How to collaborate effectively to support care-experienced students

Although still eye-wateringly small, the number of students coming into higher education from care backgrounds has seen some growth over recent years, and this can be attributed in part to the efforts of higher education institutions. But how can universities ensure they provide effective support to care-experienced students not only at the pre-entry stage but also during their time at university and beyond? 

The Care Leaver Covenant is a national programme supporting care-leavers aged 16-25 to live independently. The North East Raising Aspiration Partnership (NERAP), a collaboration of the five universities in the north east of England working together to support young people to think about their futures and how higher education can help them reach their goals, was the first regional higher education partnership to sign up to it to support care-experienced students. In doing so, the five universities (Durham, Newcastle, Northumbria, Sunderland and Teesside) have committed to offer consistent support for care-experienced students throughout their higher education journeys.

This was the culmination of many years of hard work, and we know there is more to do, but we hope other institutions will be able to draw on our experiences to ensure more care-experienced young people get the support they need to start and continue their higher education journeys. Here’s how.

Get your ducks in a row: Take a holistic view of what is (and isn’t) working in your existing programmes and utilise this to create the framework of your offer. 

Learn from each other: We formed a Care Leaver Covenant working group consisting of widening participation managers from each of our universities who were responsible for liaising with teams in their institution to build the core offer across all areas of access, success and progression for care-experienced students. We met regularly to discuss progress to date and to provide peer support during the development phase. As each of the five partners were at different starting points, this enabled us to utilise the experience and expertise of those institutions that already had established programmes, so we could learn and support each other throughout the process.

Expand the conversation: You should also create a wider regional steering group for care-experienced students with representation from local authorities, virtual schools, further education and higher education colleges. This can help with building a strategic forum where you can discuss and share plans with those working directly with care-experienced young people, ensuring buy-in and support early on and maximising the use of everyone’s time.

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Offer the full package: Support needs to start much earlier than during the transition to university, so make sure programmes are holistic right through pre- and post-entry and that this continues to post-graduation careers and employment support. The Care Leaver Covenant provides an excellent framework for this. For us, this meant creating a progressive programme of pre-entry support: Choices Together, a tailored package of activities for care-experienced students at secondary school and college. Choices Together gives young care-experienced people opportunities to learn first-hand what it’s like to go to university, whether that is by talking to current students, going on campus tours or taking part in subject tasters, enabling them to think differently about what options are available to them. Alongside this, it’s important to offer post-entry support such as year-round accommodation and bursaries while care-experienced students are at university, as well as a named contact with responsibility for supporting them post-entry with access to services, well-being, teaching and careers queries.

Be ready to commit and evaluate: You will need to understand how your work with care-leavers is having a tangible effect on recruitment and retention. This should involve both a longitudinal study of impact through tracking students using the Higher Education Access Tracker (HEAT) database or similar tracker service to monitor the effectiveness of pre- and post-entry interventions on student outcomes, and harnessing the student voice to support continuous improvement.

By adopting a collaborative approach, higher education institutions can not only show that university is a realistic option for more care-leavers, but also increase engagement with key figures and institutions and create a united narrative on the importance of providing bespoke support for care-experienced students and those supporting them.

The issues and challenges for young people who have experienced care are complex and the impact this can have on their educational journeys can differ greatly depending on what part of the country a young person lives in. In the north east, we are committed to removing these barriers so that care-experienced students can have an opportunity to fully explore their choices and gain high-quality support throughout. We hope other universities will use this model and build on it further to ensure more care-experienced young people can thrive at university.

Louise Harrison is a project manager of the North East Raising Aspiration Partnership at Newcastle University. Kate Murray is the head of collaborative partnerships (widening participation) at Newcastle University. Alison Shaw is professor of practice (inclusive learning) at Newcastle University. 

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