Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps is the Government taking to ensure that young people in children's homes have the option of receiving support until the age of 21, as children in foster care currently do.

All care leavers receive support from a personal adviser until age 21; this extends to age 25 if a care leaver remains engaged in education or training. All care leavers also receive a leaving care grant to help with the costs of setting up home; and those attending further and higher education receive financial support to meet the costs associated with engaging in education in the form of further education and higher education bursaries. Each care leaver has a pathway plan setting out the support they will receive from the local authority in order to meet their goals.

The department recognises that the transition into adulthood can often be difficult for care leavers because they may not receive the same level of support as young people who live with their families. This is what prompted us to introduce the ‘staying put’ duty in 2014, which requires local authorities to support young people to continue living with their former foster carers up to age 21, if both they and their foster carer are happy with this arrangement.

Our statutory guidance makes clear that local authorities should have a range of semi-independent and independent accommodation options for all those leaving care. The government is also looking at what more can be done to improve support for care leavers, building on the first ever cross-government care leaver strategy which was introduced in October 2013, with the aim of giving all care leavers, whatever their care experience, a good start to adulthood.