Paige, one of our RCCW’s at Stormont Cottage, has dedicated her life and energy to supporting care-experienced people. Growing up in the care system herself, Paige understands the challenges that young people in care face, and she is passionate about making a difference in their lives.
For the past three years, Paige has been involved with The NLN (National Leadership Network), an organisation committed to improving the lives of care-experienced individuals. The NLN provides a platform for care-experienced people to collaborate, share ideas, and develop strategies for improving the support and funding available to them. Paige is one of 12 care-experienced consultants who meet regularly to collaborate and draw from their diverse backgrounds, including experience of fostering and kinship care, residential care, secure facilities and adoption, to help shape what the future can look like.
One of the exciting initiatives The NLN is working on is the release of funding applications to support care-experienced individuals. In the next two years, the charity will provide grants of £500 to help young people with things like purchasing a laptop for college or professional attire for job interviews. These grants will be released in three rounds, benefiting up to 60 young people across the country. The charity is also releasing £50,000 of funding to two chosen charities for further focused outreach.
Since joining The NLN in 2022, Paige has found the experience incredibly fulfilling, gaining valuable leadership skills and growing in self confidence. She has redefined her understanding of leadership, seeing it as about supporting and guiding others, rather than simply being in control. She finds the leadership skills that she has gained throughout the experience to be invaluable and transferable. She has found good leadership is developed in more places than you would expect and is about supporting and leading the people around you to develop.
Recently, Paige had the opportunity to take her advocacy to Parliament, where she shared her personal experience in care and discussed the charity’s work, using testimonials from personal experience as well as the experiences of others working alongside her. In her speech Paige detailed the story so far, how the consultants have created their own planning strategies for developing the charity further and where they can go from here. She emphasised the importance of ensuring that the voices of care experienced people are heard in decisions that affect their futures.
Through her involvement with The NLN, Paige continues to make a lasting impact, supporting others and creating a clearer, more supportive future for care-experienced individuals across the UK.