Young People to be Given the Chance to Stay on in Their Foster Families Beyond the Age of 18

Young people in the U.K. are to be given the chance to stay on in their foster families beyond the age of 18, thanks to a new £5 million Government pilot program. On the day Parliament starts debating the Children and Young Persons Bill in the House of Commons, Children’s Minister, Kevin Brennan, announced ten pilot areas for the Staying Put pilots. The Bill and the pilots are both part of the Government’s Care Matters reform program to improve the experiences and outcomes for children in care.

Each area will be given a share of almost £5 million for the Staying Put pilots, which will give children in care the chance to benefit from a stable family placement so that they only move to independent living when they feel properly prepared and ready. This will allow children in care to make the transition to adulthood in a more gradual way, just like other young people who rely on their families for this type of support.

Kevin Brennan, Parliamentary Undersecretary for Children said: “Children in care have told us that they want the same sort of stability that other children have - and some of them need help and support beyond the age of 18 in order to make the transition into adulthood.

“On average, young people don’t leave home until they are 24. Given the poor outcomes that children in care have historically had, it is important that these young people get the support they need to remain in employment, education or training. They shouldn’t have to cope on their own when they have to make big decisions about their future.”

Minister of State for Children Beverley Hughes said: “We want to make this country the best place in the world for children to grow up, which is why we published our Children’s Plan. It sets out what we will do over the next ten years to achieve this ambition, and to make this happen we need to focus on the needs of our most vulnerable children.

“There is still a significant gap between quality of life and future prospects of children in care and that of other children. Tackling this is going to involve everyone who works with children having the same ambitions for these children as for their own.”

The announcement also comes on the day the Government launched its Young Runaways Action Plan. Running away is particularly prevalent where a young person has been placed in care and has problems in the contact arrangements with family and friends. The Children and Young Persons Bill includes provisions to improve how children are matched to care placements, thereby ensuring that they get the support they need as soon as they are placed, so that it will be far less likely that they might run away.

The Staying Put Pilots will help develop a better understanding of the possible practical and financial barriers that could arise, where foster carers provide support to young adults from a care background. These could involve such issues as legal insurance and the tax status of these carers. During the piloting period we will develop and test practical solutions to these and other problems that emerge so that by the next spending review period a model will be in place that will enable as many young people as possible to benefit from remaining with their foster carers.

There will be an independent evaluation of the pilots, which will run from July 2008 to March 2011.

The chosen local authorities represent a geographic and demographic spread across England and will be able to provide valuable lessons that will be disseminated as good practice.

1. The successful authorities are: Bristol; Cheshire; Dorset; Lincolnshire; Merton; Northamptonshire; North Tyneside; North Yorkshire; Warwickshire and York.

The pilots are part of the Government’s Care Matters agenda that set out a number of key areas in which to help ease the transition from care to adult life. Alongside these pilots, the Government has already announced the £6 million Right2BCared4 pilots, which give young people up to the age of 18 a greater say over when they move to independence.

The Children and Young Persons Bill contains a range of provisions to support the transition from care to adult life. These include a £2,000 bursary for care leavers going into Higher Education and extending the right to a personal advisor and a pathway plan to all care leavers who start or resume education or training after the up to the age of 25.

Source:Department for Children, Schools and Families

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