Creating Safe Spaces for Black Children and Young People in Care 

In partnership with Coventry and Sussex Universities, Safer Spaces for Black Children in Care in England:  Identity and Voice explores the lived experiences of Black children in care and young people who have left care, focusing on the creation of safe spaces where their voices, identities, and needs are truly recognised and supported. The report places the children and young people who participated at the centre, amplifying their voices and valuing their perspectives to inform policy and practice improvements. 

Research shows that care placements for Black children in England often fail to meet their racial and ethnic identity needs. This research sought to make recommendations for Children’s social care policy and practice to inform the creation of ‘Safe Spaces’; environments, relationships, support systems, and transitions that offer the best possible experiences and outcomes for children and young people who may not be able to live permanently with their own families.    

Safe spaces include places where young people could express their cultures freely including dressing and making cultural foods. Safety means feeling able to be yourself in race, ethnicity, religious dress codes without discrimination.

Findings indicate that children and young people experience and articulate their Black identities in complex and multifaceted ways. Their gender, cultural heritage, faith, migration pathways (if relevant), gender, age and other characteristics all shape how young people develop and articulate their sense of self, and crucially how and if they seek support in relation to their identity.   

Me personally, I express my culture. I do acting, but I make my own films… I like to compare all the differences and just show people it’s like reality.” 

The research reinforces that creating truly safe environments requires more than policy or procedure; it demands relational trust, cultural awareness, cultural safety, and active anti-racist practice. 

I was just suffering…I did not know I could ask, just expressing my needs, though I think I struggled with it. I did not want to sound difficult. 

The report makes six recommendations for social work policy and nine for social work leadership & frontline practice based on the conversations with Black children to support the creation safe spaces that are not just physical, but are also culturally safe, culturally affirming, emotionally supportive, and identity-sensitive. 

My social worker… bought me a prayer mat… She was really supportive of me.

Recommendations for Children’s Social Care Policy 

1: Promote nuanced understandings of Black identity as complex, socio-historically shaped, intersectional and informed by the voices and lived experiences of children and young people 

2: Embed cultural humility by developing a working environment that encourages professionals to approach cultures, identities and lived experiences. 

3: Embrace Anti-racist practice through proactive challenging of discrimination including implementation of processes for reporting, addressing bias and monitoring disproportionality.   

4: Promote identity-sensitive placement decisions with clear guidance on the importance of matching children with carers who can meet their cultural, racial, ethnic, religious and other identity needs.  

5: Strengthen cross-sector collaboration to identify and dismantle systemic bias across all areas that impact care-experienced Black children’s lives including schools, community services and social care. 

6: Provide targeted training and resources for carers and professionals to give them the knowledge they need and confidence to support children’s intersectional identity needs. 

Recommendations for Social Work Leadership & Frontline Practice 

1: Embed cultural safety in everyday social work practice by understanding Black identity as complex, socio-historically determined, intersectional and child-led. 

2: Build trust through authentic engagement by listening to children and involving them in decision making and care planning. 

3: Create and maintain safe spaces – physical, cultural and emotional, which allow for cultural expression and development, and which are free from discrimination, stereotypes and essentialised labels. 

4: Prioritise peer networks and mentorship, as well as targeted social integration programmes for Black Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children as part of an integrated safeguarding approach. 

5: Strengthen advocacy and participation through structured mechanisms where children can raise concerns safely, including peer support groups and cultural networks. 

6: Deliver responsive, trauma and oppression informed and healing-centred training including on cultural competence, anti-racist practice and intersectionality. 

7: Recruitment processes that assess attitudes and beliefs around cultural humility and anti-racism. 

8: Ensure relational consistency by minimising placement moves and reduce staff turnover where possible. Children in all care settings should have access to key workers 

9: Monitor and evaluate practice that introduces accountability measures for cultural safety in care settings, and which directly listen to children. 

Note 

In this research, children and young people were invited to self-define their identities. Those who chose to participate identified as Black in the political sense, meaning they understand and experience their Black identity in relation to social, historical and structural factors, including race, racism and community belonging, rather than in relation to ethnicity or skin tone.