South NiCC

Where it is?

The leaving care South Norfolk in Care Council (NiCC) meet once a month at pizza hut on riverside.

We are looking for young people that are under the age of 16 that would be interested in setting up a looked after children NiCC in the south. If this is something you would be interested in, please get in touch.

How to get there?

Your foster parents can always bring you and it's also easily accessible by public transport. If you do come by public transport, we will always give you back the transport cost.

If getting here is difficult for you please let us know as we can discuss further options.

When do we meet?

The leaving care south NiCC meet once a month. Normally on the last Wednesday of the month.

Who can attend?

Anyone that is in care or has been in care.

What have we been up to?

• Peer mentor scheme – we worked in partnership with the leaving care team in the south and we started to set up a peer mentor scheme, where young people in care can be a mentor for other young people in care. We discussed what we thought young people should know, how the meetings should be set up and we help created the leaflets and posters to promote the scheme.
• South survey the south NiCC in partnership with the leaving care team created a survey and sent it out to young people leaving care. Pre-COVID-19, we were going to discuss the results and help decide what improvements could be made. We hope to pick this up again once we can go back to face to face meetings.
• Looking at the use of language in care – we discussed the type of language that is used within Children’s Services and we came up with some alternatives such as changing 'contact' to 'family time'. Even though children services decided not to adopt this language formally (because language is changing all the time), teams are now using different terms in their everyday work.
• We created a poster of our ideal social worker so we can share this with teams
• Tenancy awareness course – the housing specialist asked for comments on a tenancy awareness course that is provided to look after young people to help prepare them for living independently. The comments made by the NiCC have been passed to the commissioning team who are now looking for a provider to run the course.
• Bright spots – every two years Norfolk County Council run the bright spots survey. We help promote the survey across the service and to all looked after children and care leavers. We can then find out what is working well for young people and what isn’t. We hope to discuss the results with Children's Services so we can help make improvements.
• Supported living accommodation – Louise wicks who manages a 16-18+ supported accommodation had an under-spend on her supported accommodation project. She wanted to find out from young people how the money could be spent to support care leavers to have a more successful journey into independence once they reach 18+. The South NiCC discussed this and fed back how they thought the money could be spent. The information and feedback has now been used to put forward into a business proposal to buy more smaller semi-independent properties, their focus will be placement choice and high-quality accommodation with appropriate support packages for young people with more complex needs.

What are we doing next?

• Film group
• Passport to independence
• Writing the website
• Newsletter

If you would like more information, email us at csparticipationteam@norfolk.gov.uk.