To mark this milestone, this series of extracts or summaries reflects on aspects of youth policy and youth work practice over the past 25 years as featured in the 100th issue.
The Making of Leaving Care Policy 1971-2008
During the last 30 years, many have struggled and campaigned, not least young people in care themselves, to highlight the problems faced by care leavers. The introduction of the Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000 represented a major step forward. However, significant challenges remain. The test of the Care Matters agenda will be if it leads to more comprehensive responses across the life course of all looked-after young people, including access to services wherever they are living.
These services should include early help to assist young people living at home; better quality care to compensate young people for their damaging pre-care experiences, through stability and continuity as well as assistance to overcome educational deficits; opportunities for more gradual transitions from care to adulthood more akin to normative transitions; and a range of ongoing support into adulthood for all those young people who need it, including specialist help for young people with mental health problems and complex needs.
It will also be important that this highly vulnerable group of young people do not become hidden within the universal Every Child Matters outcomes framework. Their journey to adulthood may well be more severe and hazardous than for many other young people, and may take longer, but they should be given all the help they need. A failure to assist them will be at an enormous cost, both to them and to society.
Mike Stein is at the University of York
- For more information on or to subscribe to Youth & Policy visit The National Youth Agency website at www.nya.org.uk, email sales@nya.org.uk or telephone: 0116 242 7427. Guidelines for contributors available on request.
