Select committee hearings typically involve experts answering questions from MPs. Last week there was a strikingly different session, as four care-experienced young people offered their perspectives to the education committee. The point was to increase MPs’ insight by confronting them with children for whom social care is a hugely important fact of life. Some of the material shared was personal. But these witnesses also had opinions about how services could be changed to better meet the needs of young people in similar positions. As well as describing losses and disappointments, they spoke warmly about adults who had supported them. This included teachers, personal advisers (support workers for care leavers up to age 25) and foster carers.