Coram x The Churchill Fellowship | Documentary screening: Towards Brotherly Love

Omar’s Fellowship was established to explore and address the unique challenges faced by Black children in care, care leavers and families. These challenges include unmet cultural and racial identity needs, experiences of racism, and a lack of representation in decision-making about their care. Additionally, Black children are overrepresented in the care system and often placed with carers who may not fully understand their cultural background.

Recognising the UK’s early-stage understanding of racism’s impact on social work, this Fellowship sought to drive systemic change by amplifying the voices of Black care-experienced individuals and equipping social work and social care professionals with the tools to better support Black families.

The Fellowship focused on three key objectives:

• Enhancing understanding of creative techniques that empower Black care-experienced individuals to share their stories
• Researching effective models for maintaining cultural connections and identity in the care system
• Collecting and sharing lived experiences to drive meaningful reforms in child welfare practices

In Summer 2024, Omar embarked on a transformative journey to Philadelphia, where he engaged with influential changemakers, activists, and professionals working to reform the child welfare system. Through co-creation and storytelling, this experience led to the production of a powerful documentary showcasing:

• Positive experiences of care
• The catastrophic impact of racism and systemic family policing
• The ongoing efforts to create meaningful change for Black children and families

This Fellowship underscores the importance of centring lived experiences in policymaking and service design, ensuring Black children in care are heard, supported, and empowered to thrive.

Black children and young people are overrepresented in care systems worldwide. Their journeys through care continue to be shaped by systemic racism and a lack of cultural competence. The realities of this system for these individuals must be taken seriously. ‘Towards Brotherly Love’ explores this landscape in Philadelphia (USA) through the lens of a social worker, activist and researcher with lived experience of care. Through candid interviews, poignant stories, and expert insights, Omar Mohamed unpacks a system shaped by disparity and trauma, examining the intricate realities of child welfare and care for the Black children and young people who have experienced it. Amid stories of hardship – and centring the urgent need for reform – the documentary also celebrates cultural resilience, innovative community initiatives, and the voices advocating for equity and healing. This powerful exploration of care and catastrophe sheds light on the lives most impacted – and the urgent work needed to bring about transformative change.

Omar Mohamed is a 24-year-old, Asian British male born and raised in London, with family and ancestral roots from East Africa, India and Persia. Omar is a lived experience activist and sibling kinship carer and uses his role as a social worker as a platform to help make changes in the world that link to promoting social justice, equity, and human rights. Omar sits on a variety of committees and leadership groups, provides training and consultancy, and regularly contributes to the next generation of social workers through education and international work. Omar regularly publishes contributions to knowledge related to anti-racism and decolonisation, with a drive to continually promote diasporic, embodied, and Indigenous knowledge.

Read more about Omar at his Churchill Fellowship profile.

Coram is the first and longest serving children’s charity in the UK. Our work enables us to better understand what works for children and young people, and communicate with those in a position to make a real difference. We use our insight and experience to engage with government, local authorities, social workers, teachers, carers and families to help deliver better practice, systems and laws. Her Majesty The Queen became our Patron in 2024, celebrating the long association of the Royal Family with Coram since the granting of the Royal Charter in 1739 and Her Majesty’s commitment to all our work.

The Churchill Fellowship is a national network of 4,000 dynamic individuals who are inspiring change in every part of UK life. They may be a nurse promoting mental health in the NHS, a scientist monitoring pollution in the oceans, or a community leader training young entrepreneurs, but they are all united by a common mission: to develop new solutions for today’s key challenges, based on learning from the world.