Care Leavers
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department plans to publish an annual assessment of care leavers' experiences of education, training and employment destinations, housing status and criminal justice involvement.
Answered by Josh MacAlister
The department knows care leavers have some of the worst long-term life outcomes in society. We are determined to address this so that all care leavers have support to build enduring relationships and stable homes.
Through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act, we will roll out the Staying Close programme to support care leavers up to the age of 25; require each local authority to publish information about its arrangements for supporting care leavers’ transition to adulthood; change housing legislation so that care leavers cannot be found intentionally homeless; and introduce new corporate parenting responsibilities for government departments and relevant public bodies.
The government collects national data on care leavers through the Children Looked After in England including adoptions dataset. This is published annually, and provides information on accommodation, education, training and employment and is used to monitor outcomes and inform policy development and the targeting of support for children and young people leaving care nationally.
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