The Royal Holloway University of London and University of Siegen are doing research trying to better understand the experiences of young people in residential care in England and Germany.

We would like young people living in or who have lived in children’s homes or semi-independent accommodation to share their experience about what it is like in residential care and what opportunities young people have and would like to have to participate in decisions about their lives and those of others in care.

• How are you involved in making decisions in your children’s home/accommodation?

• What do you think about the rules of your children’s home? What happens if someone doesn’t play by the rules?

• How are your relationships with your carers and other young people living in your children’s home?

Take part in the survey and have a chance to win Beats headphones!

Click on the link to take part in the survey:

Link to the survey

The survey is anonymous and voluntary. It takes about 20-30 minutes.

If you have questions, please contact Petra Gobbels

This is an annual event where all the Children in Care Councils can work and collaborate together, have fun, and meet some of their Corporate Parents.

We sat down with young people and presented the History of the of the OCYPC, how it started, how it grew in membership, and how it ended up splitting off with two more groups; the Super Council and Young Adult Council.

We also discussed a new constitution for the meetings with all the young people, this determined what kind of rules and behaviours they expected, not only from each other but from the staff in attendance too. We’ll take away all the suggestions and use them to create the constitution.

Young people also looked at how they want to be asked questions during the various meetings they have throughout their time in care, and what is the best way to get feedback from children in care. They were asked specifically how best to answer the questions (paper, electronically), how they want it to look (form to fill, survey with multiple choices, ranking from favourite to least favourite on a list, using emojis etc) and whether it should vary for different age groups. Young people came up with their top ten tips for a successful meeting and added some ideas about how they wanted them presented. We are planning to take this away and work with the Kent County Council Communication Team to get the relevant documents designed.

To finish, we all enjoyed pizza in the garden for lunch, and in the afternoon fun team challenges were provided by the “Wise Up Team” making use of their fantastic equipment!

The aim of the Hackathon was to find solutions to the problem of a decrease in overall wellbeing in young people at schools across Kent. Nine groups of young people (aged 5-17 years old) were asked to come up with ideas that would improve mental and physical well-being within their schools and local community and present these to a judging panel with real funds at stake to implement their ideas and turn them into reality.

To introduce the importance of looking after your emotional well-being and mental health, Kelly Hannaghan (Mental Health and Welling Consultant) gave an engaging speech to all the teams and pupils. This included some mental well-being exercises and analogies that young people could use in everyday life. This was extremely eye opening to listen to and engage with. Daniel Bromley, from Kent Sport, also gave a very active speech about the importance of physical health. He presented a quiz to highlight the extreme consequences that COVID had on young people’s physical health using statistics. This seemed to be very surprising to the young people and through discussion, they all agreed that something had to change. These ideas definitely stuck with the young people as many of the final ideas they pitched included the importance of physical activity and aimed to incorporate this into activities at their school.

The judges for the event were from the Participation Team - Amy, Ellie and Kayleigh who were partnered with a senior member of Kent County Council staff at the event. The children all pitched brilliant ideas including apps, swimming pool refurbishment, new equipment in schools and extra-curricular activities. This made judging really challenging as all the ideas were so good!

At the end of the day, there were three winners who won £1000 each for their school and runners up won £750 for their school. This made all participants excited as they were able to make their ideas a reality. That was very rewarding to see.

Views of Participation Team Apprentices Ellie and Amy

As this was our first event with young people, it was really eye opening to see how everyone including the young people bounced off each other and worked together collaboratively. Added to this, observing the young people when they were brain storming ideas was very pleasant to witness and it made our job on the day very rewarding.

The challenge consists of reading 6 books over the summer holidays, and you will be rewarded with a medal and certificate (while stocks last). And it’s all for free!

E-books, audio books, joke books, picture books and family reading all count as part of the challenge.

This year, Kent Libraries will introduce the Gadgeteers; Aisha, Eddie, Leo, Maggie, James & Ajay. The Gadgeteers celebrate adventure, friendship, reading and fun while helping children to discover science all around them. Complete the challenge to find out more about them!

To participate, visit a Kent Library to claim your joining pack, or visit the Summer Reading Challenge Website to take part online.

Good Luck!