The Careleavers' Association

About Us

Access to Records

CLEARmark

It's Our History, It's Our Right

Leaving Care

Abuse in Care

Care Matters White Paper

Resources and Information

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Welcome

CLA launches CLEARmark: a quality mark for access to records designed by care leavers

"I hope that this year's National Care Leavers Week will help raise awareness of the challenges that care leavers face and I welcome the Care Leavers Association new Access to Records Quality Mark as a positive step forward." - Kevin Brennan, Minister for the Third Sector and Social Exclusion.

On 31st October 2008, during National Care Leavers' Week, the CLA launched a new quality mark for access to childhood care records. The quality mark will be awarded to local authorities and voluntary agencies that are providing a good standard of service in this area.

The quality mark has been drawn up by care leavers as part of our access to records campaign: 'It's Our History, It's Our Right: Reclaiming Our Past'. The requirements for achieving the quality mark are based upon care leavers' experiences of accessing their own records and on research conducted by the CLA into current local authority practices in this area. Application assessments and reviews will be conducted entirely by care leavers themselves.

CLA Keep In Touch & AGM, Saturday 1st November, Manchester Town Hall

2pm-4.30pm

On Saturday 1st November, the CLA will be holding its final Keep In Touch Meeting of 2008 in Manchester. The meeting is open to all care leavers, so do come along and join us.

Members of the Jersey Care Leavers' Association (JCLA)will be joining us on the day, as well as Demetrious Panton, who will be giving a talk. Demetrious is a care leaver from London who is famous for forcing (via court proceedings) the then Minister for Children, Margaret Hodge MP, to apologize for labelling him ‘extremely disturbed’. He also stood against Margaret Hodge in the 2005 General Election. He has unrivalled experience of the Islington child abuse saga and is a leading social policy expert who has advised government ministers, local authorities and other public agencies on equality and social exclusion issues.

The Keep In Touch meeting will be followed by the Annual General Meeting, which is open to CLA members only. However, the AGM will be fairly short and we will all meet up afterwards for coffee etc.

For more information, contact the office on 0161 953 4046 or email info@careleavers.com

CLA Cycle Challenge raises over £1,200

In September, Victoria, Stephen and Will (pictured above) completed the CLA cycle challenge to raise money for the Care Leavers' Association. They cycled from Greater Manchester to Holyhead around the coast of North Wales. So far, they have raised over £1,200 from both on and off-line donations. There will also be Gift Aid to add to that, which will bring the total to nearer £1,500! There are still two days left to sponsor them online if you want to. Just click here: Sponsor the CLA Cycle.

To find out more about the Cycle Challenge click here or take a look at the photo gallery.

All three who took part had a great time, made even better that they were raising money for a good cause. In fact, they enjoyed it so much that we plan to hold another cycle challenge next year. Keep in touch if you would like to get involved.

Welcome to the Care Leavers' Association website

Have a look around. If you are a care leaver, why not join us? We also welcome anyone else who agrees with our goals. If you'd like to meet up with people that you were in care with then why not join CareleaversReunited as well? Feel free to tell us your ideas, come to our meetings or just keep coming back here from time to time.

At the moment our main priorities are: our campaign on Access to Records and supporting the Jersey Care Leavers' Association (JCLA) in their campaign for justice, as well as coordinating the UK-side of the campaign. However, we cover a range of issues that are relevant to care leavers. Just explore the sections of our website to find out more.

We are also a membership organisation and open to anyone, over the age of 18, who spent all or part of their childhood in care. Find out more through the 'Get Involved' pages.

If you would like to find out more, contact the office on 0161 953 4047 or email info@careleavers.com