During the Easter holidays, six young people from South Gloucestershire’s Teen Care Council (TCC) came together for a dedicated session. This session focused on foster care and what really matters to young people growing up in care.
The session was designed to give young people the opportunity to share their views and shape future fostering recruitment work. In addition, it aimed to make sure young people’s voices are central to the process.
What is the Teen Care Council?
The Teen Care Council (TCC) is a group of young people aged 11–18 who have lived experience of care. The group meets regularly to share ideas, give feedback on local services and help improve the experiences of children and young people in care.
TCC members help influence decisions by:
- Sharing their views and experiences
- Helping to shape services and support
- Taking part in creative projects and consultations
- Making sure young people’s voices are heard by professionals and decision‑makers
By working directly with young people, the Teen Care Council helps ensure that services respond to what really matters to those who use them.
What happened on the day?
At this Easter holiday session, young people focused on foster care recruitment and what they feel potential foster carers should think about. They agreed these things should be considered before welcoming a young person into their home.
The session began with group activities and discussions about the qualities young people value most in foster carers. From there, they worked together to develop key questions. These are the questions they would want to ask potential foster carers, based on their own experiences and reflections.
To bring these ideas to life, the young people built models representing their questions and ideas.
The questions the young people developed focused on themes including:
- How foster carers spend time and build relationships with young people
- Feeling safe and comfortable at home, especially in their own bedroom
- Emotional wellbeing and checking in when a young person isn’t feeling okay
- Being involved in conversations about rules and boundaries that affect them
In the second part of the session, young people also took part in activities looking at fostering reviews, communication and decision‑making. They worked in small groups, shared opinions, and debated ideas. Moreover, they contributed thoughtful feedback, helping them better understand how their views are used in foster care processes.
Making young people’s voices visible
The ideas and questions shared during the session will be used to help inform future foster carer recruitment and awareness work. Over the coming weeks, the questions developed by the Teen Care Council will be shared more widely. This will encourage potential foster carers to reflect on what young people say they need.
This session was another example of how, through the Teen Care Council, young people are actively shaping services. As a result, they are helping to make foster care more responsive, understanding and young‑person‑led.
