The Department for Education, Department for Business, Innovation & Skills, Department for Communities and Local Government, Department for Work & Pensions, Department of Health, Home Office and Ministry of Justice, have collaborated to offer young people leaving care, support. Today, they have published details of this scheme.
Support for care leavers will be given for issues surrounding housing, health and education, to ease the transition into living independently, once they have left care.
The press release tells us, amongst other things that:
- over 1,100 care leavers aged 16 or over are now living in independent accommodation without any formalised support
- 34% of care leavers aged 19 or over are not in education, employment or training
- just 6% of care leavers aged 19 or over went on to higher education
This initiative follows the Care Leaver’s Charter, launched last year, and makes up a series of reforms aimed at helping young care leavers ease into adulthood with the support they need.
The document runs to 25 pages, and tells us that around 10,000 young people leave care in England each year aged between 16-18 years old, and that the support available for these young adults is currently patchy and in need of improvement. The document is highly aspirational, and aims to offer care leavers with information and opportunities to settle into new accommodation, gain skills, be informed of their rights and seek successful employment.
There are a lot of interesting thoughts and ideas in this document, from mentor schemes to data collection – well worth a read. And, we hope, able to be implemented.
