Funding Focus: Care Leavers Programme

There are 47 accredited community foundations in the UK, independently committed to the places they serve. Each one has a deep understanding of their local communities and a commitment to improving places for everyone to live, work and thrive in.

What is the fund?

The Care Leavers Programme – which organisers say is the first scheme of its kind for care leavers – aims to empower 18- to 25-year-olds to leave care and enter adulthood independently.

The programme aims to give more and better life chances to a broad pool of young people leaving care who need extra support at the transition into independence. The programme will be implemented by community foundations working closely with their local authorities, which organisers say will ensure decisions are put in the hands of those who best know their communities.

How much is available?

Accredited community foundations are being invited to bid for up to £50,000 each per year, provided by CCLA Investment Management. Successful community foundations will then match the amount in a £1 for £1 proportion. This will double the pool available for grants up to £1m per year over three years, bringing the total financial package on offer to £3m.

What will it fund?

The transition to full adulthood is challenging for most young people and even harder for many care leavers – some of the support they receive ends at the age of 18, often having a detrimental effect on their adult development.

Their prospects can be improved radically by offering a specific package of help, benefitting not just the care leavers themselves but the wider community too.

Funding will be used to invest in a range of services and support for young people including educational and training bursaries; financial education support, including travel; the purchase of furniture and white goods; driving lessons; general arts excursions; health and wellbeing provision.

Who is running it?

The programme is being led and managed by UK Community Foundations (UKCF), the national membership organisation for accredited community foundations.

UKCF is a network that brings together people and organisations that want to improve their communities across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Funding is being offered by the UK’s biggest charities’ asset manager CCLA Investment Management, which has a long track record in ethical investment. Founded in 1958, CCLA is independently owned by its clients in churches, charities and local authorities and staff with £13.5bn of assets under management.

Are there any deadlines?

Details have yet to be released on the timescales involved.

What’s been said?

The programme was announced at the National Children and Adult Services Conference in Bournemouth in late 2023. Richard Kemp, deputy lord mayor of Liverpool and chair of LAMIT (representing local authority investors in CCLA), said: “This innovative scheme will allow young people to get the extra support they would ordinarily get from a kindly grandma and grandpa, helping them out with the things they need as they leave home and set out towards independence. This programme acts as a helping hand along the way.”

Shaun Davies, chair of the Local Government Association, said: “More than 11,000 young people become care leavers each year, and while councils provide a wide range of support, the more that our communities can wrap around our young people and help them as they move into adulthood, the more opportunities they will have to thrive.”

• More from: comms@ukcommunityfoundations.org

Funding roundup

Youth charity the Jon Egging Trust has renewed its partnership with Northrop Grumman for a 10th year. The defence sector manufacturer has committed to part fund the delivery of trust’s STEM-inspired youth support programmes across several areas including Hampshire, Lincolnshire, Wiltshire, Oxfordshire, East Anglia, West Midlands and the South West.

Some 22 charities in England are to receive a share of £2.25m from the Blue Influencers Scheme, run by the Ernest Cook Trust, with each awarded £20,000 a year for three years to help improve the environment in coastal, estuary and riverside locations. The grant will be used by each charity to help pay for the employment of a Blue Mentor whose role is to recruit young people aged 10-14 to become Blue Influencers who will create and run social action schemes to improve the environment for the benefit of their schools and communities.

North of Tyne Combined Authority has awarded £187,000 to The Children’s Foundation to fund 750 essential Baby Boxes for first-time parents across the North East. Each box is packed with stimulating toys and books as well as essential items such as a blanket, changing mat, bath towel and thermometer.

More than 200 youth workers are to be trained to help young people in Cumbria thanks to a £445,270 National Lottery grant. The youth workers will be trained over the next five years as part of the Better Tomorrows programme, managed by Cumbria Community Foundation. In its first two years, 54 people from across the county have accessed the accredited training, which is delivered by Cumbria Youth Alliance.