Rounding of our work for 2019 – and making plans for 2020 – care-experienced members of our London and Manchester policy forums came together for the first time.

Meeting on a Saturday, 13 policy forum members sat down together to evaluate the last year. The group looked at our campaign to end unnecessary criminalisation in care, end stigma and discrimination, and finally discussed our expansion into working with care experienced people outside of London.

Three members of the Manchester Policy Forum travelled down to London to feed back on their first six months as a group. In regards to the criminalisation working group, members fed back on progress made at City Hall and discussed other areas to advocate for in the new year- including pushing for the reform of England’s youth criminal records system. Recent findings and activity in relation to our ending discrimination and stigma of care-experienced people working group was also discussed.       

Mapping out plans for next year, the group decided to diversify those they targeted to include institutions outside of local government and Westminster. In 2020 the Policy Forum plans to engage with the local press, higher education providers and many more.

The group then spent one hour speaking with Lord Francis Listowel, learning about the House of Lords and how to best approach using this institution for their campaigns. Lord Listowel then took time to take questions from policy members and listen to their experiences of the care system. He plans to meet with members of the group again in the new year.

The day was closed with a redraft of the group’s manifesto, due to be released at the start of next year. It was decided to re-use the five themes of Accountability, Stability, Opportunity & Aspiration, Love, and Community.