MUSE project

Responding to the call

At times, within Cwm Taf Morgannwg, some children not able to be cared for and brought up by their immediate families and are needing to be placed into foster care or residential care homes (these children are known as ‘children looked after’ by the Local Authorities).  There are various reasons children and young people are placed into care, sometimes due to the adverse childhood experiences and early trauma experienced and in other cases where sadly parents are unable to care for their children safely.  (Rebecca you are better off getting this section from eg the area Plan or something – or ask someone from social care to define it.

In these circumstances the children who are looked after will be supported by social workers or social work teams who have regular communication with these children and young people.  Working for Local Authorities, we constantly look for ways to improve our services and one area where we have engaged the advice and views of young people is on the early development of a new mobile phone app that could benefit young people with their interactions with social workers.

Working with a new technology company we have asked young people to tell us how they want to be supported by their social workers, how they want to be contacted and what kind of information they need to have access to.  A number of young people have helped us define how potentially a new mobile phone app will allow them to have immediate access, early communication and dialogue with the people who support them.

We are hoping that the involvement of young people with help us co-design this a new mobile phone app if we are able to secure funding to develop it further, which will see young people who have care experience directly benefitting from this new technology.