Care-Experienced Young People Invited to Shape Social Care Inspections

The Children's Commissioner for England is launching a new youth voices project that will enable care-experienced young people to directly influence the inspection of children's social care services. Young people aged 16-18 who have experience of the care system are being invited to apply for a two-day project taking place in London this summer. The initiative represents a significant step towards embedding lived experience into the accountability frameworks governing social care. By recruiting care-experienced young people to contribute their perspectives, the project aims to ensure that inspection processes properly reflect the realities and needs of those who have actually navigated the care system. This opportunity offers care leavers and those still in care the chance to shape how services are evaluated and held to account. It recognises that young people with direct experience of social care are best placed to identify what works, what doesn't, and how inspection frameworks might better capture the quality of support provided to vulnerable children.