Agenda item

To provide information to the Corporate Parenting Committee on the progress made with Brent’s participation offer and transition from Care in Action / Care Leavers in Action / Brent Care Journeys (BCJ) to Brent Care Journeys 2.0 (BCJ 2.0).

Nicole Levy (Service Manager, Quality Assurance and Learning and Development, Brent Council) introduced the report, which provided an update regarding the participation offer, the transition from Brent Care Journeys (BCJ) to Brent Care Journeys 2.0 (BCJ 2.0), the response to the Bright Spots Survey and the progress of the Brent Children and Young People Participation and Engagement Strategy 2024-27. In introducing the report, she highlighted that the Participation Team was now fully staffed which was positive news. Work was underway to design and adopt the new principles of BCJ 2.0. One of the main issues young people fed back when talking about participation was that the established groups were not working effectively, so the new strategy looked to create different forums and spaces for young people where it was fun to engage and participation was interwoven into the activities, which had seen an increase in engagement. Work had also been done in the last year on the outcomes of the Bright Spots Survey which was national research done in partnership with Coram Voice gathering the experiences of children in care and care leavers. The results showed some positive experiences but areas for improvement and further development had also been identified. Brent Care Journeys 2.0 then presented what they had been doing to develop areas of focus for the Participation Team and shared a video.

In presenting the slides, Brent Care Journeys 2.0 shared that they had discussed the Bright Spots findings and identified areas to focus on for co-design projects, including friendships, feeling that things are worthwhile in life and having a trusted professional person to make a difference. These had been established following the findings that more young people aged 4-17 in Brent (9%) did not have a good friend compared with the general population (3%). Young people wanted to co-design projects to improve spaces for young people to come together, make new friends and improve their social skills. Brent Care Journeys 2.0 would reach out to other young people to involve them in co-design projects around friendships, anxiety and having a trusted person who was reliable, consistent and listened without judgement. A video was then shared where young people spoke about the new Participation and Engagement Strategy 2024-27.

The Chair thanked Brent Care Journeys 2.0 for the introduction and invited contributions from the Committee, with the following points raised:

The Committee noted the participation activity detailed in the report and asked what activities young people had enjoyed the most and would want to do again. Brent Care Journeys 2.0 spoke about the Stubbers Residential they had attended which enabled them to take part in canoeing and archery during the summer, and also highlighted the recent Create Arts project which provided consistency and helped build friendships. They highlighted that, for those not involved or interested in Create Arts, there was a gap in activities to get involved in. Representatives also wanted to see the return of Brent Care Journeys Kitchen.

Brent Care Journeys highlighted that most care leavers may not want to be included in activities where they were not paid to take part, or had other life experiences and responsibilities such as parenting that meant they did not have time to get involved. Representatives advocated for care leavers to take ownership of Brent Care Journeys 2.0, with branding, a logo, hoodies and their own space, to enable more young people to get involved. 

In response, Nicole Levy highlighted that the Participation Team was now at full establishment so there was capacity to do more. It was noted that, of the total cohort, the activities were reaching a low percentage of care leavers, with around 30 care leavers involved in activities, equating to less than 10% of the cohort. As a corporate KPI that the team reported on, outreach activity was being undertaken to reach more young people. Appia Douglas (Participation and Engagement Officer, Brent Council) agreed that a regularly available space that was fully owned by Brent Care Journeys 2.0 was important.

As no further issues were raised, the Committee resolved to note the report.