The Story of New Belongings: Improving services for care leavers with care leavers – Final Report

The New Belongings report shares key learnings from the three-year programme and offers practical resources that any local authority can use to improve their care leaver services. The Bright Spots survey for care leavers Your Life Beyond Care was one of the key tools used as part of the programme.

Over three years, Coram Voice worked with eight local authorities, from Dorset in the South to North Tyneside in the North, to help them understand the views and experiences of their young people and find new ways of making their lives better through co-production. The authorities developed lots of different ways to support care leavers.

Key learnings

  • The important lesson from New Belongings is that the value comes from working with young people locally to develop solutions that they feel will make the most difference to them.
  • Not only does this identify the changes that are relevant to care leavers in their particular area, but the process itself has benefits for the young people participating.