Teesside University raising aspirations for young people in care

Carers, professionals, educators and advocates dedicated to supporting care-experienced young people came together at the annual conference delivered by Teesside University.

The event provided a platform to explore new ideas, share best practice and collaborate on ways to empower young people in care and care leavers to achieve their ambitions.

It featured insightful keynotes from care-experienced public speaker Ian Thomas and head of The Care Leaders consultancy Luke Rodgers, as well as hands-on workshops, panel discussions and valuable networking opportunities.

Ian drew on his inspiring journey from leaving school with no formal qualifications and reading his first book while in prison at 18 to earning degrees in Social Work and Criminology and now studying for his PhD.

His workshop focused on social capital and the significant socioeconomic challenges faced by care leavers, combining professional practice with research to explore themes of healing, resilience, transformation and growth.

Ian said: “It’s useful to draw on my memories of my lived experience and look at how I can understand those through the lens of my professional training. I feel I'm able to have a double-barrelled perspective.

“Us all coming together today is key. We need to support each other, celebrate successes, acknowledge challenges and think of constructive ways that we can overcome barriers and promote more enablers to accessing higher education.

“It's just as important for us as it is for the young people we’re serving.”

Award-winning social entrepreneur Luke shared practical strategies and tools for professionals to support care-experienced children.

His sessions explored key theories on trauma, attachments and brain development, blending lived experience with evidence-based approaches to help professionals better support care-experienced children emotionally, behaviourally and academically.

Luke added: “It was a privilege to contribute to the conference at Teesside University.

“Events like this are vital for equipping professionals with practical strategies and fresh perspectives to improve outcomes for children and families.

“Sharing knowledge and supporting each other is key to ongoing progress in our sector.”

An overview of the support services Teesside University offers, including specific care leaver support, was also shared with attendees.

Amy Newton, Student Recruitment & Outreach Manager at Teesside University, said: “We are committed to supporting young people in or leaving care to achieve their potential through education.

“Our Care Leavers Bursary provides financial support to care leavers who progress to full-time undergraduate studies at Teesside University.

“We also offer additional individual support to any care leaver who feels they would benefit from it, including pre-entry advice to ease the transition into higher education, a 365-day accommodation contract, and somebody to talk to if needed.”

Senior Lecturer in Social Work at Teesside University, Dr Rachel Close presented scenes from her upcoming feature-length documentary ‘Something Familiar’, which won the Chicken & Egg Vision Award at the Cannes Film Festival.

‘Something Familiar’ follows Dr Close, who was adopted from Romania as a baby and spent her teenage years in and out of the UK care system, along with a fellow adoptee in their international search for their birth families.

Dr Close said: “It's so important that this conference invites professionals with care experience to present and share ideas, as well as hearing from others who perhaps do not have personal experiences but are doing good work across the sector.

“I was really happy to present at this year's conference and focus on the value of using creative approaches in our work with care-experienced people. Creativity can be harnessed to help care-experienced people reflect on their lives in a safe way, to empower decision-making and choice and to see themselves more fully.

“Something that really came through as a theme of this year's conference was the importance of seeing care-experienced people as whole people, not just a summation of their more difficult experiences."

Blue Cabin, which supports care-experienced people to develop and strengthen relationships through trauma-informed creative activities, also delivered a practical session with associate artist Nic Golightly.

Lucy Bentley and Debbie Jones, from the Corner House Youth Project charity based in Stockton-on-Tees, attended the conference.

Lucy said: “This conference is really useful for us; we work with a number of care-experienced young people. The speakers have been particularly engaging and insightful.

“It’s been reassuring because it has reaffirmed that the approach we take is the right approach.”

Debbie added: “It's nice to come together at events like this to have more in-depth discussions. It also gives us the opportunity to reflect on our practice, so I think it’s really useful.”

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