A STORY WORTH SAVING: ANIMATION, FINANCIAL SKILLS AND EMPOWERMENT FOR CHILDREN IN CARE

Learning how to manage money is an essential life skill – but for many young people in care, access to that knowledge is limited. As they move towards independence, they often face adulthood earlier than their peers, with fewer support networks to fall back on. In fact, 39% of care leavers aged 19‑21 are not in education, training or employment, and a third become homeless within two years of leaving care.

That’s why Create’s change:matters programme exists: to build creative confidence while embedding financial literacy in engaging hands-on ways.

TELLING STORIES THROUGH ANIMATION

In May 2025, Create artist Chloe Cooper delivered a three-day stop-frame animation project with care-experience young people in Ealing. Jamilla*, a young person in care, used her creativity to craft a film about a man who wins the lottery, overspends and ends up being evicted:

The moral of the story is to show that things can happen unexpectedly and to always save as much money as possible.

JAMILLA – CHANGE:matters participant

CONFIDENCE, CONNECTION AND CREATIVITY

Through animation, Jamilla developed both technical and interpersonal skills:

“With animation, you need a lot of patience, because it’s very time-consuming. But it is actually very worth it and fun, I really enjoyed it. It’s rewarding watching it, and just knowing that all of your hard work [has been] put into a film.”

The project also helped Jamilla build social confidence:

“[I’ve enjoyed] getting to know new people, and I’ve gotten really close with them. When I first came, I was really shy. Then I built up a certain amount of trust with them, I could tell them lots of things.”

Now I can talk freely and that helped build my confidence a lot, because [usually] I don’t like meeting people.

JAMILLA – cHANGE:matters participant

Art as an emotional outlet

Jamilla spoke powerfully about the value of creativity for her mental health:

“I love art, it distracts me from everything that’s going on in my brain, and things that I don’t want to think about, and it locks [me] in to this one thing I want to get done. It’s just my creativity, my mind on a piece of paper, turning it into a story, that’s what I really like about it.

“Being creative gives you a chance to listen to your body, listen to your mind, just get away from any negative things. It helps you think more positively, it gives you a break. We also had some music on, we were singing whilst doing the work, which I found was really fun and [created] a nice, calm environment.”

learning FOR LIFE

From budgeting to understanding needs vs wants, Jamilla took away valuable life skills:

“I learnt that [money] can run out, that this economy is expensive because of the cost of living, and that we have to save money. I also learnt that you get more money from saving money, which I never knew.

“We ordered pizza, and we had to find the cheapest way [to do it]. I learnt about using a calculator and [figuring out] how much people wanted and how many slices we were going to get. We found the best worth [for] our money – we even had leftovers!”

OPPORTUNITIES THAT MAKE A DIFFERENCE

Jamilla reflected on the lack of support for young people in care and how projects like change:matters can make a lasting difference:

I’m very grateful for this opportunity.

JAMILLA – cHANGE:matters participant

“This is my first time doing something like this, and I wish that there were lots more opportunities for other people in care, because we don’t get taught most of this stuff.

“We are most likely going to end up living in a semi-independent household, so we’re going to be living by ourselves at a really young age, and I think it’s really important for us to know all of this information from the start.”

Thank you to Chartered Accountants’ Livery Charity for funding this project.

*Names have been changed to protect anonymity