There are so many amazing ways you can get your voice heard as a care leaver. Find out more below about what there is for you.
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Surrey Youth Voice
Surrey Youth Voice, also known as the User Voice and Participation (UVP) team, are a team in Surrey County Council who can help you to have your voice heard on making the services you use better. We work closely together with different participation groups for young people to listen and support each other. As a team we believe that young people's voices are important to improving services for you and other young people like you.
Our participation groups take part in consultations. Consultations are where you will chat through different services and provide feedback to that service. This can look like sharing your thoughts about what mental health support should look like in Surrey. Those mental health services will then listen to your feedback to see what they might need to change.
Our groups also take part in service re-designs (looking at how a service is delivered for young people and what can be changed) and deliver training for frontline workers and senior leadership. Young people can also train to take part in interviews for Surrey County Council and get paid an hourly rate for this work.
To find out more about Surrey Youth Voice, you can follow the team on Instagram and Twitter (@ourvoicesurrey) and send them a direct message for more information. You can also find out more about the members of the team on the wesbite.
Care Leavers' Forum
One of the participation groups run by Surrey Youth Voice is the Care Leavers' Forum. The forum is a group for young people who are over 18. It is a space for them to talk about any issues they may be facing and finding out how they can get support from services. The group also share their thoughts on care services to make sure they focus on what young people need. Its a great space to meet other young people who might share some of the same experiences you've had in care.
Here is what young people have said about attending the group:
- "The session was really good. I thought I would be nervous, but my confidence has grown and will continue to grow the more I attend".
- "Everyone was really friendly and was open with their experiences which helped me to open up".
- "The group has pushed me to have conversations with people in the same position - it's refreshing".
When you join the forum, you will get information about when and where the group is meeting. The dates and times of the meetings might change. To find out more, complete an expression of interest form and someone from the team will get in touch.
Advocacy and Complaints Service
What's our aim?
We want children and young people to feel more confident to 'self advocate' which means speaking up for yourself in your views and what you need. This can help make sure that:
- you fully understand the decisions being made by professionals (people who are working around you)
- How these decisions will make a difference in your life
- professionals supporting you really understand what the you want and need, and they know how you feel about the decisions affecting your life.
Our advocacy and complaints service want to make sure that young people, like you can share your wishes and feelings. We want you to have a direct say about the issues that are affecting your life. This can done through lots of ways including making a complaint (when you're unhappy about something) trying to solve a problem or meeting with professionals that can help you.
What's our belief?
We believe that all staff working with children and young people have a advocacy (making sure your voice is heard) role to play in getting young people's voices heard. We try not to have lots of adults in your life as it can make it difficult and confusing to know who to go to.
Our message to professionals working with children and young people workers is that: Advocacy starts with you. This might not always be possible because the young person might want to make a complaint and asks for someone else to support with the complaint or issue.
Advocacy services in Surrey are provided by Reconstruct. If you would like more information about the support they can provide, visit the website.
If you wish to speak to someone about advocacy support or to make a complaint, please speak to your personal adviser first, or email the Surrey Customer Relations team at be.heard@surreycc.gov.uk.
Our Voice Matters
Our Voice Matters is a survey for everyone in Surrey aged 8 to 25. It runs every two years and is a way for children and young people to have their voice heard on what it is like to grow up in Surrey.
The last Our Voice Matters survey ran between May and August 2022 and collected the views of 571 children and young people in Surrey. Find out what children and young people in Surrey said by viewing the report. The next survey will be launching in early 2025, keep an eye out for your chance to have your say!
