Key Meanings

Care experience

Any person who is or who once spent any length of time in their youth or childhood under the provision of the State or of a Charity or other organisation tasked with children's provision.

We believe you are care experienced for life- there is no age limit on being care experienced.

We also believe however you may be living right now after growing up in care makes you apart of this community. If thats living with family, sofa surfing, in a hostel or even in prison. You are still care experienced.

This includes if you grew up in any of the following ways but is not limited to:

A Residential children's home
"Supported” accommodation
Foster Care
Adoption
Kinship/Guardianship
Spent time in a secure Unit
A Care Leaver

If you think we have missed a type of care experience tell us.

Care Experienced Community

We understand the care experienced community may not look like a community in the traditional sense. It is the arguably the most diverse community to exist across the world. It is made up of every gender, race, religion, disability, class and more. What makes us a community is we all have a shared experience of 'care'. We don't have to have grown up together to understand each other and have a shared experience of the same systems.

Lived Experience

Personal knowledge about the world gained through direct, first-hand involvement in everyday events rather than through representations constructed by other people. Someone who uses their first-hand experience of social inequality to create positive change for communities and people who share those experiences (and works with them to do that).

Ally

Someone who helps and supports other people who are part of a group that is treated badly or unfairly, although they are not themselves a member of this group.