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 .

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.