Success – whose definition counts? A co-designed framework by and for young people leaving care

Report

‘Success – whose definition counts?’ set out to better understand how careexperienced young people define success - by asking them directly. Through this co-designed project, care leavers worked with researchers to challenge the assumptions built into existing practice and data systems and develop an alternative framework grounded in lived experience. Their work encourages professionals to reconsider what is being measured and why.

Commissioned by Become and carried out by the Rees Centre at the University of Oxford, the project highlighted how limited and disconnected existing outcome measures are and offers a new approach – shaped by care-experienced young people – that reflects the complexity, context, and realities of their lives.

The methodology comprised a literature review on how success is defined for young adults in the general population, a series of interviews with local and national professionals to assess existing outcome measures for care leavers and focus groups with 26 care-experienced young people to consider what success looks like for them.

The findings were used to develop and test in five local authority areas a new interactive success measurement tool (the success survey) - to be completed by care leavers with their personal advisers (PAs) - that better reflects the goals, values and progress that matter most to care-experienced young people. Further focus groups (with 16 care leavers) and two cognitive interviews in the same local authorities helped to further refine the success survey and gather feedback on its completion. Throughout the project the research was shaped by a design group - named the Future of Care Design Group by its members - of 13 brilliant careexperienced young people.

Authors: Kelly, Á; Luke, N; Hyde-Dryden, G; Williams, T

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Reviewed (other)
• Publisher: Rees Centre, University of Oxford
• Place of publication: Oxford
• Publication date: 2025-11-11
• DOI: 10.5287/ora-0ogxwmdyz
• Language: English