WE SHINE BRIGHT TOGETHER (THE BCJ MOVEMENT)

We Shine Bright Together (WSBT) Movement is a movement for care leavers by care leavers in Brent. Members of the movement are commitment to creating/seeing positive changes in the future for all care leavers. 

Eligibility

· Be a Brent Care Leaver/Care Experienced—Aged 18-25 years old.

· Be committed to seeing change and willing to work as part of a group/co-design system changes to help others.

Membership

· Members of the movement will take part in co-design workshops, forums, activities.

· There will only ever be 40 members of the movement at a time; however membership availability is rolling ….so for example if someone exits the movement due to age (25+) or life/work commitments—new spaces will become available.

Why a movement? Not a programme/service?

We are looking to empower care leavers to become part of a movement that lasts beyond 2025 when Barnardo’s are no longer facilitating Care Journeys in Brent. It’s about the movement helping continuing to create change long after 2025.

Virtual Community 

Welcome  all Brent Care Leavers to your virtual community space- which will be kept up to date with opportunities, boredom busters,  Covid -19 information, wellbeing advice + dance/ workout videos etc. - once again lead by you.... so simply contact us with your virtual space suggestions/ ideas/posts!
 

Activities

Now and then Barnardo’s will be facilitating activities for young people; some of these so far have included Go Karting, Horse Riding, Group meals etc.—these opportunities are not always limited to those on the movement. Whilst some members of the movement will be leading on activities and helping to mentor others– the activities will be open to the wider care leaver group in Brent also (subject to spaces/availability).

Voice + Influence 

Barnardo’s are able to link care leavers to voice and influence opportunities– whether it be speaking with a BBC Broadcaster or a local MP to ensure your voices are heard– these opportunities will be open to Brent Care Leavers as they arise.

Additional Opportunities

The movement will be looking at ways to capture the views, thoughts, and wishes of all Care Leavers in Brent—and help source opportunities that will be beneficial for all care leavers to access. Your PA’s will be kept updated of these opportunities so don’t hesitate to take part.

Together we want to better understand the experiences of young people leaving care, and then change the system so more care-experienced young people end up in positive destinations.

Positive Destination is the term we use to mean that you feel like you are in a good place in your life. Everyone will have their own personal Positive Destination.

We will be working with a team of Brent Care Leavers to come together and test out different ideas to help solve problems. The focus is on coming up with lots of ideas and testing them quickly with real people, in the real world, to see which ones work and which ones fail. 

The way we test things out is kind of similar to a scientist doing experiments in a laboratory.

Together we will look back at previous research about the problems in the system, come up with lots of different ideas of ways to solve those problems, and then test out those ideas with real people, in the real world, to see which ideas have the most potential.

The kinds of things we will be doing:

· Mapping out the experiences of care-experienced young people entered the care system when they were 16 or older

· Brainstorming ideas 

· Sketching solutions

· Building prototypes

· Running tests and analysing their results