Hearing the voice of Looked After Children: A qualitative study.
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Hearing the voice of Looked After Children: A qualitative study to engage young people in feedback on services through a digital app
IRAS ID
209776
Contact name
Debbie Bromley
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Leicester Partnership Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
The Children Act 1989, states a child is ‘looked after’ if they receive accommodation provided by the Local Authority for a continuous period for more than 24 hours/ is subject to a care order/is subject to a placement order. A child 0-18 years may be living with Local Authority/private foster carers/kinship carers/prospective adopters or in residential homes.
Children and young people in care should be included in feedback mechanisms, such as the Friends and Family Test. The current wording of the Friends and Family Test (how likely are you to recommend our service to friends and family if required similar care or treatment?) may be perceived as insensitive to this client group and therefore affect their willingness to engage/ability to provide feedback. The Specialist Nurses for Looked After Children in Leicestershire Partnership Trust have undertaken two preliminary engagement exercises with Looked After Children and Young People. This identified children and young people’s views of the Friends and Family Test as being inappropriate and suggested the creation of suitable app technology to gather their views on the service they receive. They want this to be easy and quick to fill in. Since receiving this feedback, the Specialist Nurses have obtained iPad Air 2’s (one for each nurse) and secured funding from NHS England (East Midlands) to generate a co-constructed project with academic partners from the University of Leicester to develop an digital app based friends and family test suitable for this group.
The Specialist Nurses will be recruiting from their existing caseloads and forming focus groups (primary and secondary school age ranges) to gain further feedback on the app development.
The completed product will be shared with other Specialist Nurses across the East Midlands, in order to progress a strategic approach to ‘hearing the voice of Looked After Children’.REC name
East Midlands - Derby Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
16/EM/0485
Date of REC Opinion
25 Jan 2017
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion