The information we write about a child is either a passport or a barrier to them being able to access services they need and deserve. In this blog, we speak to the founder of The Care Leaders, Luke Rodgers BEM, about why children and young people in care have records written about them, when this […]

An estimated one in three children is exposed to at least one traumatic event by the age of 18. In this article, Luke Rodgers BEM, founder of The Care Leaders, explains why minimising the impact of trauma starts with recognising messages in behaviour. “When people talk about messages in behaviour in our sector, what they’re […]

“What you go through doesn’t have to define you, and you can choose to look at it differently.” This is the message being driven home to girls and young women between the ages of 14 30 years old by the organisation Daddyless Daughters run by Aliyah Ali. The organisation provides vulnerable girls and young women, […]

As part of National Care Leaver Week, we spoke to lived experience leader and director of strategy for The Care Leaders, Luke Rodgers BEM about what a lived experience leader is,  what first inspired him to make a change in the system, and how The Care Leaders are helping other lived experience leaders to do just […]

Originally from East London, Jerome Harvey-Agyei is a lived experience leader and co-founder of The Topé Project, a volunteer-run organisation supporting care leavers “who may not see beyond their circumstances to understand their life potential”. For the latest episode of our ‘In Conversation With’ series, we chatted to Jerome to learn more about his story. […]

Aren’t we all born to love and be loved? This is a question we discuss in the first session of our ‘Journey Through Care’ training, and together with Madlug founder, Dave Linton, in this article. How do we better support young people in our care? What constitutes a child in need? And how can we […]

Scott King is a Lived Experience Leader and now, the founder of training company, Section 31 Training. For the latest episode of our ‘In Conversation With’ series, we chatted to Scott about his time in the care system, his involvement in change-making movements, and being an advocate for care leavers. Scott was taken into care when […]

Maggie Atkinson is an English educator and the former Children’s Commissioner for England. After a career in teaching, she moved into public service administration, initiallyin education, but later in children services. For the latest episode of our ‘In Conversation With’ series, we chatted to Maggie about the importance of empathy when working with children and […]

Over the last 2 years young people have been thrown into an unknown world of social isolation and future uncertainty. The already present sociocultural pressure to keep up with friends is made all the more complex when the primary view they have of their peers is through the picture-perfect lens of social media. Now more than […]

The National Lottery defined a Lived Experience Leader as ‘someone who uses their first-hand experience of a social issue to create positive change for, and with, communities and people they share those experiences with’.  I like this definition a lot; it tells me that we value someone who has been through something in their life […]

1. You are making a difference, even if sometimes it feels like you are not I know what it’s like to try make a difference to children’s lives: you spend all day trying to say the right things and they just don’t seem like they land; your words get misinterpreted or just seem totally unheard. […]

Kate Cairns is an author, speaker and trainer with an international reputation for her work around attachment, trauma and resilience, particularly in relation to vulnerable children and young people. We chatted to Kate about her experience fostering and the importance of continuing to learn. Kate, who worked as a social worker for over 50 years, […]