Date: 08.06.2012
The Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE), London Metropolitan University the British Library, A National Voice and the Roundhouse have collaborated on a successful bid for a Care Leavers Oral History Project.
SCIE approached Social Work Senior Lecturer Nora Duckett to work in partnership with them on a bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund. Nora teaches on Social Work (MSc) and Social Work (BSc Hons – Single) programmes at the Faculty of Applied Social Sciences and Humanities. Nora has recently completed a three-year European comparative research project into youth homelessness (http://www.movisie.nl/smartsite.dws?ch=eng&id=118836) where many of the respondents had experiences of being in care.
The 12 month project will create a digital video and oral history archive that charts the heritage of people whose childhoods were shaped by the care system. Various legislation including the Children (Leaving Care) Act 2001 and the Children Act 1989 have impacted on children in care and this project will include interviews with older and young care leavers, offering a long view of the care system from the eyes of those who have experienced it from the 1970s to the present.
The archive will be kept by the British library for public interest and goes some way to include the voices of a largely underrepresented group. The project will be incorporated into learning for student social workers and will also enable the distribution and access of care leavers testimonies to practitioners and to young people in care via websites such as A National Voice http://www.anationalvoice.org/about/about-anv and exhibition at the Roundhouse in Camden. For further information please contact N.duckett@londonmet.ac.uk .
