October news and updates from the Care Leavers Programme

In September, our Care Leavers project team jumped at the opportunity to meet Mark Riddell at the offices of the Department for Education. The team was keen to discuss how we can raise the profile of the Shared Lives model with commissioners and other professionals.

At the Local Government Association Conference in Harrogate, Victoria and Rachel, were delighted to meet Janet Daby MP, Minister for Children and Families (see photo at top of page). They shared with her how Shared Lives can make a real difference for young people leaving care.

They also had the opportunity to chat to Fatima Whitbread – British sporting legend and campaigner for the rights of children growing up in care.

October 28 to November 3 is National Care Leavers’ Week (NCLW).

This year’s theme is ‘All of Us, We Are One,’ which underlines the importance of unity and community for care leavers. The week-long event celebrates the resilience of care-experienced young people, while highlighting the significant challenges they face, particularly their need for ongoing, stable support and housing.

Over 38,000 young people leave care in the UK each year, and worryingly, one in four care leavers will experience homelessness within two years. We are working with local authorities, the NHS, and voluntary sector partners to expand our care leavers programme across 25 local areas in England, Scotland, and Wales.

The programme is co-designed with young people, focusing on providing a stable and supportive home environment for care-experienced young people with learning disabilities, autism or mental health challenges.

Training and learning workshop with Shared Lives schemes – In September we ran our first training and learning session with Shared Lives schemes. It was a great opportunity to share best practices, challenges and barriers, key issues, key achievements, and resources we need for improvement specific to Shared Lives training and learning.

Transitioning working group – September also saw our first Transitioning working group session. The transition from childrens services to adult social care can be such a key part of Shared Lives, and we were delighted to have so many people attend from different local authorities to discuss what we need to do to improve transitioning from children’s services into Shared Lives.

Steering group – In early October we held our second steering group meeting where we discussed Ofsted regulations, eligibility and guidance, and also best practice in Shared Lives carer recruitment.

On Wednesday 2^nd October Victoria and Ewan attended the SASCI (Shaping Adult Social Care Innovation) event in London.

They were invited to speak, and the topic of our discussion was ‘How is research evidence used to support the process of innovation in adult social care and how can this be improved?’ Ewan spoke about the importance of stories, cost effectiveness and co-production. Victoria talked briefly about what my role is at the National leaving care benchmarking forum and how to use the voice of people with experienced of care to influence local authority decision making.

Where to find us

Our team will be at two National Leaving Care Benchmarking Forum events in November:  The YPBMF Care Leavers Celebration Event on the 6th and the Personal Advisor Celebration Event on the 7^th

Victoria will also be speaking at NCASC 2024 in Liverpool at the end of November.

What others working with care leavers are doing

Become (the charity for children in care and young care leavers) has launched a campaign to #EndTheCareCliff to make sure young people leaving care have suitable housing options and the right support in place every step of the way.