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Welcome to the AVA ‘Young People in Care Project’ Newsletter

Thank you for signing up for more information about this project.

We hope you have a happy and peaceful festive season and look forward to working with you in 2018!

AVA has received funding from the Pilgrim Trust, to set up a project to improve responses to young women in care/recent care leavers who have experienced domestic abuse, teenage relationship abuse or sexual exploitation.

This project is being led by an expert advisory group of care leavers and will result in:

Awareness raising sessions for girls in care
8 thematic training seminars for relevant professions
Thematic newsletters and a dedicated online blog
Resources for practitioners and young women

New updates will be posted on our website.

Next Steps:

We are currently recruiting young women to be part of our experts by experience steering group. Following that we will be delivering the awareness raising sessions with girls and young women in Lewisham.

Free Events – We need you!

We will be providing eight free training seminars. We want the themes of these sessions to be decided by our young people’s steering group and by YOU!
Please complete this short survey to let us know what you think the key issues we should address are.

Reports, publications and resources

Ending the criminalisation of children in residential care. Briefing two: best practice in policing

This is the second briefing paper published as part of the Howard League’s two-year programme to end the criminalisation of children in residential care.

Police forces are receiving a high number of call-outs from some children’s homes, a significant proportion of which they regard as inappropriate, which drain their resources and increase the risk of children in care being criminalised.
The report has explored how good practice in the policing of children’s homes can significantly reduce the unnecessary criminalisation of vulnerable children and demand on police resources. Real, lasting change requires strong leadership and commitment to embedding child-focused policing through forces, at every level.

NICE guidelines on Child Abuse and Neglect

The guidelines have now been published. Check out the useful baseline assessment tool so you can measure your current practice against the recommendations set out in the guidelines.
Many of these recommendations were directly influenced by the young people’s expert advisory group, facilitated by AVA. This group are currently producing a quick guide about the guidelines for other young people which will be launched in February 2018. There will also be a webinar with AVA and the young people’s expert advisory group. Details will be on our website shortly.