Today, 275 years after Thomas Coram’s Foundation for Children became the UK’s first children’s charity, Coram is a group of specialist charities, still dedicated to creating better chances for children.
This year, Coram celebrated the birth of children’s social care by launching our Charter for Children, to focus attention on the issues we still need to address for all children to have the best possible start in life.
Key Achievements
- Coram Capital Adoption, formed with four local authorities, was cited as the trailblazing innovation that influenced the policy for regional agencies.
- The Adoptables programme for adopted young people developed new resources to tackle the issues identified by adopted children, including the new Adoptables Schools’ Toolkit.
- First4Adoption created an acclaimed e-learning platform for adopters and was recognised as Best Public Sector project.
- The Child Law Service became digital and quadrupled the percentage of helpline calls it could answer.
- Coram announced plans for work to begin to create The Queen Elizabeth II Centre, a national centre of excellence for children.
- CoramBAAF became part of the group, a multi-disciplinary membership organisation which improves outcomes for children in care by supporting the agencies and professionals who work with them.
This year, we reached more than one million children, parents, professionals and partners. We championed their voice and co-production to strengthen outcomes and policy for young people and we were recognised as a pioneer of social care reform as well as outstanding practice.
Our Digest of Achievements summarises outcomes and progress for children during 2015–16, which saw Coram playing a significant role on the national stage in the UK, as well as working to improve legal systems for children in 34 countries.