Hi I’m Sam and I’m a participation and engagement officer and my role is to provide opportunities for Children and Care leavers to get involved and help shape services for the future (the planning, design and delivery of services that you access here in Knowsley). I help the MADE group (Knowsleys children in Care council) to gather views, discuss them and share their findings with managers, directors and a variety of services to make a positive impact.

You may want to take a look below at some of the things you might want to get involved in or you are curious about. This is the list of what children and Care leavers in Knowsley are currently involved in. know about or some of the things that children and Care leavers are currently involved in.  

 

Some of the activities, events, groups and panels you can get involved in here in Knowsley:

Recruitment and selection panels

Young people are training to become pannelists who are paid to interview new staff for Childrens social care .  The pannelist support professionals to recruit new staff such as Team managers, Childrens Social workers, support worker etc.

MADE (Making a Difference Everywhere) group.

Like a schools council for Children who are known to children social care (Social services).  The group act as an independent panel of young people who share their ideas and views about the services they receive.  They go on quarterly activities as part of the membership, have their own merchandise such as MADE hoodies, and stationary.  They also have access to visiting regional and national groups with other groups of young people across the country. 

Young people involved in delivering training

Our Participation officer and Participation champions from teams across the service work with young people to share their views, learn new presentation skills, gain confidence and make an impact to Foster carers, Social workers, and students from Liverpool John Moores University and Liverpool Hope University.

There are lots of ways that you can get involved in activities supported by your Participation officer and youth services within Knowsley.

Take a look on our calendar to see whats coming up.  Remember to contact if you need more information (Sam McIver 0151-443-4021)

Some of the children and young people I have worked with have described the projects and groups they have participated in as:

“Its unreal that feeling when you come out and you know you have made them think differently .  They will be better social workers because of it.  Thank you for asking me to get involved in this I’m glad I did it”

Care leavers – following ‘The voice of the child’ training at Liverpool John Moores University (delivered by Participation officer and 3 Knowsley Care leavers to 56 Social work MA students in November 2019.

“I come because its fun and I like making changes for the little kids who don’t feel like they should say whats on their mind about stuff.”

MADE Senior member

“I have a laugh at MADE .  We do nice activities”

MADE Junior member

“I wouldn’t have listened to the stuff that helps me from my Social worker but it makes sense listening to other kids in Care or people who have had the same stuff happening to them.  I know more because I come to MADE”

MADE Senior member

“I actually gave a Social work MA student advice and they understood what I meant.  It feels good man!”

Simulation training at Liverpool Hope University

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