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<p>The Care Leaver Strategy, published in October 2013, recognises that care leavers
require support on a wide range of issues that affect their lives. It sets out the
support that will be provided to all care leavers in relation to staying in education,
finding accommodation, accessing benefits, experiencing good physical and mental health
and finding work. [1]</p><p> </p><p>The Department for Education will publish shortly
a report on the progress we have made against the commitments set out in the strategy.
This builds on a significant programme of work to improve support for care leavers,
which has resulted in important changes such as the development of the Care Leaver
Charter and the introduction of Junior ISAs for all children in care.</p><p> </p><p>As
part of our continuing work to improve care leavers’ outcomes, the Department introduced
a new duty on local authorities to support ‘staying put’ arrangements and have provided
funding for local authorities to support this. For the first time, this will provide
for children in foster placements to receive support to remain with their foster family
until age 21, where this is what both parties want.</p><p> </p><p>Similar arrangements
do not currently apply to children in residential care. Further work is needed before
introducing a legal duty on local authorities that would require them to extend staying
put arrangements to all young people leaving residential care. We are consequently
working with the sector to better understand what would be involved and have supported
work through the Department’s Children’s Services Innovation Programme to identify
how staying put arrangements might work for children in residential care.</p><p> </p><p>We
will continue to drive innovation in provision for care leavers, for example through
funding projects like ‘New Belongings’, which has enabled 9 local authorities to develop
a range of new and innovative approaches to supporting care leavers.</p><p> </p><p>[1]
<a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/266484/Care_Leaver_Strategy.pdf"
target="_blank">www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/266484/Care_Leaver_Strategy.pdf</a></p>
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