Press Release: A ground-breaking ‘Pledge’ to children in care and with care experience is being adopted in Greater Manchester today.
Today a ground-breaking ‘Pledge’ to children in care and with care experience is being adopted in Greater Manchester at the “Doing Things Differently for Care Leavers” event. All ten 10 Manchester councils will work together to change things for the better for children in care and care experienced people. The ‘Pledge’ recognises that support is needed well into adulthood for people who have been in care and looks for better stability as well as more love and respect. Improved mental health support is also a particular priority.
Speaking at the event held at the University of Manchester, Ian Dickson chair of the organising group for the Care Experienced Conference, explained that Manchester is a special place for him:
“For most of my childhood I was in care in Manchester in children’s homes and foster homes across the city. I later became a social worker here and 11 years after leaving school went to this university too.“
“So I’m particularly delighted that the 10 Greater Manchester authorities are the first in the country to adopt a pledge based upon the Top Ten Messages from the Care Experienced Conference held in April this year.”
Doctor Catriona Hugman, a member of the organising group said:
“We knew something special had happened in April this year – the voice of care experienced people of all ages was being heard for the first time. When we published our reports in October we really wanted that voice to make a difference.
We talked to Directors of Children’s Services and they said our Top Ten Messages were so powerful they would Like to use them to improve what they do.
So we are delighted to be here today to mark the adoption of a ‘Pledge’ based upon these messages from our conference. And it’s a cause for celebration that Greater Manchester are the first in the country to do this. We very much hope that others will follow.”
Paul Yusuf Mccormack a member of the organising group said:
“One important aspects of the ‘Pledge’ is that care experience people from the local area will be asked to say how well people are doing with making improvements."
There are estimated to be 20,000 people who spent time in care in the Greater Manchester population and it’s important that this wisdom and experience is used to make things better for the future. We have no doubt that the people who get involved will tell it like it is and get behind this initiative.”
Notes to editors
1. The conference for Care experienced people was held at Liverpool Hope University on April 26, 2019. More than 160 people aged from 14 to 82 years attended. 📷@CareExpConf https://www.careexperiencedconference.com/
2. Reports capturing contributions from the conference were published in September 2019 and are available on the website https://www.careexperiencedconference.com/reports
3. A ‘Pledge’ based upon the Top Ten Messages can be found here https://www.careexperiencedconference.com/pledge along with the Top Ten Messages
4. There are estimated to be over 400,000 people with experience of care nationally. This equates to over 20,000 people in the Greater Manchester population.
5. Members of the organising group are available for interview. For this or any other queries please contact Alison O’Sullivan email:alisonos@blueyonder.co.uk or phone: 07831 894356