The Welsh Government funded Children in Wales over three years to develop new resources for care-experienced children and young people across Wales.
Since the beginning of the project in 2016, we have been working directly with children and young people to co-produce a series of guides on topics relating to their rights under Part 6 of the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014. All guides are available in English and Welsh. We want more care experienced children and young people to be aware of their rights and to have more voice and control in the care and assessment planning process.
What the project has achieved
Children in Wales has worked with children and young people as well as key partners across local authorities, health boards and the voluntary sector to co-produce health and well-being guides. Our guides explore topics looking at subjects of interest to children and young people. As the project has evolved, we have explored wider themes of education, money management and family relationships. The Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014 and children’s rights are central to each guide.
Guides produced
All guides are available at the Children in Wales website.
Our aim is for the guides to be as accessible as possible. Each one can be downloaded from our website and young people can access and use them independently if they wish. We do appreciate however, that for some young people in care there may be additional barriers to accessing them. It is our hope that by working with professionals who directly support them, they will have the option of using guides in practice with children and young people to ensure voice and control remains central in care and assessment planning.
Ways to get involved
- If you work directly with children and young people you can use them in practice
- If you have a website for care experienced young people or intranet page for professionals you may wish to share the link to our website
- You could tweet about them and/or share amongst your networks
- Use as training tools in staff teams or with young people
- Tell us what you think! We’d love to have your feedback – there may also be a particular subject area you’d like a guide on in the future
As a project we can
- Attend a team meeting to tell you more about the project, getting involved and start to share some of the guides
- Deliver some training with young people on rights, well-being and our guides
Next steps
We acknowledge there is a still a lot of work to do. The issues for young people may change as the project evolves. We will continue to work in a way that is responsive to the needs of children and young people as well as the professionals who support them.
If you want to get involved and work together in the future, it would be great to hear from you. Please do get in touch.
Emma.Sullivan@childreninwales.org.uk
info@childreninwales.org.uk
02920 342434
@childreninwales
@plantyngnghymru
