A National Voice

Guidance for Journalists and Media

When Seeking to Interview Care–Experienced Young People Through ANV

A National Voice is very grateful for the media’s interest in the experiences and views of young people who are care–experienced. We recognise that the media can play a valuable role in bringing important issues to the attention of the public and policy makers.

However we are a very small organisation. We have only a handful of staff and rely a great deal on the goodwill of care–experienced young people who choose to work with us.

Wherever possible we will try to respond to your requests for information or someone to interview. However please bear in mind the following points:

1. Many of the children and young people we work with are under the age of 16. They are in the care of the local authority and it is rare for someone of this age to be given permission to speak to the media. There may be legal reasons for this.
2. If you want to interview young people who are currently in care, you may find it easier to approach organisations which are providing direct care to these young people, for example organisations such as Barnardo’s or NCH etc (see our links page).
3. Many of the young people we work with may have had very unsettled and troubled lives. They may feel particularly vulnerable and may not be willing to talk to the media.
4. Whereas a number of young people are keen to talk about the changes they would like to see made to the care system, they are not necessarily prepared to discuss details of their own care experience.
5. For young people speaking to the media there can be very sensitive issues around talking about their birth families and the reasons why they came into care. A casual comment may undo many years of work to rebuild relationships with their birth relatives and have a damaging and lasting effect on the young person’s life.
6. We advise all young people not to mention names, in particular the names of relatives and ask you to edit out any instances where they forget this. We also advise that you might find yourselves in breach of libel laws if you broadcast or publish young people’s comments about abusive behaviours by other people (we suspect you know this anyway!)
7. If you want us to try and locate young people for you to interview, please allow as much time as possible. We appreciate that you have tight deadlines but we also have few staff and very limited resources. It can take us several days to contact young people who may have busy lives.
8. We consider it part of our responsibility to ensure that young people who give interviews to the media on behalf of A National Voice are offered support from us. Please do not be offended if we insist on a supporter/media consultant being present when interviews take place. Please also bear in mind that we may ask for a fee to be paid to go to the young person for their time, we may also request a small reimbursement fee from you if your media request takes up the valuable time of our staff.
9. The views of young people you may interview are not necessarily the views of A National Voice.

All media requests must be put in writing to info@anationalvoice.org and cc’d to maxinew@anationalvoice.org

Please state the request, the timescales, the publication, how we get a copy of the interview and the fee available (if any).

Urgent press enquires out of hours–Maxine 07736 501 230

Finally–we always request a copy of any interviews we arrange or agree to! We can pay postage if needed.

Many Thanks!

ANV