Care for children (including family, residential and foster care) almost always leads to young people transitioning out of home and into young adulthood. For those growing up in alternative care, we call this process ‘care-leaving’. INTRAC (the International Research Network on Transitions to Adulthood from Care, https://globalintrac.com) is a global research network dedicated to care-leaving. We celebrate our 20^th anniversary this year! INTRAC comprises over 350 members from 48 countries.

On Tuesday, 12 September, from 9 am to 5 pm, we host the Global INTRAC meeting at the University of Sussex, featured in the photo. We invite all INTRAC members, plus all EUSARF attendees interested in care-leaving, to attend. We open with an introduction to INTRAC, and spend the day engaged in interactive activities that facilitate networking with other scholars worldwide and sharing ideas about care-leaving research and practice. There is no cost to attend; participants arrange their lunch. Online attendance is possible for those who cannot attend in person.

Here is the agenda, with times (in UK time, which is GMT+1), so you can calculate what the times are where you live and what you’d be able to attend:

09:00 – Welcome with a bit of information about INTRAC and our history (it’s our 20th anniversary this year!)

09:15 – A meet and greet activity, with opportunity to meet in small groups (either in house or online) and get to know some new people or perhaps connect with people you already know

09:35 – A series of short presentations on the work and accomplishments of INTRAC over the past year or so

11:00 – A coffee break

11:30 – Sharing about some of the existing thematic interest groups and how to get new ones going

11:50 – A kind of World Cafe, where you’ll have the chance to join three different thematic discussions (from a list of about 8 or so topics) for 15-20 minutes each, to share ideas about research on particular facets of care-leaving with people from around the world

13:00 – A long lunch, during which time you can meet with old colleagues, new friends, in a group with a common interest, come up with a proposal for a new book, design an exciting multinational study, etc. 

14:30 – A bit more information about INTRAC’s activities

14:45 – Sharing of ideas about how to build country or regional chapters

15:00 (for an hour or two, as needed) – Each country or regional group will have the opportunity to meet primarily to talk about building care-leaving research and researchers in their area. Executive is leaving the decision on how to use this time entirely up to the organisers of each region. They should hopefully be in touch with you to share ideas. 

18:00 – EUSARF Conference opens, for those who are registered for EUSARF.

The online component of the meeting will be done on Zoom (we think) – We’ll update the information here if this changes. For now, the link is https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83315668134

To assist us with planning, please complete the very brief RSVP form (just your email, name and country, that’s it) at https://forms.gle/YGbvENfuEGGUUnzy5 This is especially important for those attending in person, as we need to confirm numbers for catering, venues, etc.

Non-members of INTRAC are welcome! Feel free to forward this notice and invitation to colleagues who are attending EUSARF who you think might be interested in participating. Or bring friends to join you online.