We are Juno CIC exist to ensure that children growing up in residential care in Liverpool City Region can find brilliant, local homes where they feel safe, supported and loved. To bring this vision to life, We are Juno is creating a network of high-quality, not-for-profit homes that transform opportunities for children growing up in the care system. They aim to disrupt existing models of residential care that are not serving the children they support and develop homes across the Liverpool City Region that improve outcomes and reduce profiteering in the sector. 

Many care-experienced children that they spoke to when designing We are Juno, and staff working in the sector locally, described how a care model that prioritised profit over quality of care too often resulted in insufficient support and poor outcomes for children. Making relationships will set young people leaving care up with the best possible chance of having a good adult life. That is why their care model places its biggest emphasis on building strong, loving relationships – between the team, children,  partners, and community – using social pedagogy philosophy and trauma-informed practice.

We are Juno CIC will use social investment to purchase their third children's home in Wirral, in order to support the increasing number of children needing residential care in the Liverpool City Region.

Over the past three years, they’ve been working with care-experienced people and children in care to understand what high-quality care really looks and feels like. They have developed a 'Juno Young Leaders' group of care leavers who are embedded in their team. They sit on recruitment panels, feed into how they measure our impact, and inform how homes look and feel. They've told them:

• "Many current homes are like institutions, with locked doors, cheap furniture and no privacy"
• "We want cosy, homely environments that look and feel like a family home, with cushions, photographs, canvasses and chill areas, as well as spaces to be together"
• "I want my space to really be mine - safe and personal. Please let me have a front door key to my home and stop locking the kitchen during the night."
• "Set up homes in safe neighbourhoods, in homes that blend into the local community.”
• “We like gardens, big open windows and sensory areas for relaxation."

They want to build on this feedback with Juno's third home.

Visit their website here: https://www.wearejuno.org/