Description

Beyond Awareness: Supporting Care-Experienced People in Practice

Care Experienced People Month | Professional Learning | Online | 2 November 2026, 09:30–13:00

Awareness is only the beginning.

Awareness of care experience has grown considerably across services, education, workplaces, research and policy. But knowing that someone is care-experienced does not automatically tell us what they might need, what barriers they may encounter, or what meaningful support looks like in practice.

Care-experienced people are not a single, homogenous group, and care experience does not determine someone’s outcomes. However, experiences of care, transitions, disrupted relationships, trauma, financial inequality and navigating systems can shape the opportunities and challenges people encounter long after leaving care.

This interactive professional learning session moves beyond simply understanding what care experience is to explore what organisations and practitioners can do differently in response.

Drawing on research, professional practice and lived experience, we’ll consider how organisational systems, expectations and everyday practice can unintentionally create additional barriers for care-experienced people — and explore practical ways to create environments that support belonging, stability, participation and opportunity.

What we’ll explore

During the session, we’ll consider:

• Understanding care experience beyond labels and assumptions
• The diversity of care-experienced people’s lives, identities and pathways
• How experiences before, during and after care can continue to shape people’s interactions with services and organisations
• Trauma-informed approaches to supporting care-experienced people
• The importance of relationships, consistency, trust and belonging
• Recognising the role of family and informal support that organisations can unintentionally assume people have access to
• Financial and practical inequalities during transitions to adulthood
• How organisational processes, policies and expectations can create unintended barriers
• Participation, choice and creating opportunities for care-experienced people to influence the support they receive
• Moving from individual adjustments towards more inclusive organisational practice
• Translating awareness into practical changes within your own role, team or organisation

The session will include opportunities for reflection, discussion and applying learning to your own professional context.

Who should attend?

This session is relevant to professionals and organisations whose work may bring them into contact with care-experienced children, young people or adults, including:

• Local authorities and social care teams
• Charities and third-sector organisations
• Universities, colleges and education providers
• Researchers and evaluators
• Health and wellbeing services
• Participation and engagement teams
• Employability and employment services
• Policy and strategy professionals
• Managers and organisational leaders
• Anyone seeking to strengthen how their organisation understands and supports care-experienced people

You do not need specialist knowledge of the care system to attend.

From awareness to action

This isn’t about creating a checklist of what every care-experienced person needs.

Good practice starts with recognising that people are individuals, while understanding the structural inequalities, systems and experiences that can shape their lives and opportunities.

The aim of the session is to help participants move from:

“We understand care experience matters”

towards:

“We understand what that means for our practice, and what we can do differently.”

Participants will be encouraged to identify practical actions they can take back into their own role, team or organisation.

 

Want to take this learning further?

Continue with Lived Experience Leadership (LEX): Beyond Consultation and Into Influence on 9 November, exploring how organisations can move beyond consultation towards meaningful lived-experience influence and leadership.

Looking to develop your organisation’s practice?

This session can be followed by bespoke support to explore how your organisation currently works with and supports care-experienced people.

This might include reviewing practice and participation approaches, facilitated team development, developing trauma-informed approaches, supporting organisational learning, or exploring how care experience is considered within policy, research, service design and delivery.

Need something tailored to your organisation?

Beyond Awareness: Supporting Care-Experienced People in Practice can also be delivered as a keynote, conference workshop, staff development session, webinar or bespoke organisational learning event.

Content can be adapted to your particular sector, workforce or organisational context.

Please get in touch to discuss in-house delivery or bespoke support.

Booking information

Please check that you can attend the selected date and time before booking. Joining instructions for online training, or venue information for in-person training, will be sent to the email address provided when booking.

By booking, you agree to my Terms & Conditions and Cancellation, Refunds & Returns Policy. Please read these before completing your booking.