Get involved

If you are a Care Leaver (of any age), you could contribute to our biographies by sending us a short biography of yourself (video, audio, print). If you prefer, one of our research team will do an interview with you and turn that interview into a short biography. The goal of the biographies is to represent the diversity of people whose childhoods were impacted by separation from their families. It is a form of historical advocacy that aims to curate a diverse collection of life stories to help shift public perceptions of what it means to be a Care Leaver and how Care Leavers contribute to community and culture in powerful ways.

If you have been involved in activism for Care Leaver rights and recognitions in Australia, we would love hear from you. Your experiences will help in creating a history of Care Leaver activism which the project team will publish as a book after the research is complete. We would be delighted to interview you about your work, or to receive your input in written or recorded form. You might also like to be involved in one of our focus groups or workshops in which we discuss – with other Care Leavers and with people working in the child protection sector – what changes you have seen and would like to see. You are also invited to include your life story in the collection of biographies featured on this website, but you may also choose to be involved in just one part of the project.

If you work in the child protection sector, have a personal or family connection to out-of-home care, or have an interest in this project for any other reason, we would be delighted to hear from you. Particularly if you have worked, volunteered or supported activism in related areas you might like to attend one of our focus groups or workshops. The workshops are annual events intended to provide updates on the project and seek guidance for the project, while the focus groups will focus on what change has occurred in the child protection sector in response to Care Leaver activism, and what more needs to be done.