Your voice and your right to be heard

• Care Leaver Forum
• Tameside’s Community Parenting Board
• National Care Leavers Benchmarking Forum (NCLBMF)
• Advocacy
• If you have a worry or concern…

Children and young people are at the heart of Tameside; this is a value we stand by and promote in everything that we do. Participation is about listening to children and young people, ensuring their views shape our priorities and help us to improve the services we deliver.

We consider children and young people’s needs, abilities, age and circumstances and ensure we change how we communicate depending on their circumstances. The voice of children and young person is paramount to all we do whilst learning from their lived experiences.

Your voice matters and we want your help to continue developing our service in ways that make your experience of support better. You can make real change by getting involved and we have tried to create different spaces for you to share your views, ideas and thoughts on the support you get or might want in the future. If you’d like to get involved in improving our service, please speak to your Personal Advisor.

As your community parents we want to ensure that you become an active member of society and have all the chances in life that other young adults have. We can help you participate in society in the following ways:

• providing information on groups and clubs you may wish to join such as Tea Club at the Hub, which is a relaxed drop in where you can connect with others, cook on a budget and share a meal every Monday, 4pm till 6pm
• informing you about relevant awards, schemes and competitions you can enter, in line with your talents and interests
• encouraging and helping you to enrol on the Electoral Register, so you can vote in elections
• informing you about voluntary work that we think you may be interested in
• informing you about leisure activities
• giving you advice and helping you to challenge any discrimination you face as a Care Leaver

Care Leaver Forum 
The Care Leaver Forum is held on a fortnightly basis and is for young people aged 16-25 to share their experiences of being in care and leaving care.

This forum allows the voices of care experienced young people to have their voices heard. Your views are really important as they help shape how services may look and what support will be implemented in the future.

We really value your views to support the development of the service, if you are interested in joining, please talk to your Personal Adviser.
For children and young people aged 11-16 years old we have our Children in Care Council. If you’d like more information on this, please speak to your Social Worker.

Tameside’s Community Parenting Board
As community parents, we encourage our children and young people to express their views and understand the power and value in their voice. This is why our Children in Care Council and our Care Leavers Forum are regularly involved in Tameside’s Community Parenting Board. It provides an opportunity to our children and young people a chance to set the agenda, chair meetings and to share presentations about issues that are important to them.

As a Community Parenting Board, we understand that cared for children and care leavers are a protected characteristic in Tameside and actively discuss and address the discrimination they may face. 

For our Tameside Community Parenting Strategy we developed three online surveys, one for cared for children (aged 4-11), one for cared for young people (aged 12-15) and one for care leavers (aged 16-25) and asked a selection of questions to understand their care experiences, perceptions of safety, security and trust, and feelings when transitioning into adulthood. The views of our cared for children and care leavers sit at the heart of this strategy and everything we do. The feedback from the surveys helped us shape the Community Parenting Strategy priority areas and identify what we need to do to support all cared for children in Tameside to live healthy, happy and fulfilling lives.

National Care Leavers Benchmarking Forum (NCLBMF)
We are part of the National Care Leavers Benchmarking Forum, often shortened to NCLBMF. This forum is attended by different local authorities who support each other to develop services and there are often opportunities for care leavers to be a part of consultations and events.

Advocacy
If you want help speaking up, or if you think a decision is unfair, someone from the Advocacy Focus can help you tell people what you think and make sure your views are listened to.

You can contact Advocacy Focus by calling 0300 323 0965 emailing admin@advocacyfocus.org.uk or visit www.advocacyfocus.org.uk  

If you have a worry or concern…
If something has made you unhappy, try talking to your Social Worker, Personal Adviser or the service first. They may be able to fix the problem. If they cannot, or you don’t feel comfortable speaking to them, you can make a free and private complaint to the Council at: www.tameside.gov.uk/complaints