Speaking out

When 16-year-old Jamila was brought into the country illegally and left to walk the central London streets alone, she ended up struggling to survive with three random adults in a one-bedroom flat. Everything seemed hopeless until she remembered the word passed on to her by a fellow Afghan – Voice.

Jamila telephoned the number she had been given for Voice, a charity established to empower young people in care or in need. With the help of an interpreter, she told her story and was referred to advocate Joe Charters. He immediately called her local authority and pressed for an urgent assessment of her needs.

After lengthy discussions and assessments, the council finally accepted it had a duty of care towards the teenager. A foster placement and college place followed. Now Jamila has plans for university.

For young people with no family, little knowledge of their entitlements and sometimes limited ability to communicate, the support that advocacy can offer provides young people with the catalyst they need to rebuild their lives.

Joe Charters is one of four specialist advocates who work alongside 62 freelance and visiting advocates employed by Voice, which has contracts with 14 local authorities. As he walks around Voice’s modest headquarters in Islington, Charter describes how he is driven by the chance to make a difference to young people’s lives, whether by bringing about transformative life changes for those like Jamila, or simply by “making a young person feel that they’ve been listened to and taken seriously”.

Charters, who has been with Voice for nearly five years, fights the corner of looked-after children and young people, care leavers and children in need and his days include a mixture of reactive frontline work and careful behind-the-scenes dialogue with social workers. He sets aside one or two days a week manning the charity’s helpline. Given that the helpline took on more than 1,300 new cases in the past financial year, it comes as some surprise when Charters reveals this to be no more than a tiny glass-panelled office equipped with a couple of phones.