About the Care Ambassadors and the Corporate Parenting Panel
Care Ambassadors are care-experienced young people and young adults who share their ideas and feedback to improve care services.
In July 2025, the Care Ambassadors did a Take-Over of the Corporate Parenting Panel, sharing their ideas on how things could be improved for care-experienced young people in Buckinghamshire.
The Corporate Parenting Panel is a group of ~20 professionals. They are Council staff, Councillors, and professionals in partner organisations, including a staff member from We Do Care.
A Take-Over is where young people lead a meeting that is usually led by professionals.
Attendees
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- 9 Care Ambassadors: JJ, JH, MM, DR, OR, LW, ARH, BPK, WCR
- 9 adults from the Corporate Parenting Panel:
Councillors Ade Osibogun, Jilly Jordan, Susan Morgan, Lesley Clarke OBE and Maru Mormina,
Service Director for Children’s Social Care Alison Munt, Head of Housing Tom Chettle, and Deputy Head of the Virtual School Vicky Carrick-Lynch
Senior Committee Services Officer Elly Cook
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- 3 Youth Voice Bucks staff: Angel, Krissie and Sam
It was a busy room!
The Plan for the Meeting
In May, the Care Ambassadors worked together with the Youth Voice Bucks team and guest Hamish Roberts to design the plan for the Corporate Parenting Panel Take-Over.
Read more about the May Care Ambassadors session
View the plan for the Take-Over as a PDF [311kB]
Arrival, settling in and starting the meeting
The Care Ambassadors and adults arrived at 5.30pm. They settled into separate rooms, either side of the main meeting room for the session.
Between 5.30 and 6pm, the young people’s room was buzzing with settling in, eating dinner, loo runs, confirming final arrangements, running through scripts, and preparing introductions.
Meanwhile, Alison and Committee Officer Elly kindly took a lead in the adult room, sharing the Care Ambassadors’ group agreement and coordinating everyone’s introductions for the ice-breaker activity.
At just past 6pm we all came into the central room.
The young people were seated together, wrapped around the top of the 0-shaped tables, with the adults wrapped around the bottom. This meant the young people felt as a united team and could see each other, but there was no impression of an “us and them” divide between the young people and adults.
Care Ambassador JJ acted as chair for the meeting. She started the meeting without any input from staff, welcoming everybody and leading the introductions. The introductions section was a fun ice-breaker game, with each person present introducing another person rather than themselves.
Care Ambassador JH, acting in the role of Wellbeing Lead, provided an informative and valued introduction to wellbeing provisions for the meeting, which young people and adults alike made good use of.
Throughout, our Care Ambassador LW captured the meeting in artistic drawings, and Care Ambassador ARH noted the atmosphere tone of the meeting using emoji stickers.
The Take-Over Topics
Care Ambassadors MM, DR and OR spoke through the main themes for the meeting.
Wellbeing Lead JH led an energizer between the two themes, which was greatly appreciated by all!
Education: What’s working well
- Our Virtual School workers make an effort to understand us. They help to share young people’s points of view and they advocate for care-experienced children and young people within the school. Where needed, they also help us access support like tuition and devices. We appreciate them and feel they are on our side.
- School trips are often fun and give us access to new experiences. And many of us like art and practical subjects too, which help us explore our talents and express ourselves in different ways.
- We feel safeguarding is strong, and we appreciate wellbeing support that is offered at school, especially where young people get access to extra help. For example, my school offers alternative, accessible lesson spaces with support staff that cater to neurodivergent young people.
Education: Even better if
- Bullying is unfortunately common and has an especially negative impact on care-experienced children and young people. Better behaviour management from schools would help to protect our wellbeing.
- More consistent wellbeing support within classrooms is needed. Some teachers have rules in the classroom that are constricting and uncomfortable for us. For example, we have fidget gadgets on the table today because they help us to focus – but many teachers ban these, even if they are silent.
- Mark schemes limit us and take a toll on our mental health. Opportunities to celebrate our individuality and strengths outside of school are so important to us, to show that we are more than a number, and that our voices – expressed in any way – are heard and valued.
Independent Living: What’s working well
- That we can have our own space, that we can make and call our own.
- We are pleased that our accommodation costs are covered at University, this removes additional pressure to us in an already very stressful time.
- Some young people find that living independently improves their health, wellbeing and overall life skills, as they are able to have the freedom to do things in their own way and time that feels comfortable for them.
- Those of us who use Bucks Home Choice find it easy to set up an account and bid and very accessible with helpful icons.
- We like the fact that we can have friends over and proudly show a space that we have made our own. We also think it make us feel less alone in times that we might be struggling.
Independent Living: Even better if
- Bucks Home Choice should include photos of the inside of the property. This would help us with making an informed decision on if we want to use 1 of our 3 bids on that property, and it would reduce anxiety when needing to visit an unknown property.
- There currently isn’t enough support to help us with understanding bills and our finances. We would really like to see a living independently project, in a youth-friendly location where we can go for a period of time and learn how to access our benefits, explore funding opportunities and learn how to manage our money on bills, food and subscriptions. We would also like for it to cover the topics, hygiene, relationships, cooking, and lots of other things.
- Some of us are really struggling with finding jobs. We would love for there to be more support for us within this area.
- Stepping into living independently is a big moment for us and can be very unsettling. We feel there is not enough mental health support for us from age 17, at times it has felt like we are left to bid, move and start living independently without any emotional support. As much as we like our own freedom at times, living on our own can feel very lonely.
- We are all individuals and some of us may need more support than other young people. It’s important to us that professionals are flexible with their approach.
Reflecting and wrapping up
After the two themes were covered, we took a 10 minute break.
After this, Young Chair JJ welcomed everybody back and drew attention to the big paper sheets that the Care Ambassadors had worked on in their planning session.
Care Ambassador WCR then introduced our reflections activity. He asked each of the adults present to write down one key takeaway for the meeting, and one action they would commit to.
The adults then shared these reflections, which demonstrated that they had heard the young people’s points and taken them on board.
Care Ambassador BPK provided some final reflections and closing remarks.
Young Chair JJ then closed the meeting and the young people and adults returned to their separate rooms.
The Care Ambassadors reflected that the meeting went well, and that they were feeling very tired and relieved afterwards! Service Director for Children’s Social Care, Alison, kindly came to congratulate the young people too.
In their room, the adults were invited to post questions for the Care Ambassadors in a question box. Plenty of questions were collected, which the Youth Voice Bucks team will review with the Care Ambassadors in their next meeting.
Responding to the Care Ambassadors: What has happened since the Take-Over?
- The Virtual School have continued to train staff at schools through their Trauma Informed and Attachment Aware programme.
- The Children in Care Celebration Event took place on Thursday 7 August 2025. This was a fun and lively event to celebrate Buckinghamshire’s Children in Care as individuals, for their diverse strengths, talents, and achievements.
“We’ve listened to what young people have said about the Bucks Home Choice website, especially the lack of pictures on property adverts.
We know how important it is to see what a place looks like before deciding if it’s right for you. So, the housing team reached out to all the housing associations we work with and explained why clear photos and detailed info matter.
As a result, from 1st September, we’ve updated the website so that only adverts with at least 3 property pictures will be shown.
This change is now live, and we hope it’s helping you feel more confident when choosing which homes to bid on!
We also know that moving into your own place can feel exciting but also a bit overwhelming. That’s why we’re working on a new workshop and workbook to help you build the skills you need for independent living.
This will cover things like budgeting and bills, looking after your home, knowing your rights and responsibilities, where to get help if you need it.
A pilot session is happening on 30 October 2025, in Care Leaver Week, for young people who are within 6 months of moving into their own accommodation.”
– Rachel from the Housing Team at Bucks Council
Feedback
– Alison, Service Director for Children’s Social Care