Dear Friend
Welcome to our November newsletter (yes, I know it’s December, but we’ve just been so busy!).
As the festive season approaches, we hope things will begin to calm down and everyone manages to get some time to get together with loved ones, colleagues, and friends.
The power of connection has been writ large for us since our last update. Our National Conference on the 23rd of November, our first in person event since March 2020, was a day of learning and development on relationships and friendships but also of appreciation as we saw familiar faces and met new friends and allies. It really was a fantastic day, thank you to everyone who joined us and as always, a particular thankyou to the Care Leavers who participated in the Panel and lent us their voices. You can access resources from the day on our website which includes copies of the speaker presentations and graphic recordings of the event captured by the incredibly talented Floating Designer.
This week we also held our Building Bridges event in collaboration with Staf’s Care Leavers Forum International Foster Care Organisation (IFCO) and Care Leavers Association (CLA England), again in person, this time at the Renfield Centre in Glasgow. It was wonderful to have Care Leavers and workers from England and Scotland in one room together to discuss issues such as Health, Education, Corporate Parenting and Finance. You can find out what happened on the day via our Twitter thread and a full report will be circulated in due course. Thank you to everyone for being there.
Our next major in person event, our Staf Summit for senior leaders, is now on sale. Taking place on Wednesday 8th March at The Studio in Glasgow, we will be looking at housing policy in relation to The Promise with a particular focus on having a trauma informed approach to ensure young people leaving care can access suitable and affordable housing. You can book your tickets here and if you are interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at the event, please email marion@staf.scot
Of course, we will still use online forums where relevant and it was great to welcome so many of you to our webinar as we launched our Local House Project study. From reading the report and hearing directly from the workers and young people from each of the House Projects in East Dunbartonshire, Fife, and Midlothian, it really did demonstrate the impact this model of housing provision can have on the outcomes of not only Care Leavers, but those who support them. You can access the report here and if you are interested in finding out more about rolling out a local house project in your area then please email tanya@thehouseproject.org
Our online focus groups and forum dates for next year are available on our events calendar so you can get those dates in your diary now. We will also soon be sharing details about events on our trauma informed learning and Each and Every Child. We will be in touch with more information soon.
Youth Just Us have also been busy, working with Liminal Studios creating digital storytelling workshops which will kick off in the new year. Their info session last week was well attended but if you know anyone with care and justice experience who would like to use digital technology, including virtual reality, to tell their story, please drop Ruth a line at ruth@staf.scot
I’m sure you will all have seen this year’s eagerly awaited John Lewis Christmas advert, and what an ad it is. Huge congratulations to our members Who Cares? Scotland and Action for Children for helping to create an ad focusing on care experience in such a powerful and positive way. It’s had us all talking here at Staf but for those with care experience it’s been even more impactful. Youth Just Us member Bella McOuat has written a beautiful, heartfelt blog about her reaction to the advert. Please do take some time to read this. It is one of the best blogs I have read all year.
As the festive season is upon us we always take this time to celebrate, however we are not naïve to the very real challenges that the Christmas period can bring to our members, supporters and care-experienced community and this year presents further impact with the cost-of-living crisis. We continue to engage with the Scottish Government to feedback the issues you raise with us and work to be part of the solution.
Thank you, as always, for your time and support.
Best wishes,
Jo Derrick
Staf CEO | | | | | |
Youth Just Us - Care and Justice Experienced Steering Group
Join Us Youth Just Us are seeking new members. If you’re aged 16-25 with experience of the care and justice systems, with an interest in shaping change, meeting new people and having fun, we want to hear from you! Email ruth@staf.scot to find out more. Pizza and storytelling Youth Just Us will be running an exciting project with Liminal Studios. ‘Digital Dough: a Co-creative Exploration in Digital Storytelling’ will use virtual reality technology to encourage young people to become aware of their own power, challenge the labels and write their own story for the future.
This four-week project, which begins in early 2022, is open to young people aged 16-25 with experience of the care and justice systems in Scotland. Pizza will be provided for each session, and all travel costs will be met. This is a fantastic opportunity to have fun, meet new people, learn new skills, raise issues - and tackle stigma and discrimination. Find out more. Email ruth@staf.scot if you are interested, or know someone who is. Creating space Budgeting, planning and shopping is underway by Youth Just Us to transfer our partner’s space at Staf into a brand new shiny participation space which will make our meet ups a more comfy and inspiring space. Quite literally - watch this space! In other news
Youth Just Us member Bella has been very busy…she was a panellist at this month’s YouthLink National Youth Work Conference. Along with her fellow panellists, Bella spoke about the importance of youth work, relationships and represented Youth Justice Voices views on the link between Poverty and Violence. Bella and Kev spoke at Staf’s 2022 conference, sharing their insights on the importance of relationships and friendships in Youth Just Us. We also delivered a lecture to Strathclyde Social Work Students on Creatively Involving Children and Young People in Decision making. Youth Just Us have been making good use of the new space and developing big plans for our Christmas Celebration and influencing work in 2023. Lastly read Bella’s heartfelt blog on the John Lewis Christmas advert Inside Out - Care experienced steering group at HMPYOI Polmont
Our group of care experienced boys and young men in HMPYOI Polmont are busy preparing for their next meeting with the Governor, where they will discuss progress and highlight issues and recommendations for change. We are looking forward to our final year celebration.
You can keep up to date with the work of Youth Just Us and Inside Out via our Twitter account @YJVScotland | | | | Care Leavers Forum
Get in touch with katrina@staf.scot if you'd like to get involved and influence change for care leavers! | | | | | | | | National Leadership Network (NLN) which Staf are lead hosts of alongside our partners at CYCJ, Columba 1400, Resilience Learning Partnership and Who Cares? Scotland.
Gary Brown, NLN Development Co-ordinator, shares the latest update Interim Oversight Board: Members of the NLN Interim Oversight Board have done an incredible job of leading the Steering Group recruitment process. From a mammoth seventy plus applications they led group conversations, 1-1 conversations and picked the final eight people who would make up the Steering Group of twelve people in total. They also made sure that everyone involved in the process was contacted individually and that they received individual feedback on how they got on. Steering Group recruitment: The recruitment is now complete, and the Interim Oversight Board have picked eight people from all over Scotland to work with the existing four young people who started with the Steering Group a couple of months ago. More information will follow soon. Exploring Possibilities event: The original four members of the Steering Group have been busy recently planning an online event called ‘Exploring Possibilities’ which took place on Wednesday November the 30th. The aim of the event was for people to find out about national leadership opportunities and experiences in the care experience community both paid and voluntary. This idea developed from the Steering Group wanting to highlight opportunities to people who did not make it to the final stages of the NLN Steering Group process. Blogs: The National Leadership Network have been sharing blogs on ‘leadership’ recently via our social media platforms. These have been varied in context and content and have been written by many friends of the Network including staff from Articulate, Celcis and Our Hearings, Our Voices. Watch out for more leadership blogs! We also recently shared some blog/vlogs from young people who have been working with the National Leadership Network too. This has been a great opportunity for people to talk about what they have been doing and how that has felt. Watch out for more of these in due course too. Promotion: NLN staff have had the pleasure of attending two conferences in November where they were able to promote the NLN and engage in national discussions with friends old and new. The first was the WEALL Wealth of Nations event in Glasgow, followed by the Staf National Conference in Stirling. Roadshows: After evaluating our first couple of roadshows we have decided to change the way we will do these over the next year. We are planning on doing smaller sessions where we can have more time to talk to people with care experience on their own, most probably where they are based too. We will still be looking to ask the same questions on leadership, and we are still keen to find out what leadership opportunities people are engaging in already and what they would possibly like to engage in the future. We will be able do these sessions virtually too. Steering Groups: NLN staff have been involved in Steering Group meetings this month for both Collective Leadership Scotland and the Celcis Participation Network. The Participation Network are holding an event on Wednesday the 7th of December, tickets are available here: Christmas Quiz: The NLN is holding a Virtual Quiz a Christmas quiz on Wednesday 14th of December from 6.30-8pm. This is open to anyone, and you can play on your own or in teams of two. This follows on from our first quiz which was lots of fun. There are prizes for the top three winners with vouchers of £30 for first place, £20 for second and £10 for third place. You can access the quiz here. Life Changes Trust Legacy Projects: The NLN is one of four Life Changes Trust (LCT) legacy projects. All projects have a different focus but are beginning to work collectively, staying true to Life Changes Trust values. The projects are Care and Creativity (contact jon@moniackmhor.org.uk), Digital Skills (contact peter@ymcascotland.org) and the Learning Channel (contact dawn@staf.scot) Social Media: remember you can keep up to date with what the NLN is doing via Twitter - @ypceleadership, Facebook and Instagram
As always this is a snapshot of what we are doing at the NLN if you more information or would like to be involved in the work we do please contact gary@thenln.org | | | | |
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