Salford care leavers have shared their experiences in a new graphic novel

A new graphic novel that reveals the experiences of Salford care leavers through self-designed characters has been published this month. 

The new novel has been been published by Greater Manchester Youth Network, and will feature animal cartoon characters.

The graphic novel ‘Hear My Voice’ will explore the characters that were originally made out of clay by young people who experienced care.

The young people made the figures in workshops led by the youth organsation, and have been used to embody the experiences in the care system.

The project itself has seen the characters brought to life by visual artist, Paul Pickford, who released it to the public on November 14.

One of the care leavers involved in the project was Luke Clark, and shared that he was involved as he wanted new social workers “to have an understanding, like for care experience. So, they know that what the what they signed up for when they’ve gone through the interview stage.”

The aim of the project is also supposed to provide social workers with the ‘full picture’ as they sign up.

Luke along with 19 others who experienced care as young people were involved with the project, along with five professionals.

The project was involved with the visual artist Paul Pickford, who shared that the project started following another project at the Lowry.

He said: “We got talking, and they were sharing some of their stories and some of our experiences of going through the care system.

“So, the idea was kind of cooking then of you know, there were all these stories that they wanted to that were there, but what would be a good way to share them?

“And they sort of, you know, found areas for projects. I said, yeah, I think this would be a great opportunity to get those stories captured in a comic strip format.”

The visual artist continued to add why the young people involved decided to use animal figurines, he said: “We didn’t want to have something where they could be readily identified or would have specific names d also in terms of the appeal of the stories.

“We didn’t want things to become limited by safeguarding. We didn’t want things to be limited by ethnicity and gender.

“We were looking at painting graffiti characters onto a wall but representing animals, in the way that Banksy would.”

The option of choice of how they wanted to be presented was significant to the project, as they allowed themselves to choose how they were symbolised within the graphic novel.

In the project, Pickford said that one person chose to be displayed as a rat due their naturally strong family connections – as rats do not leave families behind.

Paul continued: “I thought this was really powerful, so that was the idea really, to kind of replace people with animals so we’d have stories in there with rats, and gorillas, and vampire bats.”

The comic was also aimed at pulling literature surrounding foster care and adoption away from the academic and authoritative nature.

The experience offered to the young people allowed them to share their stories in the system and so far the response has been extremely positive.

The comic is now available for free download on the GMYN website or as a hard copy for a donation.