Although outcomes for many care leavers continue to lag behind those of the general population, momentum for improvement appears to be growing.
In July, children's minister Edward Timpson announced that two-thirds of councils have signed up to the government's care leavers' charter, which underpins the principles of good quality support for care leavers to smooth their transition to adulthood.
Now, under another project launched this month, nine local authorities in England will receive expert help to develop better support for care leavers and highlight best practice.
Although funded with only £100,000 of Department for Education cash, it is hoped that the New Belongings project, run by the Care Leavers Foundation, will raise the bar in terms of expectations councils set themselves for the support they provide.
Care leavers themselves will be central to the New Belongings project. Alongside teams of experts, they will work with the councils to improve the support they provide.
"Care leavers are experts from experience," says Regan Metcalfe, a care leaver who will be advising councils as part of the project.
"Many of the young people involved with this have come through adversity and are using their experiences subjectively to influence a brighter, better future for all care leavers."
The hope is that the best ideas from the project will be shared to help change the experience for the better of young adults growing up after care.
The nine areas that have signed up are Sheffield, Portsmouth, Herefordshire, Staffordshire, Walsall, Stockport, Cheshire East, Wirral and Trafford.
Here, CYP Now looks at initiatives under way in two areas.
Stockport
Stockport Council already has a track record of innovative work. InSight, a charity commissioned by the authority, works with care leavers or young people about to leave the care system.
Established in January, it runs two projects: Cafe Zest, where care leavers can access information and advice from a range of drop-in experts in an informal setting; and a peer-led parenting support programme in which care-experienced parents support young parents who are leaving care themselves.
"Authorities already run parent groups, but when you have come out of care and you are a parent, you can feel isolated within these groups because you don't have the same experiences as others in them," says Sarah Sturmey, founder of InSight. "They can also be very frightened of accessing statutory provision because they are terrified of having their children taken away from them."
The aim of the work is to slowly integrate young care leaver parents into existing statutory provision such as children's centres to receive the support they require.
Both projects were set up on small budgets - the cafe has a budget of £1,680, and the parenting support programme's annual cost of £1,500 is funded by the Rotary Club.
Under the New Belongings initiative, InSight has also launched a mentoring project. Volunteer mentors from the local community, including a number of care leavers, will receive intensive training to mentor young people who have just left, or are about to leave care.
Cheshire East
Cheshire East Council is at a less advanced stage than Stockport. But Rachel Bailey, lead member for children and families, says the authority is keen to use the project as a way of boosting aspiration and the numbers continuing in education, attending university or starting apprenticeships. This will include trying to help them access flexible opportunities.
"We recognise that full-time apprenticeship schemes are not always doable for care leavers because they sometimes become parents quite young or they may have left education and be in the process of trying to catch up," she says.
It will also focus on providing better information on the support available to care leavers, both in terms of pursuing education or training opportunities, and at a more general level in light of changes to the benefits system.
"We really need to look at how to better enable our care leavers to be independent and ensure that the financial implications of change that happens in systems at any time are taken into account," Bailey says.
"Our advice to care leavers needs to be fit for purpose to give them choice, and to protect them at the same time."
"We need to be cognisant of changes in the benefit system and the impact on care leavers - we should be ahead of the game on these changes."
Care leaver statistics
- 10,000 young people left care in 2012. Around 20 per cent of them were under the age of 18
- A quarter of young women leaving care are pregnant or already mothers and nearly half become mothers by the age of 24
- One-third of young care leavers are not in education, employment or training, compared with 13 per cent of all young people
- Only 13.2 per cent of children in care obtain five good GCSEs, compared with 58 per cent of all children
- Only six per cent of care leavers go to university, compared with 38 per cent of all young people
Source: Department for Education
