Spotlight on Poverty: Care Leavers and Care Experienced People

As part of BASW UK's campaign against poverty, each fortnight we will be focusing on a different part of social work practice and the impact of poverty.

Care Leavers and Care Experienced People

Once young people leave the care system at 18 there are a range of legal responsibilities in place to support these young people into full independence. More recently the term ‘care experienced’ has come into use. This term has been used to describe recent care leavers, children and young people in care as well as people who may be much older but who were once in the care system. For this reason, BASW's briefing refers to ‘care leavers’ in describing those who have recently left care and from whom there are still specific legal duties in place.

The role of Social Workers

Social workers have a range of legal responsibilities in relation to children and young people who are in care, or ‘looked after’. Differing legislation is in place in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales to cover these responsibilities. 

Social workers work under this legislation by adhering to roles and responsibilities stipulated under law to provide resources and support to children pre and post going into care. This applies to courts, within education, medicine, and at home.

Care-leavers are now entitled to leaving care support up until the age of 25. In some local authorities this is a ‘leaving care social worker’ or in others a support worker can fill this role. Social workers support care-leavers to achieve their potential across all areas of life and should use the Equality Act 2010 to act against any discrimination they may face.

Impact of Poverty

• At least one third of care-leavers are reported to experience homelessness within the first two years of leaving care. 25% of the homeless population are estimated to have been in care.
• Almost half of foster carers are reported to be considering quitting the profession due to the cost-of-living crisis. This risks more children going into unregulated accommodation.
• Care leavers are already hampered by a lack of social mobility and less likelihood of entering university (13% compared to 43% of the population) which risks becoming exasperated by the cost-of-living crisis.

Case Study from the Frontline

Andy is 23, a care leaver, and lives in a one-bedroom flat in West London that he shared with his former partner. They broke up recently and his partner has moved out. He works full-time as a Teaching Assistant in a school in another borough. He wants to train to be a teacher but doesn’t have the qualifications needed due difficult experiences he had in childhood that meant he missed a lot of school and didn’t go to University.

Andy’s landlord has increased his rent, and Andy is now struggling to afford to pay for rent as well as the increased cost of utilities and food. Andy also has to drive to work, and fuel costs have gone up.

Andy can’t find any other cheaper accommodation. Even if he could, he wouldn’t be able to afford the deposit on a new place before getting back his current deposit. His local authority will only help if the rent falls within the Local Housing Allowance rate – which most private accommodation does not.

Andy doesn’t have any family to rely on for support and feels unsupported and alone.

Calling for change

BASW UK regularly supports campaigns about the inadequacy of benefits, most recently about the uprating of benefits in line with inflation. We are pleased that the UK Government has confirmed that this will happen after some doubt, but there is still more to do.

We have launched a campaign calling for the UK Government to:

• Extend the debt breathing space scheme
• Scrap the two-child cap on benefits
• Freeze evictions during the cost-of-living crisis

We have used information from Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG), Barnardos, Crisis UK, Catch 22, Office for Student and the Welsh Government with citations listed in the spotlight: Care Leavers and Care Experienced People Factsheet.