What's luck got to do with it?

One of the best reasons for accepting an invitation to make a presentation is that you will often share a platform with really interesting people who have their own story to tell. That was the case for me a couple of weeks ago when I took part in an event held at Cambridge University encouraging staff to think about why there are so few care-leavers in Higher Education – and especially at Oxbridge.

Two of the other speakers – Mohammad and Khatija – are currently studying at Cambridge; Mohammad doing medicine and Khatija in her second year of a History degree. And although they had similar things to say about what needs to change, their experiences of the care system had been very different.

Mohammad was open about how he had been supported and encouraged by a social worker who had gone that extra mile. But it really did seem that Khatija had had to do it all for herself, and that her remarkable achievements are against all the odds.

Her obvious strength and resilience simply took my breath away. Yet I couldn’t help feeling that it shouldn’t be like this. It shouldn’t be that young people like Mohammad get ‘lucky’ because they meet adults who can see their potential and are bothered about their futures.

And I was left thinking that challenging any ‘stigma’ surrounding being in care may be important (as the Demos report argued this week). But isn’t it more important that before we get bogged down in the old debates about who should or shouldn’t be in care - we make sure that all of the young people now growing up in the system get the best possible chance in life?