Some of the most useful things we have built for children’s services came from putting our lived and professional experience of care next to another organisation’s expertise. Why Care is our fostering partner, and PwC joined us for a one-off day with employers. Madlug sponsored our Summit and our Fellowship, Become sponsored our Summit, and we sponsored the Relational Social Work Podcast. We are looking for the next partners who share our purpose.
Who we work with, and what we have done together.
Why Care are fostering specialists. Together we offer councils one fostering service: a diagnostic of where recruitment and retention leak, an assessment that gets applicants ready for panel in around four months, and support for every new carer through their first year. Why Care’s founder was the lead drafter of the new national standards for the Department for Education. We led the national engagement.
A one-off partnership. New World, New Skills was a single day at PwC’s London office for 30 care leavers from four councils, co-branded with PwC and sent out through our networks of personal advisers. It showed what an employer can do when a council opens the door, and it shaped how we now build employer partnerships into Care to Work.
Madlug is a social enterprise that gives a bag to a child in care for every bag it sells, so no child has to move home with their things in a bin bag. Madlug sponsored The Care Leaders Summit and The Care Leaders Fellowship, and we made a podcast together.
Become is the national charity for children in care and young care leavers. Become sponsored The Care Leaders Summit, our national day with care-experienced leaders at the front.
A podcast for social workers from Coventry City Council’s children’s services. We sponsored two series, because it puts relationships at the centre of practice. The podcast went on to sponsor The Care Leaders Summit.
We bring the room, the relationships and the lived and professional experience. You bring what you do best.
We have worked with 36 local authorities, and with national bodies including the Department for Education and the NHS, and we are in the room with directors, virtual school heads and fostering leads every week.
Care-experienced leaders and consultants who have run children’s services, so what we build together is credible with young people and with the people who commission it.
Every partnership so far has produced something a council can buy or a young person can use: a fostering service, an employer day, a national Summit.
Three kinds of partner, and what each would do with us.
Specialists in one part of children’s services, as Why Care are in fostering, who want a joint offer for councils with our consultancy and training behind it.
Organisations ready to open their doors to care leavers: work experience, ring-fenced roles and days like New World, New Skills, built into Care to Work.
Charities, membership bodies and universities who want lived experience of care alongside professional experience in their programmes, research and events.
The same as a commission: a conversation first, and nothing agreed until it is written down.
A call with Luke. What you do, what we do, and whether there is something neither of us could build alone.
We write down what the partnership is for and who it serves. If that is not children in care and care leavers, it is not for us.
A pilot: a day, a product or a programme, so both sides see how the other works before anything is signed.
A plan for the year, how we talk about each other, and what each side puts in and gets out.
