Lemn Sissay joins Community Care Inform to celebrate World Social Work Day

Renowned poet will deliver exclusive webinar reading from his memoir of growing up in care, My Name is Why

Lemm Sissay
Lemm Sissay (credit: Slater King)

Renowned poet Lemn Sissay OBE will join Community Care Inform for an exclusive live webinar this month, to mark World Social Work Day 2022.

The subscriber-only event – hosted by Community Care Inform in partnership with the North East Principal Social Worker network – will focus on transitions to and from care, and this year’s World Social Work Day theme ‘leaving no one behind’.

A trustee of The Foundling Museum and the first poet commissioned to write for the London Olympics, Lemn Sissay is an award-winning writer, performer and broadcaster. He grew up in care and has since become an advocate for care experienced children, young people and adults.

Sissay will read from his powerful 2019 memoir, My Name is Why, before taking questions from the audience. The memoir is a reflection on identity and childhood, which chronicles his experiences growing up in foster care and children’s homes, as well as the first 18 years of his life.

In 2015, Sissay brought a legal case against the UK government for critical mistakes in the social care he received as a child. The government settled the case out of court in 2018.

Sissay was awarded an MBE in 2014, and an OBE in 2021, for his services to literature and charity.

The webinar will take place on World Social Work Day, 15 March 2022, at 1pm. It is available to all Community Care Inform subscribers and will be available to users to replay until the end of the year.

Inform users should have received details on how to register. If you haven’t, please contact the Inform helpdesk.

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One Response to Lemn Sissay joins Community Care Inform to celebrate World Social Work Day

  1. Amanda Fitchett March 3, 2022 at 3:51 pm #

    Such a shame that this will not be more widely available.