In partnership with the Specialist Participation Team in Buckinghamshire Council, young people involved in We Do Care created a short video, called ‘Language that Cares’, to reflect the views and experiences of young people with care experience.
The video has been, and continues to be, shared across Children’s Services and partners. For example, the video was used as part of a training programme delivered by the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) to professionals in the children’s residential teams.
Language that cares video
You can watch the video by clicking on the play button below. It is the voices of the young people who took part that you will hear.
There has been lots of positive feedback on the video from professionals who work with young people.
How did we listen, act and respond?
Listen
The Specialist Participation Team listened by inviting young people who are part of our We Do Care groups to come to a session at County Hall to discuss the topic of language. The young people talked about the language they hear and the impact it has on them. The session was attended by young people and supported by three people in the Specialist Participation Team.
Act
The Specialist Participation Team acted by working with Council colleagues to create the Language that Cares video. They showed the video to the young people who attended the session to make sure it accurately reflected their views. After the young people confirmed that they were happy with the video, the Specialist Participation Team shared this with lots of professionals that work with young people in care in Buckinghamshire, including the people in charge through the Corporate Parenting Panel. The Corporate Parenting Panel is a group of professionals in the Council and health organisations who are in charge of services.
Respond
The Specialist Participation Team responded by:
- showing the young people the video that they helped to create before it was shared with professionals
- collecting feedback from professionals who viewed the video and sharing this with the young people that helped to make the video.
Some of the messages from professionals to the young people are shown below. The video has resulted in a clear commitment from senior managers to act on the strong message from young people to change and improve the way we speak to and about them.
“I really like the video. Simple graphics, minimal words and spoken by you, the children and young people in the We Do Care group – makes for a very powerful message! Thank you for making me really think differently about the words that I am so used to hearing in my every day working life. The Fostering Panel and I will be thinking much more carefully about the words we use.”
– Annie Simpson, Fostering Advisor, Quality, Standards and Performance Team
“The message from young people is just fantastic. As a Contact Service, we are already looking at re-branding and using some of the alternative names suggested by our young people. We would welcome working with We Do Care and young people to develop our service.”
– Saj Khan, Assistant Team Manager Supervised Contact Service
“I commit to promoting a culture within the service where each child is seen as an individual and the views of our children and young people are listened to and used to influence the delivery of our service. I also commit to taking into account the views of our children and young people in re-branding our supervised contact centres.”
– Alison Munt, Head of Service Children in Care, Care Leavers, Disability 0-25 and Supervised Contact Service