In a follow-up to our April blog post on the widespread adoption of care experience as a legally protected characteristic by local councils and other institutions across the public and private sectors, ClouDoc’s August blog post delves deeper into the recommendations made by advocacy groups like the Office for Students and the Care Leaver Covenant to improve the equality of opportunities for care-experienced individuals. We explore the ways in which time spent in the care system can hobble the future prospects of talented and hardworking young people, but also the broad improvements slowly but surely making their way into our educational and other institutions, and how advocacy and visibility can continue to reduce the influence of these inequalities.

Though we touched briefly on the lack of educational support for young people in care in our earlier blog post, the magnitude of inequality in educational outcomes is truly disturbing. Less than one in five (14%) care-experienced children gained at least 5 A*-C grades in their GCSEs in 2016, compared to almost three in five (58%) children not in care. This massive disparity speaks volumes to the lack of stability and support experienced by children in the care system. Poor attainment at this crucial stage of a young person’s education means pupils are unable to develop further in subjects and skills meaningful to them, and at a stroke, excludes young people from entering a vast proportion of the high-skilled (and more highly-paid) workforce. Existing data has demonstrated that care-experienced individuals who do attend university are at least as successful in their careers and other measurable outcomes after they graduate, and that a majority of care-experienced students view university study as a transformative and stabilising experience.

But what is being done to support care leavers into higher education and training as they attempt to leave a turbulent past behind? Many colleges and universities have begun to make adjusted offers and entry requirements for those in care in order to recognise the potential of passionate and capable young people who have experienced disruptions and unequal opportunities in their education thus far. In addition, in recent years a greater number of specialist support staff in universities and other institutions has served to make care leavers more aware of their rights and entitlements, as well as providing support and advice around housing and accommodation, accessing mental health support and additional pastoral resources, and applying for bursaries and other financial aid from the local authority.

Since higher education can be such a strong stabilising force for care-experienced young people, it is crucial that they are supported to reach their full potential in this setting, but forming support groups can prove challenging. Not only do care-experienced students make up less than 1% of the national student body, but care leavers are also a group with complex and greatly differing needs and experiences. For example, care leavers are more likely to be disabled, non-UK nationals, and part-time students than the general student body. Change is also being hobbled by underpowered data collection on the subject, with numbers for care leavers only including those who were in care on or after their 16th birthday, and few provisions from within institutions are equipped to identify and support students with pre-16 care experience.

The recognition from within the education system itself that attainment and talent are not necessarily one and the same is key to improving outcomes for care-experienced people. Even young people with a true passion for a given subject are often prevented from reaping the rewards of their hard work by the emphasis on their grades received at GCSE or A-Level, owing to the lack of a stable home environment in which to study, unequal access to private tutelage, and the manifold psychological, emotional and behavioural issues which are more prevalent in those in care.

According to a report by Barnardo’s, the children and young people’s charity, 72% of young people leaving residential care and 45% of care leavers overall suffer from a mental health disorder, compared to just 10% of the general UK population in this age bracket. Furthermore, looked-after children and care leavers are between four and five times more likely to attempt suicide in adulthood. Care leavers are also significantly overrepresented in the prison population, with 25% of prisoners having spent time in the care system and 16% of that group having been placed more than six different times.

What this makes clear is that the effects of time spent in care do not only extend to the brink of adulthood; and so care-experienced individuals should not be cut off from support as soon as they turn 18 if local authorities and institutions want to contribute to meaningful change. Many benefits, bursaries and programmes now extend to cover people up to the age of 25, but even this means that mature students with care experience are unable to benefit from many of the resources built to assist them in higher education. Individuals with disrupted or unstable home lives during their primary and secondary educations may benefit from additional assistance, financial and pastoral, to enable them to utilise their time spent studying at university effectively.

The Care Leaver Covenant, established in 2016 following the recommendations of the Government’s ‘Keep on Caring’ policy document, is a national programme designed to increase the awareness and sensitivity of public-sector employers to the issues faced by care-experienced individuals, and to connect care leavers with crucial resources for further educational and vocational development. The programme’s website also maintains a repository of job vacancies, skills programmes and vocational placements, and retail discounts from the CLC’s partners.

Other organisations, such as the Drive Forward Foundation, aim to offer similar assistance to support care leavers into education and employment, with employability support and skills programmes in addition to programmes to encourage young people still in care to envision and pursue their full ambitions and potential. Drive Forward Foundation also engages in political campaigning and advocacy, working to pressure MPs, councillors and other members of Government to increase visibility and address the issues of care leavers nationwide. In recent years, young people’s charities like Barnardo’s have also strongly emphasised their work with care leavers and those in care when campaigning, aiming to increase public awareness and spur additional support for the issues they face.

Despite the obvious importance of allocating additional resources of all kinds to pursue greater equity in care leaver achievement, the highest recommendation of both the Care Leaver Covenant and the Office for Students’ analysis is to increase understanding, awareness, and visibility for the issues faced by care leavers. By providing contextual training, working to destigmatise the often difficult conversations needed to connect individuals to the resources they need, and ensuring student services and HR departments are backed up by specialist staff able to work between departments and alongside care leavers to deliver holistic and targeted support, institutions can improve equality not just in quantifiable outcomes like exam marks and final grades, but also in the stability and sustainability of care leavers’ home lives, mental health, and emotional wellbeing.

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