We've committed to adopting a care-experienced young adult leavers covenant
Friday, 24 September 2021
Our councillors have passed a motion agreeing to investigate the creation of a covenant to support care leavers for whom we, as a whole, have responsibility.
The motion was passed at last night’s Full Council meeting (Thursday 23 September 2021).
In Central Bedfordshire there are around 280 care-experienced young adults, aged 16 to 24.
We want the very best for our care leavers, who are a uniquely vulnerable group and face specific challenges as they enter adult life. As their corporate parent, we want to work in a coordinated and effective way to give them the additional help they need.
The move from being a looked-after-child to a young person leaving care is a uniquely critical time in a young person’s life. We want to make sure that they have all the support available to them, that many of us take for granted.
Councillor Sue Clark, our Executive Member for Families, Education and Children said:
For young people who have grown up in the care system, leaving care and taking their first steps into adulthood can be a particularly challenging time, especially for some young people who will remain entirely dependent on us and look to us to fulfil that parent role.
As corporate parents to our care-experienced young adults, we have the same aspirations as we would for our own children and we will look to develop a covenant so that we can help them to achieve the very best in life by developing a package of support options that will go above and beyond our statutory duties.
We have a good offer to care leavers, which includes:
- specialist social workers, personal advisors and other targeted support to all care leavers up to 25 years of age
- suitable accommodation – many care leavers have their own council tenancy in Central Bedfordshire
- a payment of £2,000 setting up home allowance (leaving care grant) when moving into their permanent / settled accommodation
- bursaries to cover education costs
- paying Council Tax on their behalf, as part of their bespoke package of support based on assessed needs
We'll now engage with members, businesses and partners to strengthen and widen our existing, already good, provision to support our care leavers and help them into independence.