-
Young people can search the website's database to see what benefits, services and policies are offered in their area
-
The site is highlighting good practice by councils and encouraging others to improve policies and provision to keep pace
ACTION
A comparison website set up specifically for care leavers is helping thousands of young people to understand the level of support on offer to them from local authorities.
Founded by Terry Galloway, himself a care-experienced person, the Care Leaver Local Offer site is the first of its kind to provide such a comprehensive search engine for care leavers.
Within the first few months of its launch last year, the website was shortlisted for the CYP Now Awards Leaving Care category.
For this year's awards, Galloway has been placed on the shortlist for the Children and Young People's Champion in recognition of his work in developing the website.
Information from each council in England outlining their individual offer for care leavers has been loaded onto the site allowing users to search by authority, including district councils, and by region.
It was built for free by focusgov, a Bristol-based digital agency that works with local authorities to improve communication with families, parents, children and young people.
The long-term aim is to encourage more councils to improve their care leaver offer by allowing users to compare and contrast the support provided by other local authorities.
“Its ultimate objective is to bring about systemic change in the care system and as such it's part of a much wider mission,” explains Galloway, who is currently working on plans with focusgov to develop the site further.
“However, in the short term it was very much needed because there wasn’t anything comparable to the site before it was launched.”
By allowing local authorities to publish details of their care leaver offer, it has also given other councils the chance to be proactive when reflecting on their own level of support, he adds.
“A key part of the website is the resources section which contains policies, operational manuals and procedures,” he says.
“This means if a local authority sees something that another is doing they can collect all the evidence and use it to bring about change in their own area.”
A particular format is used to list each local authority's care leaver offer using a tick box feature to indicate certain criteria.
These include whether it is in accordance with section two of the Children and Social Work Act 2017, whether it can be viewed online or downloaded as a document or accessed via an app.
It also indicates whether care leavers in that area have been involved in co-producing the offer.
This is followed by contact details for the person responsible for the local offer as well as for the director of children's services in each council.
More information listed details whether councils exempt care leavers aged up to 25 from paying council tax, if they are a priority group for housing support and what, if any, independent living flats are available to help their transition out of the care system.
Other sections cover care leavers’ participation in society and whether support is provided for ensuring they have documents such as a passport, birth certificate and driving licence or subsidised access to leisure facilities.
A section on employment and apprenticeships lists whether councils offer work experience or will pay for work-related costs such as travel and clothing.
Details are also included about each area's corporate parenting and children in care council arrangements, mentor schemes and what is done to mark special occasions such as birthdays.
Each listing also contains data on the number of children in care, care leavers and proportion of care-experienced young people not in education, employment or training over a 10-year period.
Galloway explains there was a clear reasoning behind listing information for each council in such a detailed way.
“Historically, what was happening is that a care leaver would be referred back to their own local authority where they would get haphazard, inconsistent advice about what they were and – were not – entitled to,” he says.
“That's not because local authorities were necessarily at fault, but it's quite hard for social workers and personal advisers to keep up with their entitlements.”
For those care leavers that have moved to different areas, Galloway says a crucial aim is to ensure local offers apply to each young person irrespective of where they originally came from.
“We need more joined-up thinking to tackle the downward social mobilisation that care leavers face in addition to those barriers they already face because they have been in care,” he adds.
“Those that have moved to a neighbouring local authority or further away are being told on leaving care that they are not entitled to the same support as other care leavers where they now live.”
Some care leavers have already been using the website as evidence to “champion” change in their area, he adds, but for others additional support is being planned.
“We’re going to create working and advisory groups for care leavers that can offer advocacy and support, this will help those care leavers that want to champion particular causes,” Galloway says.
“We’re running a campaign for local authorities to adopt care experienced as a protected characteristic and we’re actively seeking care leavers in each council to take up this cause.”
IMPACT
Anecdotally, Galloway says he believes the website has already made a difference earning its place as a vital resource among care leaver networks.
“People constantly tell me how they used the site to get their local authority to do more for care leavers in their area.
“That's why it's such a good tool for local authority officers to use to persuade their managers to bring about change,” he says.
Recent campaigning in Nottinghamshire, where Galloway is based, has seen the first joint local offer adopted by both lower and upper tier councils.
This has meant a uniform policy for issues such as council tax exemption, free leisure up to the age of 25 and housing rights.
“The policy words were changed to say ‘a care leaver’ of a local authority rather than ‘this’ local authority which has meant care leavers from both the city and the county can access those services.
“As a result of the campaign, Nottingham has really led the way,” says Galloway.
Similar campaigning in the neighbouring county of Derbyshire should see more groups of councils streamline elements of their offer to care leavers, he adds.
Plans are also under way with the site's developers to introduce a tool that will allow users to search not just by local authority but by type of support. By selecting a type of support, the site will automatically list each council that provides this, explains Galloway.
“So, if you keep clicking on measures, you’ll eventually end up with a list of the top-performing local authorities. It could mean those councils looking at the list will try to make sure they are not at the bottom,” he adds.
