Care leavers need more 'shadowing' opportunities in Oxford
We've been speaking to Sarah Ashfield is manager for the House Project in Oxford, which helps young people leaving care.
Last updated 1st Nov 2024
A project supporting care leavers in Oxfordshire says shadowing employees, would help build young peoples confidence.
It comes as a government-funded inclusion programme the Care Leaver Covenant is publishing new guidance and working with employers across the UK to create work opportunities and provide tailored support to young people who have left care.
Sarah Ashfield is manager for the House Project in Oxford, who provide support for young people leaving care. House Projects up and down the country support young people leaving care to create their own homes and live connected and fulfilling lives.
They help with interview technique, budgeting advice and and with things like tenancy agreements amongst other things.
Sarah says things like apprenticeships can be too big a leap for some:
"Rather than a young person committing to a full time job and it not working out, it's always wise for a young person to gain that experience and find out if it's definitely a yes or definitely a no."
She says there is no cut off in help for the young people they support, and plenty of peer to peer support as well:
"We support them indefinitely from 16, so they build those relationships up with the staff team and also the young people they move into houses with."
When a child turns 18 the support on offer drastically falls and they often struggle to settle into adulthood, finding work, education and training with more than two fifths of 19–21-year-old care leavers are not in education, employment or training.
Sarah says rather than moving their life to start an apprenticeship for example, the opportunity to shadow people in work in Oxfordshire, to learn if it's the right employment option for them, is incredibly useful.
More than 500 organisations have signed up to support the initiative, including the John Lewis Partnership, Amazon and the NHS, who are amongst those offering more than 100 jobs per year to care leavers. But there is still work to be done with research that Spectra, which runs the Covenant scheme, showing a quarter of adults see care leavers as unreliable with 16% expecting a poor work ethic from them.
Almost a third of the UK's prison population experienced care in some form during their lifetime and poor mental health outcomes for care leavers. 45% of looked after children have a mental health disorder with 65% of care leavers significantly affected by cost of living and 45% struggling to buy food.
Sarah hosted an employment event which featured the County Council, Aspire, the NHS and others:
"Once young people and care leavers are given opportunities, and are motivated, they can achieve."