Meeting with Terry Rooney MP

I had a meeting with Terry Rooney, my MP in his office in Bradford. I raised a few issues with him such as:

Debt - I told him I was in a lot of debt at the minute and asked him what I could do to help with this issue. He told me that in a few months Credit Unions will be getting more funding to help people in situations like I am at present.

Problems with childcare being paid while studying. As I am now 20 years old now I can no longer have my childcare paid for so therefore I can’t go to college to study catering and hospitality like I would like to and sit some GCSEs to further myself.

Money and benefits - I brought up that it worked out that I was better off as a single mum not working due to having to pay 20% of my childcare costs and no longer receiving any housing benefits or council tax, milk tokens and many other benefits.

He agreed these were real problems and said he would look into the issue for me.

Terry also gave me a folder called the parents guide to money. In it there is a lot of useful information such as:

• Countdown to the birth of your child-with information on claiming your state benefits, maternity leave and useful contact numbers such as child benefits.
  
• Budgeting-with lists of how much a family will cost and also how to keep track of your money.
  
• Benefits- information on housing benefits, tax credits, council tax benefits, healthy start vouchers, child benefits and many more.
  
• Work options- information on going back to work telling you your options and rights.
  
• Savings- information on child trust fund, saving for children and how children affect your pension.
  
• Borrowing- information on how to borrow money safely.
  
• Child care- how to get help with paying for childcare.
  

I think this is a very useful folder and thing the leaving care service should get some and give them to all the young parents. I thought the meeting overall went very well with a lot of useful information so thank you to Terry Rooney

Carly Hughes
Care Leaver, Bradford

Diary of visit to London to launch Rainer report on financial exclusion

Got into the taxi at 8.45 to go to Leeds station to catch the train to London. On the train I discussed with Jo what I was going to say to my M.P. I then wrote down the questions I was going to ask my M.P and the question I was going to ask in the Rainer meeting.

Once we got to London we had time to spare, we went to a national art gallery and amazingly it was interesting. Well until I started to feel sick just like when I’m in IKEA. We then had something to eat and walked to the House of Commons. We went through the security and as usual I set off the alarm.

We waited for a short while then Linda met us. We introduced each other then I asked the questions I’d prepared. I said, “One of the things I have been doing in the group is aim to set Education Champion Scheme in Calderdale. Education Champion Scheme is about senior people in the local authority being allocated a young person from year 11 to keep an eye on their education. Their role is to ring up the young person’s social worker and ask how well the young person is doing and ask about the young persons GCSE results. Basically ask if there is anything she/he can do to make a difference. The young person won’t meet the Champion as they already have enough people in their lives. Champions can open doors to make things happen for the young person better than a social worker can on their own. Since the scheme has been set up it has been successful, that’s why I think the same scheme should be set up in Calderdale. Can you do anything to make this happen?

Linda said she would look at what she could do and would write to me to let me know if she made progress. We then went to the Rainer reception and asked my question I said:

“Hi my name is Halina. I am 21 from Halifax. I went back to college last year after having my baby. I asked college for childcare support. Sadly if a young person is over 19 you can not fund the childcare. I am lucky because NCH (my leaving care service) is paying for mine. What are other young people like me supposed to do?

While sat in the reception it made me realise these people are trying to make a difference to help young people with their problems.

Halina Yaqoob

Visit to London for launch of Why do the Young Pay More? report

I was picked up at half past 8 by the taxi at home. I got into Leeds train station at 9 had some breakfast then got on the train. We arrived in London at 12.20 after a long drawn out 2 an half hour train ride. We then went to Trafalgar Square and went in the national gallery to look at all the old paintings. Then we went to the new building of the Houses of Parliament. We went upstairs after getting through the high security system to the reception room where I realized I had left my bag downstairs in the café. A man called Kevin told me we had to hurry up before it got blown up by security. After that scare I had to speak in a room full of people. I said:

“Hi, I’m Carly Hughes, I’m 20 from Bradford. At the minute I’m in a lot of debt and I am struggling to pay them off, while I am on income support. I want to go to collage in September but I cant due to having a 2 year old son. The reason is because I can’t afford to pay for child care. I am having problems keeping up with my debts I try to juggle them all but then I receive red letters and phone calls from the debt company’s. I got into this debt through catalogues when my son was born, buying him things for his nursery. How can we be expected to pay off debt on such a low income? What more can you do to help us?”

I was told the best thing to do with my debt was to go to the citizens advice bureau. James Plaskitt the minister in the Department of Work and Pensions said a lot of useful things such as:

· Growth funds- Aiming to substantially expend the credit union to make affordable loans for young people.

· Expanding social funds - So there is not a lot of rules and regulations around getting these loans.
· Housing- Support workers will be put in place to help

· Jobcentres- Face to face interviews with advisors to be set in place. The minister also added the Jobcentres operators now call you back on your mobile phone if you are short of credit. I will have to see that to believe it.

· Financial education- There will be lessons set up in schools on managing money.

I thought overall the meeting was a success. I think my points ware taken in and hopefully will make a difference soon.

Carly Hughes

Creative writing in Wakefield

On Wednesday we first went to Ings road and met with Harry and Sarah, when we had done all the introductions we then started to do some work which was quite fun I mean I ain’t the best poet in the world but to be able to get the chance to actually help other young people to do it felt great .We didn’t get much from them today but we went away with the feeling that we had achieved something and to be honest that is one of the reasons I said that I would make an appearance other the next couple of days.

After we had finished at Ings road we went on to Dacre avenue where we met Jue, Zaabi, Robert and Cameron, nobody did anything at first they were just playing up a bit due to the fact that they had an audience but after they realised that we weren’t impressed by all the foul language they calmed down and started to do something, we got a poem from Robert which he was a bit shy about showing but after a while he showed us it we read it and we were all quite impressed.

We then went to Benson lane where we met, Jamie, Chris, Mick, Becky and Heather. In my opinion this home was the best we one due to the fact that all the young people knuckled down and wrote an array of poems all of which were quite good and interesting and the young people there tended to be polite unlike some of the other young people that I had met with that day.

All in all it was a good day and I enjoyed it thoroughly.

Tim Metcalfe

Meeting on 18th March

At the last meeting Jo split us in two groups to set up a meeting and present it in front of the other group. I thought the session went well it was a very good idea to split us into 2 groups to plan meetings. I thought it went very well and I really enjoyed it. It was very good practice and good for team building.

The difficult bit was presenting it in front of the other group but I was confident and I am very quickly getting over my fear of speaking in front of people.

Carly Hughes

Kirklees Corporate Parenting Panel

This is an extract from what I said at the meeting on Wednesday.

I personally think that overall in Kirklees the support for care leavers is not as good as it could be. I think we need to have personalised support around our needs, not just routine interviews. Courses need to be more regular and there needs to be more choice about what we do.

Think back a minute to when you were all 17 and think about how hard you found it coping with the stress of what courses you want to take in college. The courses that you choose could have an impact on the rest of your life. And then think about the fact that that maybe we have those same issues to deal with but with no proper support as most of us don’t even get to talk to our parents about these kind of decisions and maybe we wont get any support at all. And many of us are living on our own with little support. Some of us are parents already with others to look after too.

What more can you do to support individual young people from care?

Kaylea Williams

Celebrating Youth Prom!

Members of the Life's 2 Short Advisory Group attended the Connexions West Yorkshire celebrating youth prom on 8th February. Someone even tried to take all those balloons home in their taxi!

Jo Coles