As we continue to mark National Care Leavers’ Month, this guest blog sees Victoria Odude from the Young People’s Benchmarking Forum at Catch22 speak to Abena Dadey from the National Leaving Care Benchmarking Forum.
The Young People’s Benchmarking Forum (YPBMF) brings the voices and priorities of care experienced young people into the heart of the National Leaving Care Benchmarking Forum (NLCBF, or the Forum) – a forum of 135 local authority leaving care teams, working together to share good practice and improve support and services for care leavers. The National Leaving Care Benchmarking Forum is part of the charity Catch22.
Victoria Odude from the Young People’s Benchmarking Forum
As a care leaver why did you want to get involved with NLCBF, Victoria?
I loved the work that NLCBF was doing, and everyone said that NLCBF is like a family. I thought that maybe it’s just something that people said but it only took a few events for me to realise that it’s actually true. After that, it wasn’t long before I felt like I was part of the family too. It’s a type of environment where everyone is there to support you, and everyone is genuinely friendly, real, and easy to connect with.
Everyone accepts everyone for who they are, there’s no need to wear a mask. I feel I can be me with my baggage, emotions, labels, everything and they still accept me – and it’s always been like this.
What’s been your favourite thing about working with the Forum?
I love seeing the process of young people becoming YPBMF Champions and Legends. It begins with seeing a new young person attending their first event. We then get to meet them and spend time with them and then a few months down the line, you see them having the confidence to go up on stage and share their story. It’s really touching for me because I remember the feeling and what it meant to me when I first did it, and I can see that same feeling in them or something just as special in their own way.
I also love going to events outside of NLCBF and being able to represent the Forum and hear what is being talked about, share the views of other care experienced young people. I’m there to listen and feedback to the Forum especially on behalf of people who may not be able to attend NLCBF events.
What have you personally learned from your role within the Forum?
This role has taken me to loads of different places. I’ve learned a lot more about the care system and the decision-makers behind it, and key people to talk to including MPs, ministers, and councillors – something I never thought I would do. I feel really privileged to sit in those meetings and represent YPBMF’s views and experiences on topics like the cost of living or mental health.
How would you sum up the impact of YPBMF and/or NLCBF on the lives of care-experienced young people?
I would say that YPBMF coming from a collective of care-experienced young people from loads of different places around the UK is impactful in itself. We give our views and share our experiences on things that we think need to be changed and improved across the country. We want people to hear it directly from those of us with care experience.
We’re actively advocating for change for care experienced young people through our events and projects such as the In Their Own Words survey, which sets out the priority areas that can improve the lives of care experienced young people. All of that work has been co-produced with YPBMF; it was then taken to the Children’s Minister, leaving care managers, and MPs in Parliament.
I get to go back to the young people and let them know that their words are making change. This is important because sometimes the young people don’t realise they are having that effect until we tell them.
So, can I ask you, what does National Care Leavers’ Month and this year’s theme ‘Rising as Me’ mean to you?
‘Rising As Me’ really hits home with me, especially because of the first speech I gave with YPBMF which was about my identity and how I’ve been care-experienced. I spoke about my journey from who I was in care to who I was when I left care. Back then, I didn’t know who I was, I was dealing with a lot and not going down the best path.
I ended my speech by talking about the apprenticeship and how I was now helping young people in my area who were in the position that I was in but that I was now a YPBMF Champion. My journey was hard to navigate but what I’m doing now is going down a much more positive path. I think ‘Rising As Me’ means that I am accepting my story and I’m allowing all the hard bits and the proud bits to come together. It’s recognising how far I’ve come in my personal and professional journey – at times it can be hard to juggle being a care leaver and working on my own personal issues, while trying to help other care leavers. Even though there might be hardships, I still keep going because the importance of being care experienced and trying to improve the system for others, means more to me personally.
What would you like National Care Leavers’ Month achieve?
National Care Leavers’ Month is about raising awareness and celebrating achievements but what I hope for is that the public who still have no idea about what being care-experienced means get to know about us and to support us.
My hope is that opportunities open up for care-experienced young people – not out of pity but because they want to help care-experienced young people in an uplifting way.
Also, I want ministers to really, really think about care-experienced people when they are reading a report or writing policy. They already consider children, old people, disabled people… I want the care-experienced to be part of those groups.
I’m hoping that this National Care Leavers’ Month, everything that we’ve been doing starts to helps to make things better or at least starts the journey to get the right people round the table who can make those things better.
I also hope that the young people really do feel that they are being celebrated. I think it’s important to share the good work that we have been doing and what we have accomplished so far. It can be really easy to feel that things are not moving that much but we are doing great work, and I think hats off to the care leavers and the really good staff that are there to make it happen.
