Open Doors, Open Minds
Project aim:
Success in education is crucial to ensuring future life chances. Achievement at school, college and beyond improves a young person's chances of gaining meaningful employment and becoming financially independent. But the statistics show that far fewer young people from care go on to further and higher education than their peers, and for those who do there is a much higher drop-out rate.
This project aims to identify the reasons for this, to understand and raise awareness of the barriers faced by young people in care to continuing in education after the age of 16.
We will make practical recommendations for policy makers, for practitioners working with care leavers and for education providers about how these barriers can be reduced and access increased, and how to reduce the drop-out rate of care leavers. Alongside this we will publish a practical guide that will benefit young people from a care background going in to or thinking about accessing further or higher education.
Outline:
This project will consult with young people in and from care, as well as education professionals and providers, to gain a greater understanding of the complex barriers that can prevent these young people from pursuing or staying in post-16 education. How much of what needs to change is down to the young people, and how much to colleges and universities? Is the care system failing to aspire for these young people - and how do we encourage them to aspire for themselves?
Out of our consultation work we will develop resources to help support young people from care to continue and achieve in education. These resources will include a young person's guide to further and higher education with up-to-date information about the full range of support that is available to them. Recommendations for policy and practice change will also be disseminated widely.
The content and design of the guide will be overseen by a steering group of care experienced young people who are currently in further or higher education. The members have varying experiences of further and higher education: two are currently enrolled at college, one is in the middle of an apprenticeship and the other is about to start at university.
The recommendations for changes to policy and practice will be developed through a process of consultation with both young people in and from care and the professionals working with them. The consultation will be made up of an online survey, eight focus groups and follow-up telephone interviews.
Current progress:
We are now in the final stages of this project and have recently launched both the young person’s guide (Finding Your Way) and the policy and practice recommendations report.
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