Our aims
The aim of the legal and policy unit at Voice is to improve the care system so all children in care of the state receive good quality and supportive care that is child-centred, and responsive to individual needs. Child centred care provides each child with the stability and support to be able to strive to ahieve his or her own potential, so they can lead full and enriched lives.

How do we achieve this?
We respond to government consultations on children in care promoting the right of advocacy. We lobby and engage at a local, regional and national level by developing and promoting good practice. We provide advice and information on policy and legal issues ensuring that child-centred practice is disseminated at all levels. All of our policy work is informed directly from the children and young people with care experience that we work with, in addition to the case studies we receive from our front-line staff. In additon, the unit provides legal advice, information and training to staff and freelance workers within Voice.

Please click here to browse Voice's responses to government consultations.

Young Persons policy forum
Here at Voice we have developed a young persons policy forum - this forms the bedrock of our policy work. The policy forum meets regularly to discuss upcoming consultations and how the voice of children and young people in care feeds in to any response that we submit. In addition, the group is  involved in developing our campaigning and priority agenda, taking a proactive steer in the work of the organisation. If you would like to get involved, or know a young person who would like to be involved then please email or call Wendy Banks wendy.banks@voiceyp.org 020 7014 9584

Blueprint in Practice
We want to see a child-centred care system. In 2004 we published our report, Start with the Child, Stay with the Child which contained the recommendations of our complex research and participation project, involving 400 young people, called Blueprint. Determined to see the key messages from this report implemented on national scale we are seeking to work with professionals, adults and young people to achieve change in these four key areas:

• Local care planning and practice
• Social work training
• The inspection of social care
• National policy developments

To find out more about Blueprint in Practice and our projects with local authorities please click here: Blueprint in Practice

The Alliance
The Alliance is a broad coalition of organisations who work with children and young people who either have care experience or have been affected by the care system. The Alliance comes together to promote improvements in the care system in England. Please click here to read more about the Alliance for Child-centred Care.

Contact us
To find out more about the work of our Legal and Policy Unit, please get in touch with us:

Wendy Banks - Senior Policy Advisor, wendy.banks@voiceyp.org 020 7014 9584

Nicola Wyld - Legal and Policy Manager, nicola.wyld@voiceyp.org 020 7520 3777

Rosamund Hall - Information Officer, rosamund.hall@voiceyp.org 020 7520 3799

 " I believe this can make small changes leading to bigger change within the near future".
Young person who attended Voice's Relating to Us conference, October 2005