Terry Galloway - Campaigner and Advocate

Terry Galloway is a UK social justice campaigner with lived experience of the care system. He spent much of his childhood moving through the care system, living in over 100 placements, and facing trauma, instability, and discrimination. His sister Hazel, who also grew up in care, faced significant challenges and was killed by her partner — a personal loss that deepened Terry’s commitment to systemic change.

After leaving care, Terry worked in a range of jobs before dedicating himself to advocacy. To support his campaigning work, he set up his own business and later a not-for-profit providing supported accommodation for care leavers. Norman Galloway Homes is a not-for-profit organisation providing supported accommodation and person-centred jobs programmes for care leavers aged 16–25 to help them build relationships, develop essential life skills and transition into independent living. He also co-founded the Care Leaver Offer comparison website, and serves as a trustee of NYAS (National Youth Advocacy Service).

Terry leads a national campaign to have care experience recognised as a protected characteristic under law, aiming to reduce discrimination and ensure policy makers account for the needs of care-experienced individuals. The campaign aligns with recommendations from the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care (IRCSC), which endorsed making care experience a protected characteristic under the Equality Act.

With national legislative change not yet achieved, the campaign has successfully persuaded over 120 local councils to adopt motions to treat care experience “as if it were a protected characteristic” in their own policy framework. These motions typically commit councils to: consider care experience in equality impact assessments; involve care-experienced people in policy development; extend corporate parenting principles; and encourage wider bodies to adopt similar commitments.

Together, Terry Galloway’s lived experience, service delivery, and policy advocacy have driven tangible change in how care-experienced people are recognised and supported across the UK.