All of Us, We are One: YPBMF Care Leavers Celebration Event!

I’m Dyllan, one of the YPBMF Legends, and I’m going to be recanting my amazing experience at the YPBMF Celebration event in Birmingham a few weeks ago! While hopefully everything should make sense when you read through, I thought I would just provide a little glossary of terms that you might not have heard of before (and if you have you deserve a totally real and not imaginary high-five).

YPBMF – Young Peoples Benchmarking Forum

YPBMF Champion – A care leaver who has chosen to represent their local authority and assist the YPBMF team in running sessions, events and many more fantastic opportunities

YPBMF Legend – The alumni group of former YPBMF champions that still help and assist in running YPBMF events and sessions, as well as supporting and uplifting new champions.

Getting Started

For a little context, this celebration event tied into National Care Leavers Week (NCLW) as an opportunity to celebrate all things care leaver, from the care leavers themselves or indeed those that support them. As this event was in Birmingham and my local authority was in East Sussex, I firstly needed to take a semi-long journey to the midlands which went fine and asides from a couple delays I made it to Birmingham unscathed. After meeting up with some of the lovely YPBMF staff, champions and legends & doing the usual checking in and unpacking hotel stereotypes we were ready for the fun stuff.

As Mariah Carey and Michael Bublé had nearly defrosted, we decided it was the perfect opportunity to revive our festive spirit & check out the newly opened Christmas market. Having been fortunate over the years and able to check out a fair few Christmas markets, I can honestly say this one was one of my favourites, thanks in part to the amazing YPBMF staff, legends and champions that were there with me. From there, we took our festivity and headed over to the venue we would be hosting the event at, and after setting up and getting all our ducks in a row we ended the evening with what weirdly was the best pizza I’ve ever had.

Day One – Care Leaver Celebration

As the day started, we got the finishing touches done to make the event as great as possible, whilst making sure to greet all the amazing care leavers, PAs and representatives from care experienced organisations such as Coram and the Care Leavers Covenant.

The event kicked off with an amazing introduction from YPBMF legends Reece and Nathan, who were the enigmatic hosts for the day that rival Ant & Dec in their showmanship. This was swiftly followed by myself, where I tried to warm everyone up with an icebreaker, which ended up becoming quite a lively debate when I asked the question “What sauce do you have with fish & chips?”  – A question that has divided the nation for eons it seems but resulted in getting everyone pumped up for the rest of the day.

This might not have been necessary however, as we then had a fantastic day lineup, which started with the nominees for the best local authority project and local hero award, which for both awards celebrates and recognises the tremendous achievements or impact the individual or local authority group has achieved in the past year. The local hero award was designed to celebrate the amazing work care leaver individuals have done in their local authority in the past year that deserves recognition, and this was given to a care leaver who most definitely fit this criteria.

While the local hero award was decided prior to the event by a panel of care leaver judges, videos of the best project nominations were played throughout the event, highlighting and celebrating the outstanding work carried out by numerous local authorities, hopefully inspiring other local authorities to conduct projects themselves. While all projects nominated deserve recognition, the project that the attendees of the event voted and thought stood out from the crowd with its impact and ethos was the Brothers and Sisters Project from Warwickshire, which I feel was very well deserved as after the video was played, a thunderous applause erupted in the room with many people fighting back tears.

Asides from the fantastic awards and nominees, there were so many other things going on, such as myself and the legendary YPBMF champion Mark delivering speeches covering an aspect of our care experienced journey.

And then there was the marketplace which contained so many fantastic things for care leavers to find out about or have a go at. These included but were not limited to; competitive games, making hot water bottle holders with the lovely Maggie Lloyd Jones from Quilts for Care Leavers, support and information from a range of organisations and even somehow a chocolate fountain. The list of amazing things care leavers could access and get involved with was endless, and so too were the happy faces of all that were in attendance.

The event unfortunately drew to a close, with an awards ceremony and graduation ceremony for all of the YPBMF champions becoming legends which with respect to my university graduation was significantly more heartfelt and really made you realise the great opportunity and family you become a part of within the YPBMF.

After saying goodbyes and preparing for the next day, we finished off our evening with round two of the Christmas market, where we would be unknowingly serenaded with renditions of some of music’s greatest songs from an iconic Christmas market DJ.

Day Two – Personal Advisor Celebration 

The makeup of the second day was quite similar to that of the previous day, this time focusing and celebrating the excellent achievements of personal advisors (PA’s) throughout the year. The sessions of the day were different though, starting with an amazing keynote speech from Brett Service who is care experienced and told us his journey to working in the civil service diplomatic Corp – which just sounds quite cool to say out loud.

We then moved onto a YPBMF takeover, where we YPBMF legends presented findings for the ‘In Their Own Words’ survey followed by a panel discussion session. This survey was completed by over 200 care leavers and gave their unique perspectives on 5 key topic areas care leavers decided were important to them, which you can find all about here: In Their Own Words

There were so many other amazing sessions, presentations and activities throughout the day that I wish I had the wordcount to mention here, but from discussions I shared with individuals and my own personal reflections, many if not all found the event insightful, informative and most importantly fun!

This second event unfortunately drew to a close, but not before recognising and celebrating PA’s and leaving care teams that have gone above and beyond their job description to help and support care leavers under their purview. This has been described in much better and deserving detail, so please go have a read if you are interested in finding out a bit more.

Celebrating Outstanding Personal Advisors: PA of the Year Awards 2024

Concluding Remarks

So, I hope you have enjoyed reading through my experience and time in Birmingham for the YPBMF Celebration event, it is one of the best decisions I have made as a care leaver to become a YPBMF champion (and now subsequently a legend). Hopefully through making it to the end of my waffle, you can understand why, not even mentioning the fantastic YPBMF staff members, speakers, organisations and attendees who make it all possible.

Thank you very much for reading!