10,000 Voices: Children in care’s views on their well-being report

The report from Coram's Bright Spots progamme states: "Official statistics used to monitor the care system provide only a partial picture of the lives of children in care by focusing on objective measures and adult assessments of how children and young people are doing - e.g. stability of placement and educational attainment. These measures do not tell us what being in care is like for children and young people: do they feel happy, safe, and think they are doing well?"

Between 2015 and 2021, the Bright Spots Programme sought to address this gap by collecting over 10,000 voices through our Your Life, Your Care surveys from children in care. These ‘voices’ give an unprecedented insight into children in care’s subjective well-being. The surveys were originally co-produced with care experienced children to capture the elements that they felt made their lives good: these elements became the Bright Spots well-being indicators.