This Care Experienced Week, we are celebrating people with care experience and their voices. We asked our team member Jeanette to share how her journey with Staf reflects this year's theme of 'Belonging and Connection'.

"Within the last few years, I have held various roles within Staf. I started off as a participant as part of the Care Leavers Forum, which was a space set up during the pandemic to help to gain insight into the issues that mattered to people with care experience. This then led to the Cross-Party Group on Care Leavers being set up, so that Care Experienced people like me could be heard on issues that we care deeply about, like housing and education.

Being part of something so big like the Cross-Party Group and speaking up for Care Experienced people has helped build my confidence and positive relationships with politicians such as Natalie Don-Innes, Minister for Children, Young People and The Promise, and civil servants such as Patsy and Deborah. We also welcomed Natalie to our participation space to meet directly with the Care Experienced people involved in the Cross-Party Group and discuss issues that we care about. The Minister listened to us and took on board some actions from the meeting.

Creating positive relationships with people that can make the change needed is so important to me, as I want the future generation of Care Experienced people to grow up in a Scotland that loves them as their own, and not in a Scotland where carers aren’t even allowed to tell the care experienced people they look after that they “love” them.

In March of this year, I joined Staf on a work placement, where I got to experience some of the outreach work Staf has been doing as part of the Columba 1400 mentoring programme evaluation, which was insightful. It was amazing to see the young people who were involved wanted to share the work they did on the residential to Skye. Fast forward to July of this year, and I gained my first employment opportunity with Staf as a consultant for the Minimum Income Guarantee (MIG) blueprint. Being part of this work, it has been great to work with a small group to make the case for why Care Leavers should be the pilot group for the MIG. This work hasn’t been plain sailing, but despite the issues that have arisen during this important work, we have powered on through the storm. We have also strengthened our bond as a team.

In August, I was given the opportunity to join the Staf team as the Policy Officer, where I have been focusing on a piece of work around the education asks from the Cross-Party Group, speaking directly to colleges and universities about what support is available for Care Experienced people. This has been a great piece of work to be involved in, and I have made some positive connections with colleges and universities across Scotland. I have also strengthened existing bonds with organisations such as Hub for Success and Who Cares? Scotland.

Throughout my time at Staf, I have felt like I belong to an amazing team, and there is always someone there to help me out if I am struggling with something. If you have a supportive team of people round about you, nothing can go wrong."