YPBMF meet Ministers

Victoria Odude, YPBMF Steering Group Rep and Rylee, one of our YPBMF Champions met with David Johnston, the Children’s Minister and Johnny Mercer, the Cross government lead for care leavers.

This was part of a meeting with care experienced young people from the ‘Its Our Care Group,’ with representatives from the National Children’s Bureau, Action for Children, Become, Barnardo’s, Coram, The Children’s Society, and NSPCC.

Victoria and Rylee spoke about Care Leaver Hubs and the Cost of Living – two of the key messages from YPBMF’s ‘In Their Own Words’ event last year.  Rylee spoke about her experiences of helping establish the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole 777 Hub for care experienced young people and the impact that having this safe place is having.   Rylee shared YPBMF’s call to have a Care Leaver Hub in each local authority.

Victoria shared about the impact that the Cost of Living Crisis is having on care experienced young people and the findings from our ‘Survival Isn’t Easy’ report.  She shared about challenges care experienced young people securing employment were finding, in being able to afford to go to work for the first month and ways this can be tackled.

Young people from the ‘It’s Our Care’ group raised important points around:

  • Challenges accessing support they were entitled to after the age of 21,
  • The need for more mental health support when starting work
  • The impact of  the cost of living which was being felt particularly acutely by young  people with different diets like being gluten free.
  • Extending the civil service internship scheme to 2 years
  • The need for the local offer to be equal – whether you live in your local authority area or live out of area.

Minister David Johnston and Minister Johnny Mercer promised to take back the insights they had gained as they work with the DfE.   A huge well done to Rylee and Victoria for representing the views of YPBMF so well.