A National Voice

On Tuesday (25 October 2022) we held our A National Voice ‘Amplify event’ in Manchester.

The event was attended by almost 100 care experienced children and young people and the day celebrated the amazing work done by Children in Care Councils, held workshops with Ofsted and the Department of Education on things that mattered to children and young people, launched the new ‘Support Our Journey’ mental health campaign and held the A National Voices awards. There was also some musical performances including a rap and a couple of songs!

Find out more about Amplify

In early 2022, A National Voice asked children in care and care leavers to vote on which campaign they should focus on. 42% choose ‘Support our mental health & wellbeing – e.g. Children and young people offered mental health and wellbeing support and professionals understand our needs.

A National Voice have created an activity for young people to use with professionals and decision makers called ‘Support our Journey’. A National Voice have worked to identify what the ‘problems’ are in relation to children in care and care leavers mental health as well as the ‘solutions’ and put them into statements.

Download pack and use in your local authority.

This youth consultation was created by two children’s rights charities National Youth Advocacy Service (NYAS) and Coram Voice after the publication of the Independent Care Review in England.

We have designed a number of short activities for you to support your children and young people to share their thoughts and feelings with us about advocacy, independent visitors and care experience as a protected characteristic. We want to make sure that Government hears from as many children and young people as possible while they are deciding which recommendations they take forward.

We will be sharing everything collected directly to Government but will also be creating our own report so you can see exactly what children and young people from all across England have had to say and what the important messages for Government are.

More info and download pack

The campaign that aims to support children in care and care leavers to be empowered to ask for the things that make a house a home, and push local authorities, foster carer’s and residential settings, to really think about how they support young people to feel at home.

They chose Home is Not a Placement as the topic for their campaign, after looking at the key findings and messages from children and young people that have participated in the Bright Spots survey.

Our A National Voice Ambassadors (a group of 24 care experienced young people aged 16-25 from across England) developed workshops for young people to have their say on the area’s highlighted in “The Case for Change”, as well as any other key issues that young people want to talk about that have not been included in “The Case for Change”.

We sent these resources for the workshops to Children in Care Councils across England, supporting them to run sessions locally to gather children and young people’s feedback on the review.