A National Voice

ANV News

Young Voices Heard by Select Committee

The recently published report by the Children, School and Families Committee is especially rewarding for us here at ANV. The report on Looked After Children, takes into account evidence given by a group of young people from our regional forums as well as evidence from our Chief Executive, Maxine Wrigley.

It is encouraging to see young people’s personal experiences being taken seriously at this level and we feel positive about the Committee’s recommendations for action.

The group of twelve young people were invited to Parliament along with ANV staff to join the Select Committee Inquiry last October. It was the week that saw the 'Children and Young Person’s Bill' passed through Parliament. During the meeting it was apparent that the MP's in attendance were shocked and moved by their stories and it was agreed there was still much more to do to improve outcomes for young people from Care within our society.

Several of the young people informed ministers of their involvement in a pilot scheme which incentivises educational achievements for Looked After Children at GCSE level. They told of a trip to New York following their exam results as part of the scheme.

The ministers were keen to hear young people’s views on improving educational outcomes and in response pledged to find funding for 'Aim Higher' pilot schemes such as the one highlighted for young people in Care.

Successful activities such as this, which are followed by an official response like the report and it's recommendations are a positive boost for ANV. We are ever more motivated in our work when we feel that our young people are actually being heard. We are even more inspired when we know the young people themselves feel that too

“The MPs really listened to and cared about what we had to say… ”

said one of the young people about their experience and others expressed similar thoughts

“…it was great, I really enjoyed it and I think they really took our views on board… ”

For the full report by the Children, Schools and Families Committee go to www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmchilsch.htm 

A CiCC in the R's!

Recently we brought together young people and frontline workers and managers from across the country to help them get to grips with CiCC's and their Pledges. In March we held two events, one in Manchester and one in London, called 'Get Your ACT 2gether!! Networking and Development Day' which focussed on 'participation and the care system'.

The events were subtitled 'To share good practice of Children in Car Councils and Pledges' and frontline workers and managers were invited to attend for free along with children and young people from the local authority.

There were several young person led presentations from CiCC's across the country: Blackburn, Cheshire, Islington amongst others. All who attended participated in a community cafe style consultation before the final comments and prize draw for an i-Pod took place. At the Manchester event, young people from the ANV North West Say it Loud! Young person’s forum formed an 'X- Factor' style panel to judge the presentations based on respect, recognition and reward, the three r's of participation.

ANV’s regional forums have been attended by young people representatives from CiCC's that are already functioning across the country for over a year now, so the events in March were ideal opportunities to share good practice and ideas in this area.

The events were hailed a huge success as they brought young people and workers from different areas together to discuss some important issues about Care and participation.

To find out more about ANV events or forums for young people contact Clare on clare.e@anationalvoice.org or by telephone on 0161 237 5577

More Volume: Amplify 2008 - Crank it up!

This summer A National Voice will be hosting the most significant consultation event for young people in 2008.

We'd like you to come along!

The AMPLIFY event will last for two days (August 5th/6th) and allow young people aged from 14 to 17 from across England to come together, make friends, learn new skills and share their views with us on how they feel about the Care System and the impact of "Care Matters".

They will choose from a wide selection of entertaining and valuable workshops, take part in consultation using modern media, be offered information and advice on a range of issues and get the opportunity to win an amazing selection of prizes including laptops, digital cameras, i-pods and more!

Everybody gets their own room. Special food requirements and abilities are catered for and there will even be a series of workshops available for workers. Attendance at this conference will also count towards PRTL requirements for social workers.

For more info including booking info and form downloads go to the AMPLIFY Page

Read about the last AMPLIFY event

Did You Miss Us?

Our news pages have been neglected for a while as we just haven't had the time. We've got loads to report but with the changes of some months back and the workload increase we haven't had even a moment to update the website. There are quite a few things to be done here at anationalvoice.org, a general tidy-up is in order.

So we've moved the news stuff to the archive and posted some updates on some of our projects here with a couple of news stories.

We'll be back on the website thing soon.

ANV and Samantha Morton Make A World of Difference

Oscar nominated actress Samantha Morton dedicated a day recently to pay a visit to ANV’s office in London to volunteer and meet some of the young people.

Samantha, who also launched (with ANV) Vodafone's 'World of Difference campaign', is a care-experienced actor who starred most recently in the film ‘Control’ and has been Oscar nominated twice for her roles in previous films. She approached A National Voice two years ago and decided she would like to get involved and meet some of the young members.

Fiona, one of the young people present said

“It was great, I have never met a famous star before and I have seen lots of her films. We got to interview her to be an Ambassador for ANV and she was so lovely; really cares about young people and making a difference. She talked to us about her experiences being in Care, she was really passionate about our work and trying to make a difference to the Care system. It was a fantastic day and an amazing experience to meet her ”

A World of Difference

Samantha also recently spent a day working for A National Voice to launch 'A World of Difference', a campaign started by Vodafone that enables people to work for a charity for a year.

She said of ANV and the campaign

“I feel really passionate about helping children and young people who are in the Care system. I support A National Voice as it aims to make positive changes to the Care system in the UK and gives a voice to those being cared for. The World of Difference project gives people the opportunity to work with their own favourite charity - I've seen first hand what a difference an extra pair of hands can make. ”

The Campaign

Vodafone (The Vodafone Group Foundation) has been looking for four people to take a year out from their jobs to work for their favourite charities. They will be paid, via the 'World of Difference' programme, up to £25,000 towards outgoings and £20,000 for expenses.

The foundation have commissioned research which found that:

• six million workers experience low points in their jobs on a daily basis
• 41% feel there is more to life than what they are doing now
• many believe that taking a break from work to pursue other interests or offer their time to charity would boost their job and life satisfaction

but 70% of people didn’t feel that they could financially give up their jobs to do charitable work which is where the WOD programme's salary and expenses comes in.

More about the World of difference Campaign

More about The Vodafone Group Foundation

Backing Vocalists Wanted (Must be able to harmonize.
No ego's. Must have soul. Team players only)

You don't have to be young to be a part of A National Voice. You also don't need to have spent any time in Care. You can join our group by becoming a supporter of ANV.

Just go to our supporters page for the info and to download the form, fill it in and send it to us. There's a small fee for companies/organisations and local authorities but individual and user group membership is free.

You can also make a donation using the same form or by going to our Just Giving page  and doing it online. There you can make a single or regular monthly donation of however much you want.

The Just Giving site also gives you the opportunity to do some fundraising for ANV. You could, for instance, have a sponsored chocolate eating marathon (or something?) make a page on our Just Giving site and tell everyone you can to go to that page and start sponsoring you. After that the page is all automagically updated with total donations, progress meter, list of sponsors etc. and all the money raised is automatically transferred into ANV's bank account ready to be put to good use.

Give it a go, it's easy. Join our big band, become part of the chorus, support our voice.

Go to the Support ANV page

Go to the Just Giving page 

View our Supporters List

Update: SuperSonicalization

SuperSonic is progressing well, we are continuing to research and compile neccessary data for SuperSonic Profiles. It's another big job and the list of potential candidates is growing all the time.

Our plan is to get as much info on to the SuperSonic website as we can before it goes live and from then on profiles can be added by individuals themselves or on behalf of others through the website itself.

In the meantime we have made a video for you to watch about the concepts behind the campaign. This short documentary looks at the ideas behind SuperSonic. Football player and TV presenter Mark Bright, poet Lemn Sissay and other mortals discuss their experiences and thoughts about Care and life after it. The film asks questions about the barriers that being in Care can bring, how can they be broken, what success really means and whether a man can really fly.

You can see it at our video page or you can watch it at google video

Update: Re:RE:verbverb

We have been having problems with the system that powers RE:verb and have been getting it changed to something more reliable and usable.

RE:verb is a huge online project that requires a rugged and stable system that can cope with a potentially heavy usage, both on the publishing side and at the public/visitor side. To that end we have been researching and implimenting an appropriate software solution. We have also been updating the user interface and overall look and feel of the websites.

So we can only apologise to those that have been frustrated by this work and to ask for a little more patience while we endeavour to get the best tools for what is a worthy and valuable project.

Update: ULTRALILAC

We are continuing to test, pilot and streamline the LILAC evaluation process. We are still seeking more funding as, again, it is another large project that we need to develop to a mature state.

We believe this an important project for our young people and the people that take care of them and we are working hard to get it right.

In case you are unaware of LILAC and what it is we'll let the Guardian explain:

This is the Lilac (Lifelong Improvement for Looked-After Children) project, a groundbreaking initiative in which young people who spent a large part of their own lives in care are training to become inspectors of local authorities' care services. Pioneered by the care-leavers [sic] group A National Voice (ANV), Lilac inspections will concentrate on how well local authorities involve looked-after children in their own care, in the planning and evaluation of care services generally, and on how effectively authorities handle complaints.(The Guardian, Wednesday February 28 2007)

You can read the whole article here

and here is another article from the Guardian (Society Guardian, Wednesday June 6 2007)