CiCC newsletter - September 2018

IRO consultation

On Friday 5 October Lauren Labbet came to CiCC to consult with young people about IRO's. The aim was to see if our young people feel their IRO (independent reviewing officer) make an impact on their lives, also to see how LAC reviews could be made better.

This session wasn't overly positive but it wasn't all negative. Some of our young people told us that they know who their IRO is and what they are their for. Other young people told us that their IRO doesn't visit, they want them to have a bigger presence when it comes to the young people. "they need to be involved more"

To get round this the IRO's have agreed to spend more time with their young people, but also regularly come to CiCC to improve their relationship with them.

Participation event

On Tuesday 23 October we held a participation event.

We teamed up with the Greater Manchester Youth Network to try and increase participation in the Children in Care Council and the Boom Box project.

The aim of this was to hold an event with different fun activities, whilst also consulting about what our young people want to see in these groups and asking for ideas on what they think would benefit them.

During the day our young people had a choice of a morning activity and an afternoon activity with lunch in-between, here is what they could choose from:

• Pizza Making (morning) / Halloween Gingerbread decorating (afternoon)
• Football Skills / Competition
• Jewellery Making
• DJ Skills

The young people who chose to do pizza making in the morning made pizza's for the whole group to enjoy on lunch, along with the other food put out.

Whilst our young people were doing these activities we asked them what they would like to do while attending a group like BOOM or CiCC. Some of our young people told us they would like to get more creative with music and other young people preferred baking/cooking and would like to learn new skills in that area.

We decided to hold sessions for CiCC over Christmas for our young people to take part in making a song with their focus being "what it is like to be in care". This will then be shared with everyone so you can all hear their amazing talents.

We have also decided to incorporate more baking/cooking activities in CiCC hopefully teaching our young people how to make meals, developing skills for when they move onto adult hood.

Take Over Day 2018

This year for Takeover Day the Children in Care Council took over Bury's Corporate Parenting Board.

Takeover day was held in the Council Chambers of the Town Hall on Friday 23 November.

Ideal Corporate Parent

Our young people took part in a number of different activities throughout the day to help them understand what the Corporate Parenting Board are and what it is that they do. The first activity was for our young people to create their ideal Corporate Parent, using qualities and traits that our young people would like them to have. We had qualities such as a good listener, someone who understands/has a passion for children in care, honest, caring, encouraging, they are just a few that they came up with and they feel these qualities make a great Corporate Parent.

A timeline of a young person in care

The second activity was for our young people to design a timeline of a child/young persons life in care as they would have experienced it. Our young people saw a pattern within this and were shocked when they saw just how many changes in social workers and placement moves a young person can have while in care, and they felt like this was a problem.

Young Peoples Auction

Another activity our young people took part in was an auction, our young people bided for things they feel are the most important things in the promise. Our young people feel the most important thing in the promise is 'we will treat you as we would our own children" with 'we will treat you as individuals and not assume all children and young people in care have the same wishes and feelings' coming second. Both of them had very high bids from some of our young people.

Meeting with the Corporate Parenting Board

After lunch our young people met with the corporate parenting board. They told them about the day and explained each activity that they had completed to them, they then got to ask our corporate parents some questions. Here are a few:

How would you feel that the promise is being adhered to, from evidence in the corporate parenting?

Foster Carers "we think that 'treat me as your own' is really important, and we would expect anything other than this".

Chair of Board "young people tell me directly their views, it is important to have a permanent place for young peoples needs, it is important to find out what solutions there are and what we can do better".

Do all corporate parents have experience of children and young people?

Social care representatives "Yes, i used to be a social worker and i also have my own family".

Chair of Board "I have always been interested in children in care and shared my life with children. I do wonder if some corporate parents don't have a wealth of knowledge and experience and whether some specific training delivered by CiCC would be beneficial.

Why do we get so many social workers while being in care?

Social care representative "Specialised social workers are identified for children and young people in care. Obviously we try to minimise social worker changes, but sometimes it happens because a worker leaves their job, they move teams, or a child moves into a long term social worker team. There is nothing we can do about this. We recognise the importance of trying to make any changes as easy as possible for everyone. It is vital that the child or young person realises that is is nothing that they have done wrong."

CiCC Boom Box

On Friday 7 December and Friday 14 December CiCC were joined by a service called Boom Box which is in connection with GMYN (Greater Manchester Youth Network).

Boom Box attended our participation event on Tuesday 23 October, where the aim was to increase participation with CiCC and BOOM. At the event our young people told us that they really enjoyed taking part in the music activity, so we decided to invite them to CiCC.

Boom Box is a service which helps young people express themselves and their talents through music.

During these sessions our young people wrote a song or part of a song which symbolises life in care. Our young people not only took it upon themselves to write their songs, some even sang them in front of the group. Using feelings, emotions and real life experiences of care our young people are well on their way to making a number one hit.

Boom Box will be attending CiCC again in the new year so that our young people get a chance to finish their songs and hopefully we will be able to share our young peoples amazing talents with the professionals that work around them.