Education CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by the National Care Advisory Service (NCAS)

1. Executive Summary

1.1 The National Care Advisory Service (NCAS),1 part of Catch22,2 is the national advice, support and development service focussing on young people’s transition from care. Our response focuses on how best to provide careers guidance for older young people in care and care leavers. It looks at the role of local authority children’s services to support this vulnerable group of young people raise their aspirations.

1.2 Careers advice to looked after children and care leavers is an essential part of the support that corporate parents provide to their young people. All parents have a role in supporting young people in identifying career choices and creating opportunities to achieve their aspirations, and when the state is your parent it is all the more important that it taps into its resources to do this well. Care leavers tend to have poorer education, training and employment outcomes than their peers and are more likely to need additional support to catch up with education or training or take up careers guidance at a later stage than other young people. Many also need pre-employment support to prepare them for work and education before, or in conjunction with, careers advice.

1.3 Statutory duties to care leavers include responsibility to help care leavers plan their future careers and provide opportunities to achieve their aspirations. However, despite these duties career planning for looked after children and care leavers is variable. Through our From Care2Work programme3 we have seen some excellent examples of good practice within local authorities, including specialist careers advisers within leaving care teams and joint working with external providers such as Connexions. Yet this support is not available everywhere and in other local authorities career planning is limited.

1.4 Leaving care services are especially concerned with the loss of Connexions in many areas and the impact this will have on their work. Many no longer have access to any specialist careers advice and rely on personal advisers and social workers to support young people, who may only have general advice to give in this area, not specialist knowledge. We know that the numbers in and leaving care are increasing at a time when service budgets remain static or reduce. Thus, local authorities have to make increasingly diminishing resources stretch further to meet the needs of more young people, this can impact on the quality of support, including careers guidance.

1.5 In this response we highlight a number of key issues to consider in relation to careers guidance for looked after children and care leavers:

Local authority duties to care leavers and looked after children, including young people placed out of area

Best practice gathered through the From Care2Work programme

The impact of funding cuts on services and issues with quality and variability of careers guidance support

The importance of ongoing, flexible support, joint working and information sharing and training and awareness of the employability and careers guidance needs of looked after children and care leavers for the whole workforce that supports them.

1.6 We believe that in order to ensure that there is careers guidance provision that meets the needs of looked after children and care leavers the following recommendations should be implemented:

Ofsted inspections of local authority services for children looked after and care leavers should scrutinise career planning and employability of looked after children and care leavers within local authorities and by external providers.

Local authorities should work towards the From Care2Work Quality Mark in order to ensure that they are compliant their statutory duties to support career planning.

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and Department for Education should work together to ensure that all local authorities develop flexible one-to-one information, advice and guidance service for all care leavers aged 16–25, based in leaving care teams and linked to specialist employability programmes for care leavers (offering work tasters, work experience, apprenticeships etc.), based on the Connexions model.

Specialist careers guidance workers within leaving care teams should raise the profile of looked after children and care leavers and ensure they are being offered universal careers guidance, in addition to networking and circulating opportunities and giving support and advice to all staff working with looked after children and care leavers (eg personal advisers, social workers, foster carers, residential workers etc.)

Universal careers guidance services provided to looked after children and care leavers through different settings should link with the statutory frameworks that support them, eg Personal Education Plan (PEP) meetings; care and pathway planning; Virtual schools/Virtual School Heads; designated teachers; and looked after children and leaving care teams

Information and data on the needs of and careers guidance provided to looked after children and care leavers should be shared between universal careers guidance services and statutory services for looked after children and care leavers.

Responsible local authorities should ensure that there is adequate careers guidance support for looked after children living out of their local authority area.

Local authorities should where practical offer employability opportunities to young people resident in their local area who are/were being looked after by another authority.

All staff involved with looked after children and care leavers in the transition to adulthood should receive training to increase their knowledge of career planning building employability and their role in raising the aspirations of looked after children and care leavers.

Local authorities should ensure the social care workforce has an understanding of building employability and career planning, so that appropriate next steps are reflected in individual pathway plans.

2. Introduction

2.1 About us

2.1.1 The National Care Advisory Service (NCAS)4, part of Catch22, is the national advice, support and development service focussing on young people’s transition from care. Our response focuses on how best to provide careers guidance for older young people in care and care leavers. It looks at the role of local authority children’s services to support this vulnerable group of young people raise their aspirations.

2.1.2 We have particular expertise in how to improve the education, training and employment outcomes of care leavers through our national employability programme, From Care2Work. From Care2Work is a national project aiming to improve employability outcomes for care leavers in the transition to adulthood. Since its launch in 2009 From Care2Work has offered support to local authorities to help place employability on the corporate parenting agenda and enable local and national employer engagement. From the data reported by local authorities over the last 3 years almost 11,000 employability opportunities have been created. As part of the programme we have worked to identify and disseminate good practice, some of this work is highlighted below.

2.1.3 Our evidence is based on the lessons we have learned through the From Care2Work programme. We also manage a virtual network of education, training and employment leads who we consulted to inform this response. In addition, we gathered feedback from our young people’s steering group, made up of care experienced young people.

3. Factual Information

3.1 Education training and employment outcomes of looked after children and care leavers

3.1.1 The education training and employment outcomes of looked after children and care leavers are poorer than their peers, making it all the more important to ensure they get adequate careers guidance. In the latest available statistics at Key Stage 4, 13%% achieved the 5+ A*-C at GCSE or equivalent including English and mathematics compared with 12% cent in 20105; a third of care leavers were not in education, training and employment (NEET) at 19, compared 14% of all young people. Only 390 care leavers (6%) were in higher education at 19 in 2011. This compares to 40% of all young people at age 19 at university in 2010.6

3.2 Local authority duties

3.2.1 The statutory Children Act 1989 Guidance and Regulations, Volume 3: Planning Transition to Adulthood for Care Leavers7 states that:

Pathway plans must have an explicit focus on career planning, taking into account the young person’s aspirations, skills, and educational potential. (Para. 3.7)

[Care leavers] must also be provided with access to high quality information, advice and guidance to inform their plans in order to progress into continuing education, training or employment. How this will be met should be included in the pathway plan. This career planning support should help young people recognise the relevance of their studies to their future career and life chances and should encourage young people to reflect regularly on their skills, strengths and aspirations. (Para. 5.2)

Joint work with Integrated Youth Services/Connexions and Careers Advisers is vital so that responsible authorities make sure that young people are fully aware of the options and entitlements available to them. Local authorities should use career planning tools to inform young people’s pathway plans. (Para 5.5)

3.2.2 Given these duties it is important that scrutiny of local authority services includes looking at the quality of careers guidance provided to young people. In its current consultation on “Arrangements for the inspection of services for children looked after and care leavers” Ofsted highlights how they will be looking at health services for looked after children, but does not identify any focus on reviewing external provision of education, training and employment support or careers advice and guidance.8

3.3 From Care2Work Quality Mark

3.3.1 NCAS has established a From Care2Work Quality Mark,9 which is awarded to local authorities and employers who invest time and support to young people leaving care that prepares them for the world of work. To be awarded the Quality Mark local authorities have to develop a work plan setting out how they are and will develop support for the employability of care leavers. The criteria of the quality mark link to the statutory duties and working towards it helps local authorities ensure that they are compliant with these.

3.3.2 One of the 10 criteria of the From Care2Work Quality Mark for local authorities is that “the local authority ensures all looked after children and care leavers get career planning support through pathway planning and partnership work with careers advisers to raise their aspirations and access opportunities throughout their transition to adulthood.” To achieve the From Care2Work Quality Mark you must have in place or be working towards:

Young people involved in the development of their pathway plans.

Providing practical and emotional support for care leavers to access and complete opportunities offered.

Pathway planning/career information, advice and guidance for care leavers that includes goal setting and action planning for education, training and employment.

3.3.3 Below are some examples of how From Care2Work Quality Mark holders are providing careers guidance for looked after children and care leavers.

In North East Lincolnshire practical support is provided by the senior careers officer and the NCAS career planning tool10 is used and incorporated in pathway plans.

In Lincolnshire the careers service works in partnership with the leaving care team to provide support for young people in their local area. A protocol is currently being developed around this.

In Nottingham City all young people are involved in their pathway plan; goal setting is included in the pathway plans with additional support provided by Connexions. Group sessions are to be run for care leavers to discuss employability options and the Rise programme offers pre-employment support for care leavers. The City Council provides performance reports which include an analysis of ETE status of care leavers via Connexions/Care First that will identify gaps and areas for development. There is also a relationship established via the “RISE programme” with work programme providers to analyse and provide access to relevant support and opportunities

In Durham those who are pre-16 are supported in education by the Looked After Children Education Service and post-16 by a Connexions worker based within the Teenagers 2 Work team. Those who are identified as at risk of becoming NEET are targeted with extra support. A quarterly multi-agency group meet to discuss the needs of young people and share ideas as to how to increase employability skills and deal with any problems at an early stage. Young people are prepared for their placements through; support with applications, visits, an induction day, and continuous support throughout the placement. The T2W project team organise a series of events to raise the aspirations and employability skills of young people, for example, teenage parent’s day, raising aspirations day, work skills day, etc.

Hull City Council is working to develop a protocol with Hull University to provide support and advice for care leavers before, during and post degree courses.

3.4 Cuts in services

3.4.1 Earlier this year we conducted a survey of local authority leaving care services across England to see how funding cuts had impacted on their services. Of the 34 managers who responded to our survey a third (32%) had seen a cut in their budget since last year and only five (15%) saw an increase. Two thirds of the managers we surveyed were working with larger cohorts than last year. The largest impact budget cuts were having on services was higher case loads for workers (64%). As a consequence, 38% of managers reported that workers would be seeing young people less often and 32% that they would be working more reactively, dealing with crises rather than working proactively. There is a worry that, as workers become stretched, they will be less able to provide careers advice to young people in and leaving care, as part of the pathway planning process. Indeed our young people’s steering group particularly questioned how leaving care services will be able to manage high case loads as well as offering careers advice.

3.4.2 In our survey, leaving care services reported that complementary local services and provision which they use to support care leavers were also significantly affected by cuts, especially careers support services that have played a key role in enhancing the support that is available to care leavers. 82% of respondents reported a reduction or closure of their Connexions services. On a more positive note, although 11 respondents reported a reduction in employability services, eight had seen these services enhanced.

3.5 Quality and variability of support

3.5.1 Young people stressed to us that careers guidance needs to be more than just virtual or over the phone. They said that handing a list of employers or contacts to young people is not good enough. It should be face to face, sitting down and really supporting young people to think about their aspirations.

3.5.2 Young people in different settings may be getting different levels of support and this can make it more difficult for looked after children and leaving care services to ensure consistency in provision of careers guidance. With schools having a responsibility to give careers guidance up to year 11, in some areas this provision is now variable. For example in East Sussex some schools have formed a partnership together and appointed a careers advisor, others are only offering specific careers guidance as part of the transition planning to statemented young people.

3.5.3 The East Sussex Virtual School appointed an Education and, Employment & Training Co-ordinator to work with secondary provision and Post 16 provision, the role of this worker is to raise the profile of looked after children and care leavers and ensure they are being offered careers guidance, in addition networking and circulating opportunities and giving support and advice to Personal Advisers and 16+ Social workers. The Virtual School in East Sussex also commissioned a third party provider, “My Future Starts Here”, that has delivered some group work to year 10 looked after children during a holiday workshop and are now offering follow up individual appointments. These appointments are being set up via Personal Education Plan (PEP) meetings where appropriate for looked after children who are not getting provision in school.

3.6 The importance of ongoing and flexible support

3.6.1 On 16 April 2012 we published a new report, 11 produced jointly by NCAS, The Care Leavers’ Foundation, A National Voice and The Prince’s Trust and supported by organisations from across the sector. The overarching recommendation of the report is for central government departments to make a commitment to “care-proof” all Government policies by assessing the impact they will have on looked after children and care leavers and those who support them, with a specific focus on young people aged 18–25.

3.6.2 Young people in and leaving care may have disrupted educational histories and tend to have poorer educational outcomes than their peers, which makes it important that they have opportunities to catch up later in life. They may not be ready to take up education or take the first steps on the career ladder at the same time as other young people. This means that careers guidance may be needed later too. Rigid frameworks of careers guidance at set ages and in set environments may not suit all looked after children and care leavers.

3.6.3 Although local authorities should minimise disruption to education, experiences of being taken into care, placement moves (which remain all too frequent) or other disruptions can mean that young people also move educational settings or miss school and may lose out on information, advice and guidance that is provided there.

3.6.4 In recognition of the need for ongoing support for young people in and leaving care local authority duties towards care leavers were extended in April 2011. Care leavers who have been closed to services, but who want to pursue education or training, can come back to services and ask for assistance up until the age of 25. This assistance may include careers advice and guidance in order to help them choose the right education and training provision. In most areas where Connexions (or similar service) remain, it is designed to meet the needs of young people aged 13 to 19 and up to 25 years for those with learning difficulties and or disabilities—hence missing out the older cohort of care leavers who may require support. We are aware that in the past, through partnerships with leaving are services, Connexions workers in a few areas did extend their work with career leavers up until the age of 25 on the basis of their vulnerability. However in most careers guidance services have tended to drop off at 19.

3.6.5 Leaving care services report to us that in some areas the new models of careers guidance are not flexible or in depth enough. In one area the service had been contracted so that Connexions provided one hour in year 10 and two hours in year 11. If young people miss their appointments they do not get another session to replace it. This can be particularly unsuitable for vulnerable young people who may struggle to engage with services.

3.6.6 In Wakefield employability support workers work with all care leavers not in education, training and employment and also run a drop in service for any other care leavers who may be engaged, but need advice around eg a CV, application for or choosing a college or university course. If they cannot make the drop in service due to commitments (eg work or college) then they visit at a time that is suitable. This is the same for the guidance appointments.

3.7 Joint working and information sharing

3.7.1 It is important that careers guidance services provided to looked after children and care leavers through different settings link with the statutory frameworks that support them, eg Personal Education Plan (PEP) meetings12; care and pathway planning; Virtual schools/Virtual School Heads13; designated teachers14; and looked after children and leaving care teams. Where there are specialist schemes that provide employability opportunities for looked after children and care leavers exist, these should be joined up with careers information, advice and guidance; so that once young people have identified their aspirations they can be best supported to achieve them. By sharing information and data services can ensure that young people get the best support.

3.7.2 In Stoke-on-Trent careers advice for looked after children who are still at school or at college is delivered by the Careers Adviser in the “CAG School Improvement team” within the local authority. For those that are NEET or potentially NEET this is delivered by “Next Steps” (the leaving care service) in-house Careers Adviser. The CAG School improvement Careers Team are invited to relevant updates, the All Careers Advisers within Stoke schools attend PEP’s when due, and give careers guidance interviews to all looked after young people. Careers advisers’ (including the Next Steps Adviser) ensures all information is added to the Aspire (Connexions) database, and Careers Adviser’s within schools will notify the Careers Adviser in the Next Steps team of any young people who are potentially NEET.

3.8 Young people placed out of area

3.8.1 35% of looked after children are placed outside of the boundaries of their responsible local authority. These young people can be particularly vulnerable to missing out on support if they are not linked in adequately to services. However, the local authority that took them into care remains responsible for providing them with the same support as those young people who are placed inside the local authority boundaries. Where careers guidance is delivered within leaving care services it will be important to ensure that young people placed out of area also get adequate support.

3.9 Training and awareness of employability for workers

3.9.1 All staff involved with a transition to adulthood have a role to play in supporting the journey to work, and may require training in order to increase current knowledge of career planning and building employability. This does not just include specialist employability and careers advice workers, but should extend to all those that support looked after children and care leavers, including social workers, personal advisers, independent reviewing officers, foster carers, residential care workers, supported housing providers etc. It will be similarly important that workers who provide universal careers guidance are aware of the support needs and services available to looked after children and care leavers.

3.9.2 In order to ensure that foster carers are aware of their role in raising and supporting aspirations, and can support targets in the “e-PEP/Pathway Plan”, Hull City Council planned in their From Care2Work Quality Mark work plan to review the training for foster carers and the pilot on raising aspirations through the Family Learning signature and have developed a pilot on raising aspirations. They also plan to ensure that foster carers are made aware of role of dedicated careers adviser through presentations to support groups from their careers adviser.

4. Recommendations for Action

4.1 Ofsted inspections of local authority services for children looked after and care leavers should scrutinise career planning and employability of looked after children and care leavers within local authorities and by external providers.

4.2 Local authorities should work towards the From Care2Work Quality Mark in order to ensure that they are compliant their statutory duties to support career planning.

4.3 The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and Department for Education should work together to ensure that all local authorities develop flexible one-to-one information, advice and guidance service for all care leavers aged 16–25, based in leaving care teams and linked to specialist employability programmes for care leavers (offering work tasters, work experience, apprenticeships etc.), based on the Connexions model.

4.4 Specialist careers guidance workers within leaving care teams should raise the profile of looked after children and care leavers and ensure they are being offered universal careers guidance, in addition to networking and circulating opportunities and giving support and advice to all staff working with looked after children and care leavers (eg personal advisers, social workers, foster carers, residential workers etc.)

4.5 Universal careers guidance services provided to looked after children and care leavers through different settings should link with the statutory frameworks that support them, eg Personal Education Plan (PEP) meetings; care and pathway planning; Virtual schools/Virtual School Heads; designated teachers; and looked after children and leaving care teams

4.6 Information and data on the needs of and careers guidance provided to looked after children and care leavers should be shared between universal careers guidance services and statutory services for looked after children and care leavers.

4.7 Responsible local authorities should ensure that there is adequate careers guidance support for looked after children living out of their local authority area.

4.8 Local authorities should where practical, offer employability opportunities to young people resident in their local area who are/were being looked after by another authority.

4.9 All staff involved with looked after children and care leavers in the transition to adulthood should receive training to increase their knowledge of career planning building employability and their role in raising the aspirations of looked after children and care leavers.

4.10 Local authorities should ensure the social care workforce has an understanding of building employability and career planning, so that appropriate next steps are reflected in individual pathway plans.

October 2012