Why we should be empowering the young people in our care.

Care Day is the world’s biggest celebration of children and young people who are in or have experienced the care system. Affinity love celebrating every year, but this year the theme was based around reimagining how we can support care experienced people so they can flourish once they leave the care process.

In England and Wales, the leaving care age is 18, although many young people decide to leave at 16. At 18 the local authority stops being a corporate parent and a young person’s care order ends. It’s a tough cliff edge if you consider that most young people aren’t expected to suddenly find independence at the age of 18. For many care leavers this can be a painful and difficult time, with no knowledge of who to turn to when things go wrong which can lead to feelings of loneliness.

People with care experiences are also more likely to be involved in the criminal justice system, experience poor mental health, and encounter homelessness. When a person hasn’t had that great a start in life, it seems only natural to want them to have improved opportunities as an adult. It’s a staggering and sad fact that a high proportion of care leavers aren’t in employment or training at the age of 19. While there are no statistics for the number of care leavers who attend university, it is known that they are likely to start far later than their peers. This one of the reasons why Affinity Fostering introduced our Independent Living Project for all the young people in our care aged 15 and over.

Affinity Fostering work alongside the young people in our care to try to provide them with the skills and knowledge they need to carve out a life and a future once they leave the care system. Empowering them with an understanding of their rights and simple skills such as being able to manage their money are just some of the ways that we help our young people prepare for adulthood. Our Independent Living Project enables the young people who are approaching the end of their care experience to have 121 sessions with their support worker where they discuss and learn about everything from cooking on a budget to how to prepare for a job interview. We believe that these sessions provide them with valuable stepping stones towards a flourishing adulthood.

On Care Day we invited Become, the charity for children in care and young care leavers, to come and train our young people about their rights and to discuss matters that they found important. Being aware of our entitlements and rights is important to all of us, but for young people with care experiences that awareness can mean the difference between success in the adult world and failure.

Become is an advocate for care leavers, providing them with the voice and the support that they deserve. Having an advocate on hand gives care leavers the extra confidence they need to flourish into the adults they deserve to be. As a foster care agency, we firmly believe in our mission statement “Affinity Fostering – Enhancing and Empowering Lives” and will strive to continue to provide our young people with the best possible chances in life.

You can find out more about Become and Care Day on their website.