Care Leavers

(asked on 19th November 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans his Department has to (a) provide additional social care support for care leavers and (b) integrate the support his Department provides to care leavers with other Government support programmes for that group.


Answered by
Vicky Ford Portrait
Vicky Ford
This question was answered on 27th November 2020

The department is committed to improving the life chances of care leavers and it is taking action to improve the support they receive from children’s social care and across government.

Since 2014, local authorities have been required to support young people to remain with their former foster carers up to age 21, in a Staying Put arrangement. The department has provided over £140 million to local authorities to implement Staying Put, including £33 million this year.

We are piloting Staying Close in 8 local areas which provides an enhanced support package for those leaving residential care, including move-on accommodation and a package of practical and emotional support. We are committed to rolling out Staying Close nationally.

In 2018, we also extended support, from a Personal Adviser, to all care leavers to age 25.

Since 2018, we have funded 47 local authorities to fund specialist posts to provide intensive support to care leavers who are most at risk of homelessness and rough sleeping. To date, we have funded £6 million.

In 2018, we commissioned 3 Care Leavers Social Impact Bond programmes to support care leavers aged 16 to 25 secure sustainable education, employment and training.

We have established the Civil Service care leaver internship scheme, which provides paid internships for care leavers, and are looking to provide similar opportunities in other large public sector employers, such as the NHS, police and the fire service. We also launched the care leaver covenant for public, private and voluntary sectors to show their commitment to care leavers through providing concrete offers of support.

To support local authorities to improve their leaving care services, we appointed a national adviser for care leavers, Mark Riddell MBE, who recently published his second report on examples of best practice as well as innovative approaches that local authorities have used to support care leavers during COVID-19.

In October 2019, my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, announced the establishment of a new Care Leavers Ministerial Board, bringing together Ministers from across government to consider what more we can all do to help care leavers succeed to adulthood.

Alongside the Board, the department works closely across government on policies that impact on care leavers’ lives, for example, the Department for Work and Pension’s recent budget announcement that care leavers would be eligible for the higher rate of Housing Benefit to age 25.

Education support for Looked After Children is important to them succeeding in the longer term. Since 2014, Virtual School Heads have made a significant impact in bringing expert leadership to the system that has seen a reduction in permanent exclusions and absenteeism (now the same or better than all other children and significantly better than children in need). In 2018, Looked After Children had the same persistent absence rates as all children (10.9%), whilst permanent exclusion rates for them are now lower than all children (0.05% compared to 0.1%).

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