How to address the needs of looked after children/care leavers
Looked after children are chronically under-represented in higher education. So how can you help meet their needs?
OFFA guidance
Care leavers face cumulative and significant barriers to entering higher education including lower attainment, lack of positive role models, low expectations (from carers and advisers), low aspirations and a lack of confidence in the affordability of higher education. Only about one or two in a hundred actually continue into HE.
State support
The Government acknowledges the problems that looked after children face in accessing higher education. Under the Children and Young Persons Act 2008, local authorities must give a minimum one-off bursary of £2,000 to care leavers starting a recognised higher education course. This is in addition to anything else care leavers receive under the state support system of grants and loans.
What you can do
You too can play a role in helping care leavers to access higher education. We would encourage you to:
- adopt the Buttle UK Quality Mark for Care Leavers in Higher Education. To be awarded this quality mark, you must be able to show that you support students who have been in care, have appropriate admissions procedures for care leavers and are working with local young people in care to raise their aspirations. To date, more than 50 institutions have been awarded the quality mark. If you’re not one of them, we would strongly encourage you to find out more about the Quality Mark and its supporting report ‘By Degrees: Going to University from Care’
- consider how your access agreement meets the needs of care leavers. We recognise that your access agreement may already benefit care leavers by making financial support available to low income groups (a group that care leavers invariably belong to). However, we feel it is worth considering whether care leavers would benefit from specific outreach to raise their aspirations, additional financial or other support, and bespoke financial information about fees and support.
If you would like to change your access agreement to target care leavers in this way, please send your revised access agreement to accessagreements@offa.org.uk. We are happy to discuss any proposed amendments in advance if you would find this helpful.