The Why Not? Trust for Care Experienced Young People is a charity set up to support long term connections and relationships between young people with care experience and the people who matter to them, particularly during their transition out of care and beyond. Our vision is to support every care leaver with relationships and a community that will benefit them for their future.

We have embedded our approach to continuing relationships (connections) for young care leavers within residential care services and are now looking to further develop and adapt this support to ongoing connections for those moving on from foster care.

In this role, you will have the opportunity to work alongside young people and their foster carers, and build an understanding of their needs, barriers and how best to empower them in continuing their relationships as they prepare to move on from care. You will also drive forward a sense of belonging and community for young people and their foster carers (Connectors), and work to bring them into the wider Why Not? Trust community upon leaving care, whilst enabling their own support network where they feel that they are not alone in their experiences.

An understanding of community development will be important for this role, and with it also comes the opportunity to work with and support young people who may have experienced trauma and being let down throughout their lives.

This role is currently on a fixed term basis for 12 months, however should funding allow there is scope for this to be reviewed and extended.

The Why Not? Trust for Care Experienced Young People is a charity set up to support long term connections and relationships between young people with care experience and the people who matter to them, particularly during their transition out of care.

In this role, you will have the opportunity to work directly within our community, drive forward a sense of belonging for young people and create a network for individuals where they feel that they are not alone in their experiences.

Our vision is to support every care leaver with relationships and a community that will benefit them for the long term.

For you, this means having a strong understanding of the challenges care leavers can face, as you will be directly involved in:

• Ensuring our young people and their meaningful connections are supported, enabling a smooth relational transition when leaving care
• Directly supporting young people through a tailored, person-led process to identify key Connectors
• Facilitation of one-to-one or group meetings with young people and their support network
• Organising activities and informal group events
• Working closely with frontline services to inform young people of the community network and introduce them to the Trust during their time in care

An understanding of community development will be essential for this role, but with this also comes the opportunity to work with and support many young people who may have experienced trauma and being let down throughout their lives.

This role is currently on a fixed term basis for 12 months however, should funding allow there is scope for this to be reviewed.