Jo Derrick on the importance of putting principles into practice, no matter the circumstances
#NeverMoreNeeded
Kindness, compassion, care and love. They’re words we’ve heard a lot of over the past few weeks and months. Indeed, the First Minister herself stated in May that “Staying at home now is an expression of love, kindness and solidarity.” As a third sector organisation we know these are values that the sector lives by each day.
The true test is how we continue to lead with our values in times of stress and adversity. Staf’s values are that we listen, we care and we love and these values are reflected in our efforts to continue supporting the young people involved in our projects. Staf aims to listen, reflect and act on the voice of young people with care experience – this hasn’t changed, we’ve just changed the way we work.
We currently work alongside young people and practitioners on a number of projects: Youth Justice Voices is amplifying the voice of care and justice experienced young people; Project Return is supporting young people to be catalysts for trauma-informed change; and Building Relationships which is developing a toolkit to support relationship-based practice in leaving care teams.
From almost day one our youth participation team switched our projects to online delivery. Fifty-seven care packs have been sent out since the crisis began, with practical support like supermarket vouchers, items to support their mental health and mobile top-ups so they could keep connected. We’ve used the relationships we have built to support people on an individual basis and we have increased the number of group sessions through platforms that work for them – we’ve even had online singalongs and pottery sessions!
I’ve be impressed not only by the commitment of our project teams but by the creativity of the young people involved. Youth Justice Voices are developing a newsletter to keep young people more connected with their work, including those in HMP&YOI Polmont, and are planning a digital exhibition of their Artivism work. Project Return are creating packs to support young people to grow plants as a self-care tool and are beginning to research the role of pets as a support in addressing unresolved trauma. Our Building Relationships project also continues at pace, with an Advisory Group bringing together practitioners and young people online every month to co-produce a tool to support relationships.
As well as our projects, we’ve been continuing to connect our members and partners by moving our Focus Groups and Forums online. These have been invaluable as an opportunity to share practice in what is a challenging and fast-moving situation for those who support care leavers. Through these we can also provide the Scottish Government and others with feedback on how the situation has impacted on care leavers. We’ve been able to keep our members informed of policy changes too, including the increase in Universal Credit, which has allowed them to increase support for 16-17 year old care leavers.
There have been examples of love and kindness from our members across Scotland, in both the third and public sectors. Aberlour’s Urgent Assistance Fund has been providing invaluable support to families, LinkLiving’s Ray of Sunshine project has certainly lived up to its name and SCVO’s Connecting Scotland project is helping tackle digital exclusion. In local authorities too, we’ve seen increased payments to supported carers, more relationship-based practice and working with Champions Boards to keep connected.
Staf aims to listen, reflect and act on the voice of young people with care experience – this hasn’t changed, we’ve just changed the way we work.
Yet despite the care and love being provided by those who support them, we know that far too many care leavers still face a challenging transition to adulthood. Indeed, the COVID-19 crisis has shone a new light on many of these issues. Loneliness, social isolation and mental health issues have been exacerbated by the pandemic. We’ve heard how some young people have had issues with energy bills, accessing social security or being able to afford food. For these young people it’s not about getting back to normal, we need to build back better. Staf is already working on how we achieve this and we’re being bold too, looking at solutions like a Universal Basic Income for care leavers.
I am clear that the third sector will be central to our efforts to rebuild and renew Scotland, working in collaboration with Corporate Parents in the public sector. Our shared values of kindness, compassion, care and love need to be at the heart of our society and public services. Indeed, to addressing the systemic issues we know have persisted in our care system we’ll need to demonstrate brave leadership and integrity too.
We can only achieve our vision for care leavers by collaboration, partnership working and leading with our values – if you want to work with Staf to build back better for care leavers then please do get in touch.
Jo Derrick is CEO of care leaver charity Staf.
