Voice of the child
The views of our children and young people are fundamental to the Coventry Corporate Parenting Strategy. The Children and Young People’s Participation Strategy details how their views are incorporated from services within Early Help, Children in Need, Child Protection and Looked After Children.
Following the ILACS Ofsted inspection in June 2022, Ofsted reported:
“The voice of the child is important in Coventry and there is a strong participation offer that ensures that children’s voices are heard and listened to at all levels of the local authority.”
In Coventry, children and young people’s views inform policy, practice, service design, development and evaluation. All children and young people have the opportunity to be involved:
- At an individual level through care planning
- At a service level by feeding back about their experiences of existing services and
- Strategically by helping to commission new services
Children and young people also have opportunities to get actively involved with:
- Voices of Care (our local Children in Care Council)
- Corporate Parenting Board
- Care Leavers Forum
- Youth Council
- Surveys, such as ‘Your Life, Your Care’
- (Coram Voice)
- Commissioning of Services
- Feedback forms
- Development of publicity
- Training of their peers, Coventry City Council staff and foster carers
- Recruitment and selection of staff
- Events
The City Council’s Corporate Parenting Board includes membership of young people with care experience.
The Participation Strategy monitors progress across Coventry Children’s Services to ensure the voice of the child remains at the heart of all that we do.
Outcomes from the surveys, undertaken with Coram Voice and looked after children, young people and care experienced young adults in early 2022 identified a number of ‘bright spots. Two surveys were completed- ‘Your Life, your Care’ and ‘Your life after care’, which enable us to consider areas where we can improve, comparing outcomes to other local authorities and the ‘general’
population. An example of a bright spot is:
Nearly all children (8-11yrs) and young people (11-18yrs) had a trusted adult in their lives.
Young people are encouraged to tell us where we could do better when meeting their needs. These comments are collated by the Participation Team and an action plan put together with all partners involved in providing services. These plans are presented to the Corporate Parenting Board
which makes sure that organisations carry out improvements in their services: ‘You said: We Did.’
For example, a care leaver raised how difficult it can be moving from a care placement into his own property. In response to this, the
Corporate Parenting Board spent some time focusing on improving care leavers experience of moving into their independence accommodation.
We have launched the House Project, which supports young people who are approaching independence to move to their own tenancy sooner and equips them with skills and a peer support network to achieve this.
In addition, views have been sought through the consultation of the One Coventry Strategic Plan,which will be considered within the development of the Children’s Services Strategic Plan.