{"id":99544,"date":"2025-05-14T01:35:18","date_gmt":"2025-05-14T01:35:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/99544\/"},"modified":"2025-05-14T01:35:18","modified_gmt":"2025-05-14T01:35:18","slug":"outgoing-lord-mayor-in-call-to-action-for-liverpools-care-leavers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/99544\/","title":{"rendered":"Outgoing Lord Mayor in call to action for Liverpool’s care leavers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cllr Richard Kemp will hand over the ceremonial chains of office having spent the last 12 months as Liverpool\u2019s first citizen\"LordLord Mayor Richard Kemp, together with Erica Kemp and members of the Care Experienced Forum on a visit to the Town Hall as part of their ‘This place is yours’ work.<\/p>\n

Liverpool\u2019s outgoing Lord Mayor has used his last full day in office to set the city a challenge to support those leaving the care system. In the city\u2019s annual general meeting on Wednesday, Cllr Richard Kemp will hand over the ceremonial chains of office having spent the last 12 months as Liverpool\u2019s first citizen.<\/p>\n

He has used his year in post to champion the cause of those leaving the city\u2019s care system. Currently, around 700 people across Liverpool are taken out of state support between the ages of 18 and 25.<\/p>\n

Now, Cllr Kemp has issued a rallying cry to people and organisations across the city to help change the lives of young people in need of support. In a bid to reframe the narrative around care leavers, Liverpool Council<\/a> held a landmark conference at St George\u2019s Hall last autumn in a bid to connect education, business and young people to provide greater opportunities.<\/p>\n

Cllr Kemp said the conference was an opportunity for the city to \u201creshape the destiny of our young people\u201d who for too long had been depicted as \u201cproblems.\u201d The Lord Mayor said care leavers are in fact \u201ca resource for our city.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cAlmost 200 years ago Charles Dickens came up from London by train and read the next chapter of his books to a discerning Liverpool audience. He spoke about Fagin and child criminals, about poverty, about poor environments and poor housing.<\/p>\n

\"LordLord Mayor of Liverpool Cllr Richard Kemp CBE (Image: Liverpool Council)(Image: Copyright Unknown)<\/p>\n

\u201cThese conditions exist today in Liverpool and most other urban areas. Indeed, the effects of drugs can be found in every community.<\/p>\n

\u201cFagin\u2019s gangs of kids are an old-fashioned version of the County Lines gangs of today with children as young as eight being caught up in the transportation of drugs and where cheap gin has been replaced by Ketamine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cllr Kemp said the young people at the apex of the \u201cpyramid of sadness and destitution\u201d are care leavers who are \u201cdealt an appalling deck of cards at their birth and struggle to improve that deck in their life.\u201d He added: \u201cHowever, many can get through the problems of their birth family and community to build lives that can be rewarding and successful in many ways.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe young people who co-produced the conference with us were prime examples of this.\u201d Among them was Mollieanne Joyce, 18<\/a>, one of the many eaving the care of the local authority after being taken out of what many would consider a \u201cnormal\u201d family life 10 years ago.<\/p>\n

She is beginning a new phase of her life at university. Cllr Kemp added: \u201cSince then, I have spoken to many young people who have successfully navigated the care experience and come through it well.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey all had one thing in common. All of them had been recognised by one person who had seen through the problems and discerned a young person who had qualities that they could not recognise themselves.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat person had stuck with them often through thin and thin until they recognised those qualities themselves and set an upward strategy of self-improvement.\u201d The outgoing Lord Mayor, who will be succeeded by Cllr Barbara Murray tomorrow, said a joined up approach was needed for the sake of young people.<\/p>\n

With that, came his call to action. He said: \u201cI now want to give you the challenges that I have given across the city of Liverpool.<\/p>\n

\u201cWill you help us to change lives and create potential problem citizens into potential good citizens? Are you the one who can look at an ugly duckling and see the inner swan and help that swan emerge into the light?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cllr Richard Kemp will hand over the ceremonial chains of office having spent the last 12 months as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":99545,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8815],"tags":[748,393,4884,179,14487,46206,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-99544","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-liverpool","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-liverpool","12":"tag-liverpool-council","13":"tag-richard-kemp","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114503623637268678","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99544\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}