Stories of care – opportunities to shine


Stories of care is a writing and outreach project designed to engage with young people – initially aimed at those leaving care, it expanded its horizons in its second phase. Oliver Sykes is the lead artist in the project’s second incarnation, and here he talks to Pen&inc. about the inspiring and developing new talent.


OLIVER SYKES has a background in theatre and performing arts, working largely as a producer. He is also a children’s writer, who performs his own stories for children. He joined the team at Stories of Care when it was founded in 2015 by Sophie Willan, who he had been working with as a producer for her tour. He says: “I had been working as Sophie Willan’s producer since we met in 2012. I saw her in cabaret and she had party poppers coming out of her bra – I thought: ‘she’s something different’. After that, we had a chat and she said she didn’t have a producer, so I came on board as producer and we worked together for three to four years on a theatre show, and then a couple of comedy shows. We toured rurally and built up a national touring network that was over 100 venues.” During that time, Sophie began


to question the media’s portrayal of people who struggled with mental health issues. Oliver says: “Around 2015 she started to get really angry at the national press’ representation of mental health care users, social services users and social care experience users. She talks about her own mum in her stage show – her


Autumn-Winter 2022


mum is a heroin addict, a mental health service user and Sophie got really angry at the way these people are portrayed. “As an artist, she had always been passionate about representing and advocating for care experienced young people and marginalised children and adults, but there was a moment when she realised she had the platform and drive to do so much more; to instigate positive social change by sharing her platform and empowering young writers to tell their own stories and become creative leaders in their own communities. That is when she started to develop Stories of Care. “She was the lead artists for the


first project, which had the aim of empowering young care leavers to tell their own stories and become creative leaders in their communities. “By writing for children, there was a second aim that we would be providing positive and relatable role models for children in care through the books we publish and the authors.” The first book to emerge from the project was an anthology of children’s stories from a range of social care users – Tales of Weird, the wild and the wonderful. During that first project Oliver acted as producer for the Stories of Care, explaining that “I was very


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