Who we are

Voice is a national charity committed to empowering children and young people in public care and supporting those who work with them to achieve excellence. We provide a vital link between practical experience and providing support to professionals who aspire to child-centred practice.

Over the past 30 years Voice has grown to become the leading provider of advocacy services to children and young people in public care.

We also campaign for change to improve children’s lives, by changes in law, policy and practice; and support the active participation of children and young people in the development of the law, policy and practice and in the delivery of services that affect them.

What we do

We work directly with over 3,500 young people each year, and all 60,000+ children and young people in care benefit through our campaigning work. 

Our delivery of training and accredited courses in child-centred practice, children’s rights and advocacy is based on hands-on experience of delivering the following core services:

•  National freephone advocacy helpline service direct to children and young people in public care or in need and care leavers.
•  Visiting Advocacy services direct to children in residential care, foster care, secure units, secure training centres and young offender institutions.
•  Independent services for agencies including the provision of Independent Persons and Investigating Officers for Children Act complaints procedures and Independent Persons for secure accommodation criteria review panels.

Voice Virtual Learning Environment 

The Learning Voices website is being developed alongside the Leadbetter Learning Centre, a physical space at the Voice Head Office in London where young people and the professionals who work with them can come together and discuss the issues that affect them. You can also hire the space for your own event. Together these two environments make up the Voice of Child-Centred Practice.

A colleague said of Michael Leadbetter, the late Chair of Voice, that his ‘committment, energy and passion made many of us more than we might have been’. We want Learning Voices to support this legacy, by making Voice training as accessible as possible and enabling us all to share resources, discuss relevant issues and improve our child-centred practice.

We would value your suggestions as we develop this website and use it to deliver our pilot advocacy qualification course. Please take the time to get involved and share your thoughts here.

Be part of Learning Voices today! 

For access to many of the features of this site, you will need to register. Anyone can sign up using the box on the right of this page; it’s free and only takes a minute. Once you are registered, you will have the option to sign up for our courses and events, and be able to access our discussion forums, blogs and ever-growing online resource library. We look forward to welcoming you as part of the Learning Voices community.