There are approximately 99,000 children in care in the UK and over 10,000 young people leave the care system every year.
It is estimated that only 12 per cent of care leavers go to university and that half of those consider quitting due to a mix of health problems, money worries, high workloads and personal and family issues and at Southampton, in Widening Participation and Social Mobility (WPSM), we are working hard to change this narrative.
Monday 25 October marks the start of National Care Leavers’ Week 2021, a week that brings awareness to this group of students, highlighting some of the challenges that they face, and celebrating their successes.
Empathise and empower
The Care Leaver Covenant was launched in October 2018 and was established to improve the support for young people in or leaving care. The Covenant provides opportunities not just for local authorities, but also those in the public, private and third sector, to offer their services and expertise to help ensure care leavers’ needs are met through finance, education, employment, and training.
For National Care Leavers’ Week this year, the Care Leaver Covenant theme is Empathise and Empower. In WPSM, we have been working on empowering care-experienced young people through our new Year 11 access project, Ignite Your Journey.
Ignite Your Journey aims to build students’ confidence in thinking about their future, having the resources to explore their options, and developing key skills to aid the transition to further education and beyond.
Participants in the programme are undertaking a six-week project to create a tonoscope – a device that allows you to visualise sound vibrations.
The Year 11 students have been challenged to create their own tonoscopes by Rhiannon Hawkins, a current PhD student in Engineering and Physical Sciences. They will use a speaker at home, which will allow them to make sound waves visible by creating patterns on objects at various tones.
Throughout the project the group will be mentored by Sophie, a third year Mechanical Engineering student who is also a care leaver.
“I was interested in being a mentor for the Ignite Your Journey programme as I remembered how much of a struggle it was to get information (or even who to ask for the information) on what support I could receive in order to attend university,” says Sophie.
“I want to encourage other young people to go to university and I want them to have access to the information that I was denied. I want them to know they shouldn’t feel anxious about university so that that they can focus on preparing for their future.”
Celebrating success
The Ignite Your Journey programme will end with a celebration event on Highfield Campus where the participants are able to present their finished tonoscopes and demonstrate their findings to the wider project group within WPSM.
The Student Inclusion Team will also be running some events over the course of National Care Leavers’ Week to enable students with shared experiences the opportunity to meet and socialise with one another.
To find out more about the events and what support is available to care leavers at the University, please contact [email protected] or visit our website.
