Bradford Council: Social Value Example Projects Supporting Our Children in Care and Care Leavers
Our Example Projects are focused social value initiatives designed to meet our most important priorities as identified in our Bradford District Strategy. Developed collaboratively by Bradford Council and its partners, these projects provide easily accessible and meaningful projects for commissioners and suppliers to engage with through their contractual social value commitments. The aim is to make the delivery of social value as easy as possible and to ensure maximum impact.
What is Corporate Parenting?
Being a Corporate Parent is both a privilege and a responsibility. The term is used to describe the collective responsibility of the Council, the Bradford Children’s and Families Trust and partner agencies to safeguard, care for, love and champion our children in care and care leavers to ensure that they have every opportunity to be the best they can be as they grow up in, and leave, our care. In short, it is our responsibility to be a good parent and to seek opportunities for our children and young people who are in care or have left care, in the same way as we would do for our own children.
A child or young person in care is someone under 18 who is in the care of the Bradford Children and Families Trust. The Bradford Children and Families Trust deliver all statutory children’s social care functions on behalf of the Council. A child or young person enters the Care of the Local Authority when it has been considered unsafe for them to live with their birth family or a family member. Children and young people live with foster carers, in residential children’s homes or live independently in supportive accommodation settings that helps children and young people to achieve their full potential. Young People leaving care are adults over the age of 18 and have had care experience in their lifetime. Bradford Children and Families Trust have a responsibility to those leaving care adults to ensure they are supported and have access to work, education and employment opportunities that support them to become valued members of our community.
The needs of our Children in Care and Care Leavers
The needs of our children in care and our care leavers are diverse and will be linked to the harm they have experienced in their lives. As of today, we have 1269 Children and Young People in our care and 958 who are Care Leavers. Councils support care leavers up the age of 25, but the Council community needs wider society to play its part as our Care Leavers do not have access to the resources and networks from which many other young people benefit if they were to have grown up with their birth families.
Opportunities to support Children in Care and Care Leavers
Delivering on your social value commitments provides you with a fantastic opportunity to make a
contribution and play your part. This can be through helping the young people in our care with
their education and life skills development, employability, career pathways, health and wellbeing,
or even helping them to have a nicer home.
Other Social value support opportunities include:
- Work experience / placements / internships (paid and unpaid)
- Mentoring / coaching – life (finance, timekeeping, presentation of self, DIY) and careers
- CV creation / mock interviews
- Employer site visits
- Employment opportunities - including apprenticeships
- Provision of household goods
- Household maintenance (decorating etc)
- Health and wellbeing support / classes / education / awareness raising
- Poverty relief interventions (e.g. donations via identified VCSE organisation)
How to connect with our young people
Please consider one or more of the above opportunities as part of your social value commitments
to the Bradford District. If you would like to find out how you can best connect with our young
people then in the first instance please contact Ricky Cooper, Corporate Parenting Co-Ordinator at
Bradford Children and Families Trust [email protected].
Or if you like advice on your social value approaches then please get in touch with Bradford
Council’s social value team at [email protected]
Examples of good practice and case studies
Further information can be found at:
