23 year old Scott King has worked for Kent Children in Care Council and A National Voice's Lilac project and is a member of the Minister's care leaver advisory group with the Care Leavers' Foundation. He has a passion for improving the lives of others. Scott was in care from the age of 6 months. He has also worked in residential child care and is studying to become a social worker. You have been part of a group of care leavers meeting regularly with the Children's Minister for two years. How did that come about and how have you found the experience? The first meeting took place soon after the new Government came into office in 2010. We asked the Minister to come and talk to us about what support care leavers could expect from the new Government and the discussion was filmed for National Care Leavers' Week. One of the first things Tim said to us was that he didn't want any meetings involving young people and service users to be tokenistic. I feel that he was genuine in that respect; he valued the input we had. I have been involved in a lot of meetings where having a young person there was just paying lip service. These ones weren't like that at all. We are quite a small group and to have direct access to someone holding real power is a privilege. Over the two years that we met we had the opportunity to speak and be heard,