National Care Leavers’ Week Monday, October 26, 2009 - 14:05

National Care Leavers' Week, 25 - 31 October 2009, highlights the many difficulties faced by young people who have been in care, like:

• young women aged 15 to 17 who have been in care are three times more likely to become teenage mothers than other women their age
• around 27% of adult prisoners have spent time in care compared to 2% of the general population
• black and mixed race children are over-represented among children in care (3% of children but 8% of children in care)
• there are around 3,500 unaccompanied asylum seeking children looked after by local authorities at any one time

NIACE has produced a free leaflet advising care leavers on their rights in education, training and employment. To order hard copies, call Emma Tierney on 0116 285 9704 or email emma.tierney@niace.org.uk. The leaflet is also available to download.

Carol Taylor, NIACE Director of Operations, said:

"Care Leavers Week gives us the opportunity to highlight the difficulties faced by young people who have been looked after by the state, some for all of their childhood. The briefest of looks at the stats tells a gloomy story - barely 13% get ‘good' GCSEs, and less than 6% get offered a place at University. It's the same story with Further Education, Apprenticeships and other education and training."

"NIACE is clear that we have a moral responsibility to enable these young people, who have had very bad experiences as children, to have excellent opportunities as adults, even if it means going the extra mile. This means, above all, joining up at a local level so that these young people are supported with their housing, benefits, childcare and other needs in order that they can access suitable opportunities, and achieve and progress."

"This needs all of us working in post 16 education to remember that these young people may need additional support or time. We also need to remember that these could easily be our children, if circumstances were just a bit different."