If you’ve been in care, finding out about your background can be an important thing for you to do. It can help you understand inherited health risks, make life choices and learn more about why you were separated from your family.
Accessing records for looked-after children hasn’t always been straightforward, but now thanks to a UCL research project, that’s starting to change.
The Memory, Identity, Rights in Records, Access (MIRRA) project (2017- 2021) worked with care experienced adults in England to understand their experiences of accessing their care records.
MIRRA identified gaps in recordkeeping for looked-after children and ways in which information could be better managed.
In particular, the research found that the voice of the looked-after child wasn’t captured by social care recording software and practices. Without this, the records were much less useful in helping care-experienced people make sense of their past and identity.
UCL researchers have inputted into several resources to support care leavers in accessing their records, including a website, FamilyConnect, hosted by Family Action. The site helps people understand their rights when accessing their birth and care information, and how to go about searching for it in the first place. FamilyConnect won the 2020 UCL Public Engagement Community prize.
The project has also led to a new app being developed with OLM Systems, which will allow social workers to capture the child’s voice in their records. The team received advice from UCL Innovation and Enterprise, and are now working with UCL’s MSc Computer Science students to build the prototype app.
MIRRA was led by Prof Elizabeth Shepherd from UCL’s Department of Information Studies. The team also partnered with two charities Family Action and the Care Leavers’ Association on the project.
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