Funded by the Department for Education and delivered by the National Children’s Bureau, a new Children and Young People’s Advisory Board on children’s social care in England is being established.
On behalf of the Department for Education, the National Children’s Bureau is establishing a new Children and Young People’s Advisory Board which will help shape the next stages of major reforms to children’s social care set out in the Government Strategy ‘Stable Homes, Built on Love’.
The new Advisory Board will be made up of two groups of children and young people aged 11-17 and 18-25 whose lives have been affected by children’s social care. It will bring together those with lived experience and a passion for changing things for the better at a national and local level.
The Advisory Board builds on NCB’s leading expertise in giving children and young people meaningful opportunities to contribute to policy, and also provides an opportunity for those taking part to develop new skills.
The Advisory Board will initially run until March 2025 and is open to a wide range of children and young people with diverse experiences of children's social care. This includes any child or young person who has had a social worker, as well as those who are looked after or care leavers.
During December and January, NCB will be recruiting young people to the board, drawing on its extensive network, with the first meetings taking place early in 2024.
If you are aged between 11 and 25 and children’s social care has been a part of your life, then find out more on the NCB website.
Anna Feuchtwang, Chief Executive of the National Children’s Bureau, said:
“We are at a turning point for children’s social care. The government’s strategy, Stable Homes, Built on Love, commits to wholescale reform, including steps to rebalance the system towards earlier help for children and families. It is absolutely essential that this work is systematically informed by the real-life experiences of children and young people themselves, and I am delighted that NCB will be supporting this new Board to do so.”I
Interested in finding out more? Visit our website where you can apply to take part.
Notes
About Stable Homes, Built on Love
- On 2 February 2023, DfE published Stable Homes, Built on Love, an implementation strategy and consultation setting out plans to reform children’s social care, backed by £200m additional investment.
- Three reviews published in 2022 provided impetus and vision to transform children’s social care:
- The Independent Review of Children’s Social Care
- The National Review into the murders of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes and Star Hobson
- The Competition & Markets Authority Study into Children’s Social Care Placements
- The strategy sets out a vision to rebalance children’s social care away from costly crisis intervention to more meaningful and effective early support.
- It sets out actions that seek to address urgent issues facing children and families now, lay the foundations for whole system reform and set national direction for change.