Speaking about the representation Steph Davies commented:
“We’ve already successfully supported Coram Group in its application for core participant status, and at a preliminary hearing on 6th September 2024. We will now undertake to work with Coram and the Inquiry team to interrogate the issues at the heart of how the pandemic impacted, and indeed continues to impact children to this day. Leverets has experience of making applications on behalf of core participants and representing organisations at every stage of the inquiry process – including those affected by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse. We will ensure that Coram has a voice in the Inquiry and that its specific concerns and objections are addressed, as well as delivering the highest levels of support at every stage.”
A Core Participant is an individual, organisation or institution that has a specific interest in the work of the Inquiry. Coram Groups Core Participant status states that: “As a children’s charity which is a backbone organisation in the children’s sector, Coram is involved on an ongoing and daily basis with children and young people across a spectrum of areas, including the family justice system, education law, wellbeing education, childcare and early years education, special educational needs, children’s social care, therapeutic support, and the asylum and immigration systems. These areas of concern directly align with those to be considered within Module 8.”
The preliminary hearing on 6th September established the boundaries of the module so that work can commence to seek substantive evidence from Coram Group and other Module 8 Core Participants. Hearings for Module 8 will run between 29th September and 23rd October 2025.
Whilst applications for core participant status of Module 8 are now closed. Further modules will be announced in the coming months covering the system and impact issues of the pandemic across the UK including:
- The Government’s business and financial responses
- Health inequalities and the impact of Covid-19
- Other public services, including frontline delivery by key workers
Leverets Advocacy Ltd has been appointed by Coram Group, the first and longest serving children’s charity in the UK, as its legal representative in Module 8 of the UK Covid-19 Inquiry.
Module 8 will examine the impact of the pandemic on children and young people across the UK, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities, and from a diverse range of ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds.
As a Core Participant, the Coram Group will:
The Leverets’ team led by Steph Davies, is working in partnership with Sam King KC and Lucy Logan Green of 4PB Chambers to represent Corum Group.