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A brighter future for care leavers

Care leavers

Home / About Our Charity, Our Services & Fostering Agency / Our approach to care / Care leavers

What is a care leaver?

A care leaver is an adult who has spent time living in the care system, away from their family. This could with a foster family, in a children’s home or supported housing service, or under another arrangement as agreed by their social worker.

Young people usually leave care when they are 18 years old. They are provided with accommodation but often have no support to manage their tenancy, keep track of their bills, and stay in education and employment. At such a young age, it can be a challenge to juggle all these tasks without a safety net if things go wrong.

'There is no second chance. If you mess up you lose your flat. That’s quite scary and it’s not like for other young people who can go home to their families if it all goes a bit wrong or it feels like it’s a bit too much.'
Mhairi, young person

What support is available for care leavers?

According to the law, children’s services departments must offer help to all care leavers up to the age of 25, even if they are not in education. However, local authorities are only in touch with 88% of their care leavers, so some young people are not able to access the support they are entitled to.

Every care leaver is different, so there is no single service to suit all of their needs. This is why we offer different support and services for young people.

Statistically, care leavers achieve poorer outcomes than the general population:

46% of care leavers have some form of mental health issue compared to just 10% of their peers
41% of 19-year-old care leavers are not in education
Only 6% of care leavers go to university
25% of people who are homeless have been in care at some point in their lives
22% of female care leavers become teenage parents
More than 25% of the adult prison population have previously been in care

Staying Close

Staying Close is a way of supporting young people leaving residential care to aid their transition to independence. It was recommended by Sir Martin Narey’s review of residential care in 2016 as a way of improving outcomes for care leavers.

In 2017, we received funding from the Department for Education Innovation Programme to launch our own Staying Close pilot. Our project has been co-produced by children in care and care leavers so that it has been crafted by the real experts. We are delighted to now have our funding extended to be able to provide the service into 2025.

We believe the government, through the Department for Education and Ofsted, should provide clearer guidance on supporting young people to return to their former children’s home up to the age of 21. Our own experiences have shown us how this can be successful through positive risk management models in line with our safeguarding and social pedagogic values.

But we firmly believe there should be no age limit on supporting a young person to return to their former home – after all, children outside of the care system live at home into their twenties and thirties. So, as part of our organisational strategy we are supporting young people to return to St Christopher’s throughout their lives.

Staying Put

Staying Put enables young people to stay with their foster carers past their 18th birthday. This gives them more time to prepare leaving care by learning the key skills they will need for living independently.

St Christopher’s is supporting The Fostering Network’s campaign to improve the use of Staying Put. We are calling on the government to introduce structured support and fostering fees for carers with Staying Put placements so that more young people can stay with their foster families for longer.

Aftercare

Our Aftercare service is available for all care leavers on the Isle of Man. The team of personal advisors are there to help young people with anything they need – from finding accommodation, arranging help from other agencies or just being someone to have a chat with about what’s going on their life. All of the staff can offer

Aftercare’s drop-in centre offers a place in the community for care leavers to take part in life skills sessions, education or cook meals and wash clothes. Two social workers specialising in care leaver support are also based in the building.

Support Into Employment

Our Support Into Employment scheme on the Isle of Man helps young people to gain valuable work experience and workplace skills. The team work closely with local businesses to identify the right opportunities for care leavers to ease them into the world of work at a pace that suits their needs.

This is part of our strategic aim for lifelong learning and thriving, which includes a commitment to having 5% of our workforce made up of work placements, apprentices and trainees by 2023.

Online resources

There are a number of charities who can provide advocacy and advice to care leavers:

Are you a young person in the care system? Read advice from our young people about different types of homes you can live in and where you can go for help.

Or watch the video below to hear our young people talk about how St Christopher’s supported them to move to independence.