Looked after children and young people

The Champions Board is a safe, supportive, and fun space where Care Experienced young people can make new friends and share their views on the things that matter to them. The Champs engage directly with East Lothian Council, Police, NHS, Housing and many others to influence positive change in matters affecting all care-experienced people. 

If you want your voice to be heard and if you want to be part of making positive changes in East Lothian, then we warmly invite you to join the Champions Board!

We will unite together to look at the priorities for change. We will invest time and resources to produce results and deliver on promises. We will listen to each other when things go wrong and except no excuses for lack of progression towards our goals.

The Champions Board was set up in 2015 and is supported by East Lothian Council and Who Cares? Scotland.

It provides a platform for care experienced young people to talk directly to local authority staff, elected members and service providers to ensure that decisions which affect their lives are informed by their own experiences.

Through the board, care experienced young people themselves can influence improvements in the services and support available to them.

The East Lothian Champions Board wants to:

• give a voice to young people in care
• change the care system
• help care-experienced young people to access all the support the support systems available
• be treated with respect and get positive help from professionals

• change young people's lives in care

  You can request a welcome pack depending on whether you want to join the Junior (11 – 16) or Seniors Champs board (16+). 

  Here is a clip about young people talking about how the Champions board has helped them:

  Here is a clip about the role of Ambassadors:

   

Get involved

Details of the East Lothian Champions board group:- 

Age group:

• Two groups run for S1 - S4 (age 11 to 16) and for S5 (age 16+)

When? 

• S1-S4 meet at 4.30pm – 6pm, every second Wednesday
• S5+ meet at 4pm – 6.30pm, every second Monday

Where?

The Gatehouse, Lewisvale Park, Newbigging Road, Musselburgh, EH21 7JY (directly across from Musselburgh Grammar School and the Sport
Centre).

Contact info:

For more information about this group, you can get in touch with Neil at: nfindlay@whocaresscotland.org or 07970 515 440.