At Norman Galloway Homes, the voices of our young people shape everything we do. We believe that our care-experienced young people are the experts in their own lives. That’s why we run consultations, focus groups, and feedback sessions throughout the year to make sure your ideas, opinions, and experiences are at the heart of our services.
We want to make sure you have a say in how we do things, from how your home feels, to how we can better support you to achieve your goals. Participation is always voluntary, and you will be paid for your time and expertise when you join our focus groups.
These opportunities can help you develop key skills, such as:
Your voice matters and together, we’re building a service that works for you.
Tell Us What You Think
Your feedback matters. Whether it’s a suggestion, a compliment, or a complaint – we want to hear from you.
Having clear ways to give feedback is vital. It helps us improve, and it helps you feel heard. We also want to make sure every young person knows how to make a complaint if something isn’t right. That’s why we’ll be holding a focus group to talk about how we can make this easier and clearer.
We held our first Focus Group on Friday 11th April 2025 with 10 young people that live in our accommodation where we discussed the life Skills & Jobs Programme. We are busy writing this up right now, however let me tell you how it went. We wanted to know what young people thought a life skills programme is, but rather than list the practical elements such as putting shelves up, bleeding radiators and being able to paint and decorate their own home, they talked about it helping them feel safe, improve communication, be respectful and stay out of trouble.
Throughout the session they were mindful of what a life skills and a jobs programme can do for their self worth and how it will help them get to know themselves better. I was hearing them describe Maslows Hierarchy of Needs without knowing. The session was really insightful. We talked about how we can motivate care leavers to want to participate, especially those that think they can already do it and don't need to learn. They came up with creating a space for them to practice and demonstrate their skills and creating games and competitions such as a race to put a shelf up,
Then we talked through our proposals for our Life Skills Hub and Jobs Programme, they really liked them with one young person saying "It's too good" and another saying the longer jobs subsidies should also be for 18+.
All focus groups take place at our Training Hub at 58 Carlton Road, Nottingham, NG3 2AP, we have snacks, they are informal and everyone has space to talk. We also pay £15 as a gift for your time. If you would like to join any of these Focus groups please let us know.
We are looking for Care Leavers to take part in in the next Focus Group on Monday 21st April 2025. Please get in touch if you are available. Check out the other Focus Groups we are running.
| Date | Time | Focus Group |
| 11.04.2025 | 10am-12pm | Life Skills & Jobs programme (Internal Completed) |
| 29.04.2025 | 2pm-4pm | Life Skills & Jobs programme (External) |
| 02.05.2025 | 1pm-3pm | Young people Voice & Consultation |
| 16.05.2025 | 1pm-3pm | Support Session and Plans |
| 23.05.2005 | 3pm-5pm | Young Person of the Week |
| 02.06.2025 | 2pm-4pm | Care Leaver Membership Card |
| 13.06.2025 | 2pm-4pm | CCTV Focus Group |
| 27.06.2025 | 1pm-3pm | Visitor Policy, the Balance Right |
| 11.07.2025 | 2pm-4pm | Culture, Media and Sport |
| 25.07.2025 | 3pm-5pm | Accomodation Standard |
| 15.08.2025 | 2pm-4pm | Driving Lessons |
Your Voice in Building Our Life Skills Centre
We’re opening a brand-new Life Skills Centre – designed to help you learn practical skills for independent living. We’re working with businesses and professional traders to create hands-on sessions, but we want your ideas too.
What sessions do you want? What skills do you need? What will help you feel ready for independence?
Join the discussion:
👉 Life Skills Training Programme
Building Your Future
Our Jobs Programme supports care leavers into work – but is it working for you?
We want to improve the programme, attract more employers, and make sure it’s helping you find the right opportunities. We’ll be running focus groups to hear:
Celebrating Care-Experienced Excellence
Every week, we celebrate a young person in our service who’s made progress, shown kindness, or achieved something special. Young people can nominate themselves or their friends.
Each month, we hold a celebration event to recognise everyone’s achievements, with certificates, gifts, and a chance to celebrate together. We want to make these events even better – so we’re asking young people how they’d like them to look and feel:
Tell us what would make you feel proud and celebrated.
👉 Young Person of the Week
Have Your Say on Driving Lessons
We’re consulting with our young people about introducing block-booked driving lessons. We believe learning to drive can boost confidence, independence, and life opportunities and we’ve seen that young people who do driving lessons often engage better in support sessions, because they see real benefits from learning new skills.
But we want to know what you think:
You can take part in the consultation here:
👉 Driving Lessons Survey
Getting Involved & Having Fun
We know that when young people take part in cultural, media, and sports activities, it can lead to better relationships, more confidence, and better mental health. We’ve already connected with the Department for Culture, Media & Sport, and they’re now including care experience in their national surveys but we want to go even further.
Our survey and focus groups will help us:
Recent highlights:
If you’re a business or organisation that wants to support our care leavers, you can get in touch and offer free tickets, discounts, or experiences.
Your Views on Safety & Privacy
We use CCTV in some of our accommodation to help keep everyone safe – but we know young people have different views on this. Some of you feel safer with cameras; others don’t like being watched.
We want to find the right balance. That’s why we’re holding a focus group to discuss:
Shaping the Support We Offer
Our support sessions are designed to help you achieve your goals and live independently – but we want to make sure they’re right for you.
We’ll be running focus groups to ask:
What Makes a Home?
We’re proud of the standard of our accommodation – but we want to go further. Beyond clean, secure, and well-equipped homes, what else matters to you?
We’ll be holding focus groups to hear your views on:
How Do We Know It’s Working?
Our aim is simple – we want to support you to achieve positive outcomes in education, employment, and relationships.
But how should we measure this? We’re introducing new tools like Outcome Star and already use BERRI assessments – but we want your input too. Should we measure:
Join our focus group and help shape how we measure success.
Community Hub
We’re exploring the idea of a Care Leaver Offer Membership Card. This card would help you access food banks, clothing schemes, hygiene products and other essentials without needing a referral. It could also be used to get discounts at shops, cafes, gyms and public transport, and act as an easy way to prove you’re a care leaver when applying for help or support.
We’re also thinking about creating a Care Leaver Community Hub in Nottingham a space where you can share ideas, donate and receive furniture, paint, clothes, and other useful items.
In our 16+ supported accommodation, we currently keep a visitor register. That means we need to know who’s visiting, when, and require permission beforehand. This is to help keep everyone safe, but we know it might feel too strict at times, especially when you’re trying to build your independence and have a normal social life.
Following feedback that this is a bit strict, we want your ideas?
And if you’re 18+, should there be more freedom with a few simple rules in place?
We are conducting a focus group so we can understand how to strike the right balance between safety and independence in both our 16+ and 18+ accommodation.
