Here's what we've been doing:

March 2026

šŸŒŸ Children in Care Council – This Week We Talked About Friendship! šŸŒŸ

This week our young people explored what friendship really means — and their answers were thoughtful, funny and full of honesty. Here’s what they shared:

šŸ’› What Makes a Good Friend

  • Loyalty
  • Kindness & compassion
  • Respecting people’s wishes (even when you disagree)
  • Acceptance & empathy
  • Being positive
  • Trust & honesty
  • Including others
  • Treating people how you want to be treated

šŸ˜Š How Friends Make Us Feel

  • They make us laugh
  • We can “say what we want” around them
  • They’re there when we need them
  • They like us for who we are
  • They show love and support

šŸš« What We Don’t Want in a Friendship

  • Lying
  • Making excuses
  • Talking behind someone’s back
  • Selfish behaviour
  • Taking advantage
  • Thinking people are judging you
  • Poor hygiene

šŸ“ Final Thought

Friendship takes time, trust, and honesty — but it’s worth it.
Our young people reminded us how important friendships are for feeling safe, supported and confident.

 

šŸŒŸ CICC Meeting, Crofton 8th October 2025

Why Do We Do CICC?

“To help children in care and people who are new to care have a better experience than we did.” – K

šŸ‘‹ Meet the Members!

Young people shared fun facts:

  • D (16) is back at school and loving it.
  • K (15) enjoys Physics and Performing Arts.
  • L (11) got a huge Lego truck and visited Eden Camp.
  • H (12) loves Garfield.
  • S (17) is an ambassador for NCB.
  • C (16) is into gaming.
  • J (15) loves Science and Karate – green belt!

šŸ›¤ļø What Happens When You Leave Care?

Donna from the Next Steps Leaving Care Service explained:

  • Your Pathway Plan starts at age 15¾ – it’s your future plan.
  • You get a Personal Advisor (PA) who supports you until you're 25.
  • You work with your Social Worker until 18, then your PA becomes your main support.
  • You can stay in foster care until 21 or move into supported housing.
  • You get help with money, accommodation, forms, and life skills.
  • You’ll receive birthday, festival, and setting-up allowances when you move into your first home.
  • Council tax – you don’t pay it until you're 25 if you live in your own accommodation.

  • You’ll have an allocated worker until you are 21 —You’ll have your own worker who’s there to check in, listen, and help you with anything you need.

  • After 21, you can decide what you want the service to look like: you can have a PA allocated up to 25, or you may prefer being part of the Keeping in Touch Service where you can still access support when you need it.

  • Positive relationships with PAs can last even after 25.

šŸŽ‰ Celebration Event – Let’s Plan It!

Ideas from young people:

  • Two awards ceremonies 0-13 and 13-17
  • Smart but comfy dress code.
  • Certificates for every young person to feel special.
  • Possible themes: Peacock colours or Mirror ball.

šŸ’” Independent Living Tips

  • “Learn how to manage money.” – C
  • “Don’t waste it on junk food!” – D
    Some found moving into supported accommodation tough – one got just one day’s notice.

āœ… What’s Next?

  1. Raise awareness about Leaving Care support.
  2. Plan the celebration – activities, venue, budget.
  3. Fundraise – ask local businesses for help.
  4. Certificates for all – no one left out.
  5. Keep talking – share your views and stay connected.

Feb '23

  • We talked about progress made with our priorities

  • Planned for Youth Con

  • We made final preparations for the Care4Us Awards

Mar '23

  • We looked at paperwork for children in care and added suggestions about how to improve them.  these will be updated and a new push to make sure that they are sent out to young people

  • We talked about what we'd like to say tp the Children's Commissioner Dame Rachel Da Souza, when we meet her in April

  • We Reviewed the Care4Us Awards which everyone really enjoyed

September '20

The group spoke about what they would like foster carers to do when they are upset, the action of this is to contribute towards for our worker site on the care4us website

This session was mainly around Covid and the impact it had, the outcome of this session was to talk about the virus the importance on acting within the guide lines.

 

October '20

This session was a fun and short one around a theme for the CIC awards, and the group discussed what they would like at the Build Our Futures Summit on November 28th

 

November '20

The social workers introduction letter was shared and a young person looked over it, the young person said it wasn’t appealing, so design were asked to develop a new and improved leaflet.

 

December '20

A priority for the young people was finding out the process for adoption so Suzanne Whitely from One Adoption was invited, and she spoke about the plans to make the letter box system digital.

January

Special guest Sarah Johal attended who is head of One Adoption Sarah spoke about the importance of contact with birth family once a child has been adopted

The children and young got to ask questions about how siblings stay in contact once adopted

The outcome of this session was the children and young people felt they knew more about what happens when a sibling gets adopted and how they stay in contact.

This generated a Frequently Asked Questions which is now on Care4Us.co.uk

 

February

Special guest Wendy Farnsworth attended who is a graphic designer who does publicity for Wakefield Council

Wendy had produced 3 designs for the CICC achievements awards nomination form and asked the young people to work together to choose a final design.

The young people decided on design 3 and expressed little things they would change, with that said Wendy amended the design to fit the young people’s choices

The outcome of this session was to find a design that was attractive to young people

 

March

Discussions about the latest news and updates, updates to things that CICC requested like the coming into care ruck sack was approved

A group check in was done to some of our members and everyone said the next CICC meeting should be outside doing art activities.

 

May

We spoke and discussed about how a young person met with Cllr Denise Jeffery and interviewed her as part of the BOF summit.

an outcome of this the young person told the group that Cllr Denise Jeffreys said that when she was young, she didn’t have any ambitions of becoming a councillor.

But still made it to the top.

 The young person talks about how this is powerful and explains as everyone has potential to reach the top even if there are barriers in early life.

 

June

This session was focused on The Family Fun Day

The young people were played a video about what’s at playworld

CICC decided at the Fun Day they wanted to wear BOF hoodies so all the other young people knew they were part of CICC

 

July

We did priorities in this session and the priorities were:

Keeping brothers and sisters together

Having better rules

More activities for CIC

Reducing poverty

September 2021

The group spoke about what they would want foster carers to do when they are upset, the action of this is to contribute towards for our worker site on the care4us website

This session was mainly around covid and the impacts it has had. The outcome of this session is it educate on the virus the importance on acting to the guidelines.

 

October 2021

This session was a fun and short one around a theme for the CIC awards, and the group discussed what they would like at the BOF summit November 28th

 

November 2021

The social workers introduction letter was shared and a young person looked over it, the young person said it wasn’t appealing, Creative Team to make a new and improved leaflet