Care Leavers' Association

From the 1^st October 2009 until the 15^th January 2010 the Care Leavers’ Association and the Scottish Institute for Residential Child Care (www.sircc.org.uk) were commissioned by the Scottish Human Rights Commission(www.scottishhumanrights.com) to carry out research to inform the development of a human rights framework for the design and implementation of an “Acknowledgement and Accountability Forum” on historic abuse of children in Scotland

 This report has now been published and you can download this report here:

Time for Justice

The Relationship Between the Jersey Care Leavers’ Association and the Care Leavers’ Association in the UK

This brief account sets out what we have done on Jersey these past two years. The main members of the Care Leavers’ Association (CLA) who have been involved in trying to provide support to care leavers on Jersey have been Will McMahon, our Chair, and Jim Goddard, our Secretary.

In 2010, the CLA will be running an event, which will give young people in care and care leavers (aged 15-25), from black and minority ethnic background, the chance to speak out about the care system and how it could be changed for the better.

Work on this project is well on the way and we now have a steering group of young people who are helping us to plan the event.

However, we would still love to hear the views of other young people. This is crucial to make sure that we get things right. We want to make sure this event is as good as it possibly can be.

We have designed a questionnaire so that you can tell us what you think about our plans so far. You can download the questionnaire here: BME Project Questionnaire.

You can return it to us by email or by FREEPOST to the following address:

Freepost RSCK-REJX-ZCUB
Care Leavers' Association
Express Networks
1 George Leigh Street
Manchester
M4 5DL

If you want to give us your views but prefer not to fill in the questionnaire, you can get in touch in any of the following ways:

Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Telephone: 0161 236 1980

Post: at the address above

Research from the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London has found that trauma experienced in childhood may have an impact on physical health in adult life.

The study followed a thousand individuals from birth to age 32. The findings suggest 'that childhood experiences can affect nervous, immune and endocrine functioning, which agrees with earlier findings in animal experiments.'

By age 32, 'adults who had been maltreated as children were twice as likely to suffer major depression and chronic inflammation. Children who grew up poor or socially isolated were twice as likely to show metabolic risk markers at age 32.'

You can read the full story here.