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Campaigner on mission to ’empower’ children and young people in care with life skills

By Joe Locker, Local Democracy Reporter

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“It’s just little things like bleeding a radiator, painting, decorating, fire detection, how to clean an oven, and how to unblock a sink – things that normally you would have friends and family to help you with.”

A man who grew up in care is converting part of a vacant building in Nottingham into a place where children and young people in the system can learn vital life skills.

Terry Galloway spent much of his childhood in the care system, and says he was moved around more than 100 times before moving to Nottingham when he was 25.

Today, he is campaigning for change in the system, and runs an estate agency in the city providing supported accommodation and job programmes for care leavers.

As part of his work to empower care-experienced people and care leavers, he is currently converting part of a vacant building into a space where they can learn life skills, including administrative tasks like arranging bulky waste collection.

The ground floor of a property off Carlton Road, Sneinton, is being fitted out with booths that can be decorated, as well as a mock-up kitchen, bathroom, and outdoor area where young people can learn skills relating to different areas of a house or flat.

Mr Galloway is funding it out of his own pocket, with the help of local businesses that have donated materials, including Howdens and Travis Perkins.

“What we are trying to do here is empower care-experienced people and care leavers with at least 150 skills they can learn around the house,” Mr Galloway said.

“It is those things that not knowing causes anxiety for care-experienced people.

“When they get to 18, they are literally counting down that soon they are going to have to live on their own, and they haven’t got these skills and the networks of people to help them.

“So with this, we are trying to build a place where they can come, feel safe, and practice and learn.”

Nottingham City Council says there are currently 630 children in its care, slightly down from 640 children the year before.

Many children live in residential placements – a few of which are unlawfully unregistered with Ofsted – but there is renewed focus from the council to get more people into foster care for better outcomes.

“There are 80,000 children in the care system in England alone, there are 10,000 care leavers who leave the care system every year, and they are going into accommodation on their own,” Mr Galloway added.

“The places where they live in the care system are meant to train them up to become independent, but who really cares about that when you are 17 or 18 years old?

“We want to try and make it fun. So we are going to have competitions…[like] who can decorate the nicest.”

Mr Galloway grew up in the care system alongside his sister, Hazel.

They made a promise together that they would change the system, but in January 2008, Hazel was murdered by her partner Andrew Grundy, 33 at the time, leading to Mr Galloway spearheading a campaign for change in her memory.

His campaign aims to make ‘care experience’ a protected characteristic – like that of disability, sexual orientation, and race – making discrimination illegal under the Equality Act.

While the Government is yet to enshrine it in law, Mr Galloway has managed to get more than 100 councils to pass motions to consider care experience as a protected characteristic when delivering their services.