Extension to care leaver support

A legal duty to support care leavers until they reach 25 must be introduced if outcomes among the group are to improve, a coalition of charities has stated.

The Care Leavers Coalition has stated that 18 is too young for a young person to be without a parent and they are calling on the government to insert changes into the Children & Families Bill, which they say would help care leavers achieve higher academic standards and reduce the number who become unemployed.

The seven organisations want the bill to raise the cut-off age for support, including access to virtual school heads, for care leavers from 21 to 25. They also want legislation to allow children in foster care to remain with their foster carers until they are at least 21.

The coalition has laid out the proposals in a report, available at www.barnardos.org.uk/Still_Our_Children.pdf, which argues that corporate parenting provided by local authorities should not end at 18, just as no reasonable parent would leave their child to fend for themselves at 18.

Statistics published by the coalition suggest 23 percent of the adult prison population has spent time in care. Educational attainment is also lower, with just 12.8 percent of children achieving the minimum five good GCSE grades including maths and English in 2011, compared to 57.9 percent among other children.

The coalition includes Barnardo’s, the Care Leavers' Association, Catch22, the Fostering Network, Tact, Voice and the Who Cares? Trust.