Children In Care Councils Consortium

Do you want to be on this Consortium? If the answer is yes then please forward your details to Kamna Dev, Campaigns and Policy Officer kamna@croa.org.uk

The Children In Care Councils Consortium has been set up aiming to support and coordinate developments of the councils in each local authority and across the country. The idea of Children In Care Councils was first announced as part of Care Matters.
 
The National Centre for Excellence in Residential Child Care and CROA (Children’s Rights Officers and Advocates) see the need for local, regional and national support and coordination. They are anticipating the Consortium growing as other children’s organisations become included.
 
Jonathan Stanley, Manager of NCERC said, ‘ We know that there is a lot of interest and activity.The development document we produced with NYAS http://www.nyas.net/publications/Good%20Practice%20Guidance%20for%20Children%20in%20Care%20Councils.pdf has gone very well with over 5000 hits since March 2008. The Process and Performance Indicators published there seem to have been widely used as a planning tool.’
 
CROA recently held a successful first conference in Birmingham.  Debi Morgan, Chair of CROA, said, young people were keen to share their experiences of setting up and running their Children In Care Councils with each other, and a number of recommendations have come from the conference
 
Already contacts are being made with all local authorities and the Consortium are collating a report in which each local authority can share where they are  up to in their developments. ‘We’re really encouraged with the response,’ said Stanley, ‘We’ve already had a strong response, replies are streaming in.’
 
The Consortium plans to set up a network that can support and share good practice and a website is already under construction.  Accredited training is also planned for both young people and professionals.
 
An early partner in the Consortium is the Alliance for Child Centered Care who have are keen to assist in hosting another larger national working conference in the Autumn with young people and professionals from all local authorities attending. ‘We think a conference with an emphasis on activities taking on local and regional issues whilst addressing national themes will be what’s needed’ said John Kemmis of Voice, the guiding organisation for the Alliance.
 
Contacts
 
Jonathan Stanley NCERCC jstanley@ncb.org.uk
Debi Morgan CROA info@CROA.org.uk