Young people in the Fens have helped make a You Tube video about their experience of leaving care and starting out life on their own.

Seven young people aged 17 - 22 made the three minute film, all of whom had either recently left care or were about to.

The teenagers, from the Cambridge, Wisbech and St Ives areas, got involved in the part-animated production to tell the story of their hopes and fears for living independently.

Four of the seven had taken part in the first film project last year - My Name is Joe - which talks about what it feels like to live with foster carers.

Called Finding My Way, the package by Spellbound Animation is a result of collaboration between health professionals, councils and schools and received funding support from the National Lottery.

A Cambridgeshire County Council spokesman said: “Finding My Way is an animated documentary about the challenges and expectations of leaving local authority care.

“It was created by young care leavers in Cambridgeshire in August 2013 who met for an intensive 4-day animation summer school at Anglia Ruskin University.”

The film is online for other young people to get an idea of what to expect when leaving their care setting.

Feelings range from excitement to anxiety and include worries about how to pay bills and cook their own food.

It is also being used to help train carers and social workers.

Valerie Dunn, from the University of Cambridge department of psychiatry, said the films were made as a way of engaging young people to get their views across in a different and challenging way.

Trish Sheil, education officer for the Cambridgeshire Film Consortium which helped create the film, said they chose a part-animated style in order to record the true experiences of young people in a creative way.

Both films are part of a research collaboration between the University of Cambridge and the County Council.

This film has been funded by the National Institute for Health Research Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care (NIHR CLAHRC) for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough: a collaboration between the University of Cambridge and the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust in partnership with a wide range of Cambridgeshire and East Anglian Health and Service Providers.