Councils receive help to improve care leaver support
Neil Puffett
Monday, September 2, 2013
Innovative ways to support vulnerable young people leaving care are to be trialled as part of a government-funded project.
Through the New Belongings project, run by the Care Leavers Foundation, nine local authorities in England will receive expert help to develop better support for care leavers.
The project has received £100,000 in funding from the Department for Education over the next 12 months.
Teams of experts as well as care leavers will work with the councils to improve the support they provide.
Janet Rich, a trustee of the Care Leavers’ Foundation, said the nature of support will vary from area to area, depending on what the local issues are and which agencies get involved.
She said an example could be a local chamber of commerce working to inform potential employees of why there are gaps on a care leaver’s CV.
“Care leavers have already had a difficult start in life, and independence at an early age can be incredibly difficult,” she said.
“If we are serious about these vulnerable individuals getting the start in life they deserve, we need to see a real shift in terms of support.
“This project will work intensively with a small number of local authorities, to set the bar high on how we help care leavers become independent, successful adults".
The nine areas that have signed up are Sheffield, Portsmouth, Herefordshire, Staffordshire, Walsall, Stockport, Cheshire, Wirral and Trafford.
Children’s minister Edward Timpson said: “I regularly meet with a group of care leavers and they have helped me learn a great deal about the real difficulties that care leavers face as they make their way in the adult world.
“Some of these difficulties are rooted in early traumatic events before they entered care, others arise from the unintended consequences of policies that don’t join up, or from the inconsistent application of policies across the country".
Timpson added: “What has been most striking about this group is that they don’t come to me to complain; they come to share their experiences and propose solutions.
“They were behind the concept of the ‘New Belongings’ project, which we are delighted to fund.
“Critical to the delivery of the project’s outcomes will be the central role care leavers play in delivering the project in the participating authorities.”
