Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to improve support for care leavers in Stoke-on-Trent South constituency.

The government recognises that care leavers have some of the worst outcomes in society and is committed to ensuring that children leaving care have stable homes, access to health services, support to build lifelong loving relationships and are engaged in education, employment and training (EET).

To address the challenges care leavers face, the department has established a care leaver Ministerial Board, chaired by my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education and my right hon. Friend, the Deputy Prime Minister, which brings together Ministers from key departments to improve support for care leavers across government. We have also introduced the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, to drive forward our commitments on children’s social care, including placing new duties on local authorities to provide ‘Staying Close’ support to care leavers up to the age of 25, where their welfare requires it, and requiring each local authority to publish information about the arrangements it has in place to support care leavers in their transition to adulthood and independent living.

To support care leavers to engage in EET, those who start an apprenticeship are entitled to a £3,000 bursary. Further, local authorities must provide a £2,000 bursary for care leavers who go to university, and care leavers are a priority group for the 16 to 19 bursary if they are studying in further education.

To help care leavers secure and maintain safe and affordable housing, the department is funding local authorities to support care leavers who wish to stay living with their foster families up to the age of 21, and have increased support for young people leaving residential care, with move-on accommodation and ongoing support from a keyworker provided through the ‘Staying Close’ programme.

The department knows that a stable support network and loving relationships are crucial to supporting care leavers to thrive. We are funding family finding, befriending and mentoring programmes across 45 local authority areas, including Stoke-on-Trent, to help care leavers to identify and reconnect with important people in their lives and create safe, stable, loving relationships.

To enable better access to mental health services, the department committed to recruit 8,500 new mental health staff and we are also updating the statutory guidance on promoting the health and wellbeing of children in care and care leavers.