EXPERT BY EXPERIENCE PARTNERS

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Chris is the best-selling Author of DAMAGED & THE STATE OF IT, Keynote Speaker, National Campaigner and Advocate for Children in Care and Care Leavers, Care Home Consultant, Expert by Experience Board Member for the Independent Care Review and Charity Patro.

He is a passionate advocate and campaigner whose first book DAMAGED, tells the story of his life and those other young people in care he met along the way. His second book THE STATE OF IT, is a rallying call for change as he expose the continuing failure of young people in care. He is currently writing his third book which sets out his hopes for the future.

My name is Sabrina Hewitt, and I am a County Lines, Gangs & Exploitation Specialist. I have decades of personal trauma as well as professional experience in this field. 

I specialise in working with young people who have been criminally and /or sexually exploited.

The work Comfort Cases UK does is amazing and clearly comes from a place of love. Many children entering the foster system haven't experienced that much love or felt that anyone cares about them. Comfort Cases UK shows these young people that the world and the people in it aren't all bad.

Hello, my name is Steven Russell, founder & director of Elements SEMH Support CIC and Steven Russell "Drip by Drip" Consultancy Ltd.

My journey began in the care system at 6 months of age, when my mother became extremely poorly following then death of my father in car incident. So from the ages of 6 months to 16 years I lived with 10 foster families, 2 care homes, and attended 5 schools. 

We have a saying in Elements:

"Drip by Drip, Day by Day, Life is Never Perfect and that's Ok". 

Hi, I'm Rachel. I am the managing director of Animal Assisted Therapy for young people. With 27 years of experience working with children in need and children looked after in many capacities within educational and care settings.

Expert by Experience of Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse. Lived Experience of the Care System.

I went into car at 14 within nothing apart from the clothes I stood in. I moved foster placement to kids homes with my clothes in bin bags over time. To have a Comfort Case would have made an incredible difference, giving me the dignity and respect I never had as a child but deserved. I wholeheartedly support Comfort Cases UK as it directly improves the life of children that have suffered greatly.

I'm Mary-Anne. You can call me Mary.

I am care experienced, having spent over half of my childhood growing up in foster care, permanently from the age of 9. I am a PGCE teacher, whose subject specialism is Psychology (BSc) and I am proud to be using this unique combination of experiences to incite positive change, contributing to the continued changing narrative of ‘kids in care’.

We know that children and young people in Care have a right to thrive, yet we also know that outcomes for young people leaving Care are far from where they could or should be.

We can improve outcomes when we better understand young people, when we can connect to their history, journey and their story and provide meaningful opportunities that work to curate environments that unconditionally support healing and growth. 

This environment has to come from understanding the perspective of lived experience and linking that with relevant psychological theories that can guide our practice. It’s about deepening understanding and going on to adapt practice whereby we have policies and procedures that reflect that young people are cared about, not just cared for.

Harri is a prominent figure in the social care sector, having founded Fabric based in Swansea and Neath Port Talbot, Wales, in 2016). FABRIC provide loving homes with trauma informed support to young people aged 16+ who are Looked After Children, Care Leavers, Homeless young people or Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children. FABRIC supports their ‘FABRIC Kids’ as they make the biggest step of their life and transition towards independent living. 

Harri is an award-winning entrepreneur with over ten years’ experience in social care and has won multiple awards for her passion and efforts in changing the trajectory of those in care. 

As founder and director of FABRIC, Harri established the FABRIC Foundation in 2016, which is a registered charity that aims to improve the emotional and physical wellbeing of all children in care by providing opportunities that greatly enhance their life, as well as achieving equal opportunities for all care leavers playing a part in campaigning for Council Tax exemption for care leavers, which was successfully put into effect in April 2018.