Our Impact
2019-2020
Our mission is to help children in care and young care leavers to believe in themselves and to heal, grow and unleash their potential. We work alongside them to make the care system the best it can be.
Our free helpline for care-experienced children, young people and professionals provided advice, advocacy and support to 475 callers last year, offering vital information and help around rights and entitlements, housing and education. Our regular 'Link Up' groups bring care-experienced young people together to connect, build community, learn from and support each other.
We work with, not just for, care-experienced young people to deliver real changes to policy and practice in the care system. The Advisory Group at Become plays a vital role in our work and ensures we are listening to you at every opportunity. It is made up of care-experienced young adults from across the country. The group brings their valuable knowledge and expertise to support Become and other organisations. Care-experienced young people also form our recruitment panels, strategy and a range of our activities.
George, Advisory Group member
Advisory Group statement
Become is applying pressure to the government to make vital changes to the care system and improve the lives of care experienced young people. We’re proud that our policy, research and campaigning work is directly informed by care-experienced young people, including those who are seldom-heard. Decision makers need to hear the views of young people directly to create positive change.
Last year, we provided 134 one on one coaching sessions and 88 support sessions to improve wellbeing and help young people find the tools within to achieve their goals. Watch the video below to hear from Rachel how Coaching at Become helped her achieve her goals.
Our website Propel is unique: it sets out exactly what support and provision almost every university in the UK provides for care leavers. Last year 95% of universities participated in Propel. Together, we're helping more care leavers go into higher education and make informed decisions about what and where to study.
Over 342 professionals benefited from our suite of training sessions, designed to spread knowledge and insights and develop skills so that life chances for young people from care can be improved.
Become has acted as secretariat for the all-party parliamentary group for looked-after children and care leavers since it started in 1998. In 2018-19, we enabled 120 care-experienced young people to share their views and experiences with MPs and members of the House of Lords as well as 205 care professionals and foster carers.
A small national charity, we do not receive any funding from government. That's what makes every gift you make so precious. It's because of the generosity of our supporters that children in care and young care leavers can receive support and have their voices heard. Thank you.