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Happy New Year and welcome to our first newsletter of 2021. We hope you are continuing to keep safe and well during the pandemic.
Staff & young people excelled in the ‘strange’ times of 2020 and we are excited about what the New Year will bring. Whilst these are challenging and uncertain times we will come through this together, having developed new ways of working and with a renewed focus on the strength and value of relationships.
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Dear all,
When I last wrote in July, I was ever hopeful that over the intervening six months we would have moved on from lockdown and would now be emerging into what people commonly refer to as the ‘new normal’. Clearly, we remain in a similar situation albeit with the optimism provided by vaccination, but I suggest that we should resist the language of ‘new normal’.
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The framing of ‘new normal’ is at one level inviting as it helps to shape and reinforce our understanding of the world, and the ways in which we choose to approach it, but it equally serves to sanitise the current challenges and does not allow us to deal with the issues that people face. Moreover, it glosses over the very real issues faced by our care leaver communities and suggests that the disadvantages that they face should be accepted.
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Meet our newest member of the team
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Luke Fox, Business Admin Apprentice.
Luke is a young professional who has used his experience of being in, and leaving care, to improve the way in which services support other young people to leave care.
Luke was involved in the very early stages of a House Project being established in Rotherham and was asked to represent the young people and the project at the Care Leavers National Movement.
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Fundraising and Partnerships Manager
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Exciting job opportunity for an ambitious self-starter
We are looking for a dynamic and creative, target driven individual who will work with our team to identify, develop and ‘package’ tangible projects to fundraise against to drive the development of our fundraising. The post holder will bring their experience, skills and enthusiasm and develop exciting new opportunities.
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Our brand new website went live in the New Year! Find out who we are working with, what we do, how it works and how to get involved
Happy browsing, we hope you like it as much as we do.
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Care Leavers National Movement
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The Care Leavers National Movement has continued to take strides forwards despite being in the depths of a third national lockdown. Unfortunately they did not celebrate together as planned over the Christmas period but all reps were visited in person and wished a very Merry Christmas. CLNM reps are in regular contact via social media platforms and they continue to share their work with wider care leaver communities. Leuven from Doncaster recently shared the Digital Poverty Campaign through his Children In Care Council, find out more here.
Reps met virtually with care leavers in East Dunbartonshire, shared the lived experiences of their House Project journey and welcomed them to the House Project family. They are also talking to The British Youth Council, ensuring the voice of the care leaver is heard across the wider young person community.
CLNM are currently in the process of recruiting new reps to join their growing movement – which will now be made up of 11 house project from across England and Scotland. With Luke Fox recently joining the National House Project team as our Business Admin Apprentice he has stepped down from his role as Chair. Interested reps ‘pitched’ to their peers for the honour of this position. Votes have been counted and we are delighted to announce that the new Chair of CLNM is Ibrahim Ali from the Islington House Project and the Vice Chair is Josh Oxley from Rotherham House Project. We are looking forward to working with them both over the next 12 months.
Alongside all this great work, CLNM are regularly adding new resources to their website, and have introduced ‘Resource Tuesday’ and ‘Advice Friday’ to their social media accounts.
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The Digital Poverty Campaign has grown from strength to strength, through consistent campaigning with Catch 22 and supporting partners, the government have extended their existing device and data scheme until July 2021, full details here.
This is by no means enough for us or the care leaver community so we continue to push for 12 months Wi-Fi for all care leavers when they first live independently, if you haven’t already please watch our video and sign the petition. We hope to have a debate in Westminster Hall in the coming months.
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How to start your House Project
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Are you a local authority who wants to improve outcomes for young people leaving care?
By developing your own Local House Project you will enable young people to leave care feeling prepared, excited and confident about their future.
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In the third phase of DfE funding in 2020, monies were provided to establish a support platform that can be rolled out to every Local Authority, accessible to all their care leavers, regardless of whether they have a Local House Project or not.
Local authorities will be able to share local information and engage with their care leavers as well as provide a virtual space for mentoring and a messenger function.
Watch this space...
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Stay safe and well, we look forward to meeting with you all soon.
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