Children in care

About this theme

This theme covers topics relating to improving the lives and outcomes of children and young people with experience of care. It is one of our current programmes for Fellowships, launched in 2023. It has been developed in partnership with the Hadley Trust, Coram Group and in consultation with our Children in Care working group. Fellows’ stories

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Blogs & conversations The shared legacy supporting kinship carers

We spoke to Lucy Peake, Churchill Fellow and CEO of Kinship, about how her Fellowship is shaping support for kinship carers in the UK. Travelling to the USA, she explored kinship navigator programmes and found strong parallels with Kinship Connected, the support model developed by her organisation. Her learning is now informing new trials and partnerships, with the aim of building stronger evidence and securing long-term investment in kinship care – helping to shape a more consistent, better-supported system for kinship families.

By Lucy Peake, 2026

Report Beyond placements: How the UK can build a care system children can call home

By Niketa Sanderson-Gillard, 2024

Fellows' updates February 2026 Fellows' update: Lucy Peake

Lucy Peake (CF 2024) was recently a guest on Radio 4's Woman's Hour. In her role as CEO of the charity Kinship, she spoke about their new research that 40% of kinship carers are forced to claim benefits to support their caring responsibilities.

By Lucy Peake, 2026

Fellows' updates December 2025 Fellows' update: Sharon McPherson

Sharon McPherson (CF 2023) has continued to build on her Churchill Fellowship through a series of major research and practice initiatives in kinship care.

By Sharon McPherson, 2025

Blogs & conversations In Conversation with Sophia Alexandra Hall: Empowering care-experienced voices in the media

We spoke to Churchill Fellow Sophia Alexandra Hall about how her Fellowship helped shape her trauma-informed interviewing toolkit, now used across major UK newsrooms. Drawing on her lived experience and 50 interviews in the USA, she reflects on the need for safer, more empowering media practices for care-experienced and other under-represented people. She also shares how this work has grown through training, conference speaking, and an expanding public platform at Big Issue.