The Independent Review of Children’s Social Care is being launched on Monday 23rd May. We eagerly await its publication and suggestions to improve the lives of children and young people in care. Take a look back at the history of the Care Review and our previous responses.
Introduction and scope
The Independent Review of Children’s Social Care officially began on 15th January 2021, having been proposed in the government’s 2019 manifesto to make sure children and young people in and leaving care get the support they need.
This is an important piece of work and the opportunity to shape social care (social workers, being in care, leaving care) in England.
Our responses
We believe that the aim of The Independent Review of Children’s Social Care must be to make the lives of care experienced children and young people better, by focusing on the issues that matter most to them. To do this we need to ensure that their voices are at the heart of the care system, and independent advocacy is an important part of making sure that this happens.
As part of the review, we shared what we have learned from our Bright Spots work, which includes the views of over 15,000 care experienced children and young people who have taken part in our surveys and developed workshops through our A National Voice programme. This led to a report detailing what was missing in the Review’s initial “A Case for Change” Report.
You can read the Coram Voice response to last year’s Care Review here.
Work of A National Voice
We offered support to the review through our A National Voice program, to make sure the voices of more children and young people in care and leaving care are heard.
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 areas 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. You can read their responses here.
The group found several important themes emerging including:
- A post-code lottery
- Cliff edges
- Systems that don’t work for children and young people
- The importance of positive language
We have released our A National Voice (ANV) response to The Case for Change report published by the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care. This then fed into the Review’s report ‘The Case for Change: your feedback’, published in October 2021.