Care leavers

Some 60,000 children and young people are in the care of the local authorities in England at any one time. Each year about 7,500  aged sixteen or over leave care. For many of them this is a deeply worrying transition, and care leavers are a particularly vulnerable group of young people.

They are more likely to experience homelessness; they are over-represented in both rough sleeping and prison populations. They are more likely to be unemployed and less likely to have the qualifications that their peers have.

So not only do we work directly with young people leaving care, but we campaign to reduce the number of young care leavers who fall into the trap of homelessness. Through our response to the Care Leavers' White Paper and through launching our own policy briefings, we have worked with partner organisations to increase the age young people leave care to 18.

Until November 2008, Centrepoint ran a specialist service for young people with experience of being 'in care' in Worcestershire. It was called the ‘We Care’ Project. This supported young people to develop the confidence and skills to engage with practitioners and decision makers to influence the decisions which affect their lives. We used this particular project to inform our detailed understanding of the problems of care leavers, and about how best to respond in order in particular to prevent homelessness.