THE NATIONAL LEADERSHIP NETWORK

Snowy talks about their leadership journey with the Falkirk Champs

The Falkirk Champs

Ordinally launched back on the  9^th Aug 2017, we are one of the Champs Boards funded by Life Changes Trust.

We (Falkirk Champs) are a group of care experienced young people who are working to make positive change in the care system. We have a variety of age groups meeting regularly, we are aged between 5 and 26! 

We work with services and partners to improve the care system. We write and deliver training and produce educational training materials including videos. We made one about The Promise that we use raise awareness.

We work hard to have our voices heard, and have been successful in becoming a main feature in the induction training that all new council employees take part in. We feel that we are welcoming these people to the council and then knowing from the start that they have duties and responsibilities to the care community now that they are employees of the council. 

We are part of the social work interviews as they build their teams and hope that we can offer an insight into what young people want from their social workers.

Falkirk is one of the 5 Scottish councils to make care experience a protected characteristic and we the Falkirk Champs were the 1^st young people to take the motion to the full council meeting. 3 of us spoke about why this should happen and it was passed unanimously, a huge achievement for us

Currently we are working in partnership with education to provide materials that can be used to raise awareness amongst their staff.

Thanks for reading

Falkirk Champs

Below, Snowy from the Falkirk Champs talks about the moment you take that big step, when you try something new, and it works out well and you feel great.

Proudest Moment = Chairing the Board Meeting – written by Snowy (16)

“At first I was actually very nervous and I stumbled on lots of my lines, after a while it got more enjoyable as I could see everyone paying attention and not wondering off.

I felt like a leader. It was nice having my teddy with me as it gave me moral support and I wore a crown as I was excited! Originally it was going to be someone else but they couldn’t, so I said I would do it.

I felt it should have been my turn. I had seen how other people have done it, I knew some people really freaked out, then I thought about Gemma and it felt nice when I had seen her do it and it seemed fun . It helped me to talk to others and get the words in the right order as I don’t normally like to talk in front of people. It felt nice. I think I could call Gemma my mentor at this point, I have learned so much from her. It is not natural to hear an adult take the chair role. I like to hear a young person do it. Feels more empowering.

I had done the ice breaker 4 times before and I enjoyed that so this was the next big step. In one of the first  ice breakers I took part in the activity ‘would you rather’, on one side – corporate parents, the other was council family. I stood in the middle and shared that I didn’t feel happy to call these people my family but I would be happy to call them my friends. This has now become the term we use for people with corporate parenting duties – Falkirk Family and Friends.”

Snowy