Care Leavers' Association

Earlier this year the CLA put the call out to care leavers to put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) and write stories or poems that reflect their life’s experience.  We wanted to hear about your individual experiences from childhood:  your time in care and life after care; your best of times and your worst of times; the funny, the bizarre, the ordinary and the extraordinary. We believe that in the conventional family setting, individuals reminisce and resolve familial issues throughout their lives, an important custom which is often lacking in the life course of care leavers.  We therefore encouraged all care leavers to write their own narratives so they can share their experiences and sustain childhood memories.

A selection of the stories are now on the web site and can be downloaded from http://www.careleavers.com/care-leaver-stories

The CLA office will be closed from Friday 23rd December until Tuesday 3rd of January 2012.

The National Offender Management Service (NOMS) has announced grant funding of £1.4m to support the development of mentoring and volunteering services for offenders. The Care Leavers Association  were successful in obtaining grant funding to pilot different schemes designed to increase the number of  ex offender care leavers mentoring other care leavers in the criminal justice system. The long term aim is to explore methods that can contribute to a reduction in reoffending amongst care leavers in the criminal justice system.

We are very excited about this new piece of work. NOMS received around 100 applications for the funding and 8 organisations, including the CLA were chosen. With nearly 1/3 of the prison population having spent time in care, this project will provide an opportunity to explore why there is a disproportionate amount of care leavers in the criminal justice system and begin to take steps to reducing the figure.

Unfortunately the network meeting in bath has had to be cancelled. Please look out for a new date in the New Year.