Champions Board
Project for care experienced young people in Dumfries and Galloway. We run local youth groups and the Listen2Us advocacy project!
About Us
The Champions Board is a project specifically targeted at care experienced young people aged 12-25. If you're wondering what care experienced means, Who Cares? Scotland describes it as being looked after by someone else - maybe foster carers, or in a residential home, or by a relative that's not your mum or dad. It could also be that you live with mum/or dad but you have a social worker or that you are adopted. It's when other people look after you or help your mum or dad to look after you.
We have a project called Listen2Us which is a group of over 20 young people from across Dumfries and Galloway who want to make changes on behalf of care experienced young people. They volunteer their time to raise awareness of young people's experiences to the people who make decisions about services, and the people who deliver services for young people (Corporate Parents). Young people from Listen2Us come together with Corporate Parents a few times a year to talk about what's affecting young people - these are known as Champions Board Meetings.
We also run a number of local youth groups for young people. These groups provide safe spaces for young people to meet others, build friendships, learn new skills and gain confidence. Although they are only open to young people who are care experienced, groups don't focus on talking about care, over the past few years we've ran cooking groups, arts activities, gaming and sports based programmes. What happens in groups is decided by the young people to attend.
We currently have after school groups running in:
- Newton Stewart
- Stranraer
- Lockerbie
- Annan
- Sanquhar
We also have the following groups that run in the community in the evenings in:
- Castle Douglas
- Dumfries
- Dalbeattie
The Champions Board approach to engaging with care experienced young people to have their say has been agreed for a further 5 years by Dumfries and Galloway Council (2022 - 2027). To check out what's involved, please read through our Youth Participation and Engagement Strategy below.
Youth Participation and Engagement Strategy 2022 - 2027 (PDF) [685KB]
Want to know more?
Contact championsboard@dumgal.gov.uk, call 01387 260243 or text 07827 954 588.