The Government have announced a new strategy “to remove some of the practical barriers that care leavers face as they progress into adulthood.”
The main areas where care leavers will be provided with assistance include the following:
• Education
• Employment
• Financial support
• Health
• Housing
• Justice System
• On-going support
According to Edward Timpson, Children’s Minister Department for Education, around 10,000 young people leave care in England each year aged between 16-18 years old. Care leavers should expect the same level of care and support that other young people get from their parent.
Figures published by the Department for Education this year shows that:
• over 1,100 care leavers aged 16 or over are now living in independent accommodation without any formalised support
• 34% of care leavers aged 19 or over are not in education, employment or training
• just 6% of care leavers aged 19 or over went on to higher education.
Further information will be pursued by the government to ensure that sufficient data will be collected on care leavers aged 18, 20 and 21 in addition to age 19. This data will provide the Department with more information on how care leavers progress at different stages of their lives and how our policies are impacting on their lives.
The Government have stated they will continue to work through the Social Justice Cabinet Committee to review and agree how they can improve support provided to care leavers and will issue a further report in October 2014.
This new strategy is of particular significance as it relates directly to a case I worked on. I was instructed by a client who wished to discharge the care order in respect of her 16 year old daughter. After issuing the application, the client instructed that whilst she wished for the child to remain in her full-time care without any intervention from the Local Authority, she wished for her daughter to remain entitled to the Leaving Care provisions.
As the Care Order was discharged, the child was only entitled to a personal advisor and was not provided with financial assistance beyond travel costs to and from college. The child sought her own college placement without any assistance from the Local Authority. With this new initiative, it is hoped that clients and children in similar situations may be afforded the support they would otherwise get if the young person lived with their parent.
Oluwatomisin Ogundele is a child care caseworker in the childcare department of Duncan Lewis Solicitors.