‘Voices’, the only national creative writing competition for children in care and young care leavers run by Coram Voice, is now open for entries from 11 December 2024 to 23 March 2025.
Coram Voice, a leading charity championing the voice of care-experienced children and young people, will celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2025 and is inviting all care-experienced children and young people aged 4-25 to enter the competition and showcase their creativity.
To celebrate 50 years, the theme of this year’s competition, sponsored for the fifth year running by UK management consultancy Cadence Innova, is ‘My Voice’. Entries must be 500 words or under and can be submitted in written form or video format including poems, short stories, raps, songs or newspaper articles. There are four age categories: primary school (4-10), lower secondary school (age 11-14), upper secondary school (age 15-17) and care leavers (age 18-25).
Entries will be judged by an expert panel of acclaimed children’s authors. Previous judges include the former Children’s Laureate Lauren Child, Waterstones Children’s Book award winner Patrice Lawrence, and the multi award-winning children’s author Jarvis. Judges for the 2025 edition are due to be announced shortly, alongside a group of young judges who were finalists in previous years of the competition.
Brigid Robinson, Managing Director of Coram Voice, said: “The Voices competition is the only dedicated competition for care-experienced young people, offering them the chance to write or perform a piece on what matters to them most, to be heard, and to feel proud of themselves. Every year we are blown away by the incredibly powerful stories that young people share.
“As we mark 50 years of Coram Voice, we want to make this year’s competition our best yet so we’re opening up the competition for entries to be sent in video format for the first time. I’m delighted that our young judges, previous competition winners and finalists will be joining us and I can’t wait to see the creative works that young people send in!”
Gita Singham-Willis, Founding Partner at Cadence Innova, said: “Once again it is very exciting to be sponsoring ‘Voices’, and we are very proud to be participating with Coram Voice in its 50th year. Our consultants are always deeply impressed by the standard of writing and by the ability of our young people in care to tell their own stories in such a powerful way. We love the theme for this year’s competition and look forward to hearing from as many ‘Voices’ as possible.”
Entries can be submitted online at coramvoice.org.uk/voices between 11 December and 23 March 2025.