis of the 2,261 responses from

children in care found that their level of happiness was broadly similar to that of children in general, although they are overall more worried than peers about education, family relationships and where they live: www.coram.org.uk/ resource/findings-from-the-big-askchildren-in-care.

In the coming year we will be conducting a further randomised controlled trial of the impact of the Barnardo’s emotional wellbeing and mental health support model for foster and kinship carers in addition to evaluating our own programmes, such as our co-produced Young Citizens programme for young refugees and migrants, to inform and enhance their impact.

A society that cares

“Childcare and early education are a key part of our national infrastructure: they enable parents to work and boost children’s outcomes, getting them ready to learn at school and beyond. Pressures on the childcare sector mean that more families are at risk of not being able to find the childcare that they rely on. We urge the Government to make sure that childcare and children’s life chances are at the very heart of their plans to support families.”

Megan Jarvie (right), Head of Coram Family and Childcare

Convening discourse

Coram was amongst the organisations invited to give evidence to the Archbishops’ Commission on Families and Households. The Most Reverend Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, paid tribute to the eternal values and commitment of the organisation as he introduced the final report, Love Matters, at Coram in April 2023.

We were also proud to host the results of work by children and young people with Children England to examine the drivers needed to create a ChildFair State

In the coming year we will host the launch of Raising the Nation by Paul Lindley, and launch a new annual lecture on Love and Attachment

Informing national policy

The cost of living crisis has impacted on families nationwide over the last 12 months, and Coram contributed to the sector-wide calls for the government to step up measures to support the most vulnerable children and young people.

Our cost of living statement called for both an uplift in Universal Credit and for current benefit levels to rise in line with inflation, free school meals for all primary school children, and comprehensive reform to the failing childcare system to deliver affordable, high-quality childcare for all.

Coram made responses to the consultations of the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care, the SEND Review, submitted a witness statement to the Covid-19 Inquiry in exploring the state of readiness for the pandemic, and has briefed and made submissions in relation to the Illegal Migration Bill.

Looking to the future

For more than two decades, Hempsall’s has worked to develop and build capacity across childcare and the early years sector. It is to take this impact to new level in the coming year that the organisation is joining the Coram Group.

Calling for affordable childcare

In publishing its Childcare Survey 2023, Coram Family and Childcare set the agenda for a nationwide debate on the state of the nation’s childcare in the week leading up to the Budget and the Chancellor’s announcement of reforms to the system.

CFC’s survey set out a stark picture, revealing a sharp drop in childcare availability across England over the past year, with only half of local areas reporting sufficient childcare for children under two, a decrease of 7% on 2022, and under half (48%) reporting enough childcare for parents working full-time, a decrease of 11% on last year.

There was widespread national media coverage – including as the top story on BBC News – and CFC’s work informed parliamentary debate and policy development.

Particular thanks go to all those providers and local authorities who contributed to the research and to Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and other grant funders for making it possible.

Investors in People

Coram Group was proud to be awarded the Investors in People Gold Award.

Coram is forming new partnerships to conduct and disseminate new research, inform policy and provide new solutions to the challenges of the next generation.

Antoinette’s story

Antoinette (on the right) is a family support worker and mum to a little girl aged three and a 17 year old son with autism. She currently works 21 hours a week and feels that the cost of childcare locks her out of full-time work. She knows that losing out on entitlements has a particularly negative impact on children’s school readiness and widens the attainment gap, so she is one of 299 people volunteering locally in 43 local authorities as a Parent Champion, doing outreach work to promote the take up of the two-year-old free early education entitlements for disadvantaged families.

A global influence

Coram International

Driving change

Work this year covered 48 countries including the situation and experiences of children affected by migration in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, a regional evaluation of deinstitutionalisation and childcare reforms in Eastern Europe and Central Asia and the drivers of child marriage in South Asia following the Covid-19 pandemic.

Reforming childcare systems

Over the last fifteen years, countries across Eastern Europe and Central Asia region have been reforming their childcare systems to ensure that all children grow up in a safe, family environment.

Institutionalisation of children, particularly children with disabilities, has long been recognised as a challenge in the region. Drivers of their institutionalisation include family poverty, stigma towards children with disabilities, lack of inclusive education and community-based services to prevent family separation, and the underdevelopment of family-based alternative care options such as foster care.

UNICEF Europe and Central Asia

Regional Office has engaged Coram International to take stock of the reforms since 2009 in seven countries (Armenia; Bulgaria; Georgia; Moldova; Montenegro; Serbia; and Tajikistan) to make recommendations to help ensure that the rights of children to live in a safe, family environment are put into practice.

Participatory research

Children’s voices remain central with participatory data collection methods helping to ensure that the views and experiences of children of all ages are heard in legal, policy and programming responses.

In Sierra Leone, as part of our research with UNICEF on the situation of children, our team utilised qualitative storytelling methods to understand children and young people’s attitudes and experiences of accessing services in the community.

Visual research methods such as drawing and emojis provide a way of understanding the experiences and views of children and young people involved in the childcare system,

particularly children with disabilities, in Europe and Central Asia.

In India, Nepal and Bangladesh, acting and role play exercises as well as word association games enabled the exploration of children’s perceptions of marriage and to understand drivers within their communities and the impact of Covid-19 on child marriage.

A new youth advisory board comprised of children aged 10 to 18 from across the Philippines will advise and shape the consultative process for designing the national child protection strategy for the next ten years.

In the coming year

In the coming year, we will explore the development of The Commonwealth of Care, comparing how child welfare systems have advanced since 1948.

addresses critical gaps in research on the views and experiences of children across the globe to develop laws, policies and programmes to protect and promote their rights.

Professor Dame Carolyn Hamilton DBE, Director of Coram International

Protecting children

This includes working with stakeholders in Cambodia to develop its new Child Protection Law and developing a global guide on improving legislative frameworks to protect children from online sexual exploitation and abuse for UNICEF Headquarters in New York.

48 COUNTRIES

Looking to the future

By the end of the decade, there will be fewer young people than pensioners in the UK for the first time in history, demanding a new approach to social infrastructure and resourcing.

“I believe the Coram Institute for the Future of Children is uniquely able to bring together those who can make a difference in children’s lives today and set a new agenda for the children of tomorrow. I urge you to join me in supporting its creation.”

Professor Sir Al Aynsley-Green

Partnership in progress

In March 2023, we announced a new strategic partnership with Newcastle University’s Centre for Children and Youth (a Centre of Research Excellence), designed to generate and disseminate collaborative research and aim to achieve the standing of a research organisation for the Institute in coming years.

As part of Coram’s new series of Future of Youth forums, we together explored how to mitigate the impacts of short and long-term consequences for children in London and the North East, where – in both cases – 40% of children live in poverty. Further forums will be developed to explore the economics, conceptualisation, and rights of childhood.

Institute for the Future of Children

It is to change the odds for the next generation that the Coram Institute will be the only think tank dedicated to the future of children, working with partners to learn from the past, examine current needs and trends and turn insight into impact, now and forever.

Inspired by the views and experiences of children and young people, we will take a multi-disciplinary approach working across the public, private and voluntary sectors. Our aim is to combine insight and innovation, historical and international perspective to inform and create positive change in policy and practice.

Leadership in action

Coram’s senior team contributes widely to thought leadership and sector capacity including the Association of Children in Care and Care Leavers, and the Migrant Children’s Consortium.

Having completed 10 years as Chair of the National Autistic Society, our Chief Executive is now the Chair of Diabetes UK. She also contributed to the development of the first Anthropy event bringing together 1300 business leaders at the Eden Project to build a more compassionate society.

In the coming year, we plan to start work on the creation of a new home for the Institute on the Coram Campus. The Innovation Incubator will develop new solutions to the challenges being faced, whilst the Library of Care provides a national resource for children’s services and professionals building capacity through our Academy.

The Voices Studio Cafe will enable today’s young people to explore their own stories, alongside those in the Coram archive, and build new understanding to ensure the views, experiences and aspirations of young people are recognised and acted upon.

As we launch a new Charter for Children, we invite others to join us as allies in this vision.

“We honor those who walked so we could run. We must run so our children soar. And we will not grow weary.”

Barack Obama

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I believe everyone ought, in duty to do any good they can.”

Thomas Coram