Investment needed for “all stages" in care journey, says children's minister Vicky Ford

Speaking to The Yorkshire Post from her office in Westminster, Vicky Ford, the Children and Families Minister, said the Government was committed to creating more opportunities for care leavers ahead of the delayed independent care review.

Mrs Ford, who took up post in the February 2020 cabinet reshuffle, told The Yorkshire Post: “First of all thank you for bringing this to the attention of the people of Yorkshire.

“Care leavers are an extremely vulnerable group of young people who face exceptional challenges as they start out on their journey to independence, because they don’t have the same family to fall back on - that other young people do and that can be really tough.

“They are most certainly not forgotten by the Children’s Minister, and they are a group that I have been particularly focused on ever since my first weeks in this job.”

She added: “It is extraordinarily difficult for children in care and care leavers. And this is why we must lead from the front to show that actually the opportunities are there and we need to make those opportunities for young people because we have responsibilities for these children.

“I believe the Government needs to lead by example on this - these are our children we need to feel together we have a responsibility.

“Right now in the pandemic I want to make sure that we continue to support care leavers at this extraordinarily difficult time and that we put them at the front of the queue for support because we know how vulnerable they can be.”

Despite improvements made by the Government in recent years, for children who have been in care and those in care now, as opposed to those you left care three, four or five years ago, Mrs Ford, who confirmed the next meeting of the cross government care leavers board will take place “in the next couple of weeks,” said the care review was needed to improve the current system.

She said: “Yes we need to look at the whole care system…

“Through the care review the experience of care leavers will be really important in helping shape that review.

“Yes we need to make sure that there is that investment around the care leavers at all stages in the journey and another thing is to unlock employment opportunities for care leavers.”

Mrs Ford also stressed the need for more higher education and business leaders to sign up to The Care Leaver Covenant, founded in 2016 and funded through the Department of Education, a promise made by private, public or voluntary organisations to provide support for care leavers aged 16-25 to help them to live independently.

Currently 240 organisations have signed a statement of intent, with 60 institutes, including the Go Higher West Yorkshire (GHWY) regional partnership of higher education (HE) providers which comprises six colleges (all with HE provision) – Bradford, Calderdale, Kirklees, Leeds College of Building, Leeds City, and Wakefield – and six universities – Bradford, Huddersfield, Leeds, Leeds Arts, Leeds Beckett and Leeds Trinity.

Across the region other institutes signed up include the University of York, the University of Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam University.

Mrs Ford said:“I would like to see more of them sign up - all government departments have signed up - so why not all universities?

“I do think it’s important for care leavers to be able to look at offers of support - and be able to compare and understand them when they are looking at which universities to apply to.

“I think it’s important that different universities might support care leavers in different ways. Every care leaver is individual and will be looking for different types of support.”

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