Programme launches to distribute £3.6mn to support care leavers

The money is being distributed by 17 community foundations, which are charity run groups that coordinate grants and investments locally.

Each is working with their region’s local authorities to hand out the funding, which has been raised by council investment group Local Authorities’ Mutual Investment Trust (LAMIT), with match funding from the community foundations involved.

• Scandal over advert reveals care leavers’ acute housing challenges

• Legal Update: Care – A protected characteristic?

Projects that tackle homelessness, unemployment, and a lack of long-term support for those leaving care will be among those funded through the programme.

This includes a project in the West Midlands involving the region’s Heart of England Community Foundation and a raft of councils including Birmingham as well as district councils in Warwickshire and Worcestershire. This will offer support to care leavers in “difficult situations”, including homelessness.

In Cornwall, 200 care leavers across the region will be provided with “long-term and consistent” support by local charities and community groups. Cornwall Community Foundation and Cornwall Council are involved in distributing this area’s funding.

Elsewhere, in Essex the region’s county council and community foundation will target parent care leavers, separated migrant young people and those in the criminal justice system. All have been highlighted as groups in the county in need of further help.

“Inequalities for care leavers differ from region to region, and it is key that we harness the knowledge of local organisations to not just fund fantastic projects for young people leaving the care system, but to nurture those relationships and keep the momentum going to make real change happen,” said Rosemary Macdonald, chief executive  UK Community Foundations.

“We hope to use this programme as a way of uniting communities and authorities, to explore local solutions to local issues and use the learning to influence wider support for care leavers.”

Liverpool deputy mayor and chair of LAMIT Richard Kemp added: “Our care system is creaking at the seams, despite the best endeavours of dedicated professionals such as social workers and probation officers.

“We need to find innovative approaches for all young people who have left care, in which society can wrap its arm around them in the same way that we as parents and grandparents wrap our arms around the young people in our own family.”

Berkshire, Cambridgeshire, Cumbria, Hampshire, Herefordshire, Kent, Merseyside, London, Norfolk, Somerset, South Yorkshire, Staffordshire, Surrey and Wiltshire are the other areas involved.