About Our Projects
The Southwest Regional Recovery Care leaver Project intends to address the inequalities that exist within individual Local Authority Local Offers by consulting upon, designing and publishing a core regional offer, with the aim of enabling young people to access the same level of support regardless of where they may live. This will eventually be across the southwest region. Ultimately the region will be working towards reciprocal arrangements so that a young person moving from one Local Authority to another will be able to access core elements of support available through local offers.
The project is co-ordinated by a Care Leaver Project Manager, hosted by Bristol City Council and overseen by a regional representation from each Local Authority.
The South West Core Offer to Care Leavers
The law says every local council must publish a list of all the advice, support, and guidance available to care leavers in its area. This is called a ‘local offer for care leavers’ – seen as a list of rights. The development of a Local Offer is not the sole responsibility of Local Authorities but also a corporate responsibility of businesses and organisations in the public, private and voluntary sectors.
Whilst each Local Authority has a Local Offer for their young people, this can vary greatly from one Local Authority to another. Care leavers remain supported by the local authority in the geographical area they lived in when the entered care, this remain even if they move to another part of the country. Local offers generally only support a local authority’s own care leavers. Consequently, the level of support a young person may be offered or receive can vary greatly, almost making the level of support provided a postcode lottery.
Working in partnership, authorities in the Graduating Care South West group have compared local offers to develop a regional core offer to care leavers, that can be agreed as a benchmark standard across the region.
Representatives from the authorities are working together to “level up” the offers to further increase the regional core offer. GCSW in partnership with the Care Leaver Covenant are developing offers and opportunities for care leavers across the region with partners and businesses.
Graduating Care App
The Local Authorities have worked together with care experienced young people to develop a mobile App for care leavers that is (will be) available in the play and apple app stores and also as a web app.
The app includes:
- The app publishes the regional and local offers
- Discounts and offer
- Job and apprenticeship opportunities
- A budget planner
- A mental health tool kit
App available soon…
Networking to Share Best Practice
In June 2022 the project hosted a care leaver pledge conference named “leaving no one behind” informed by these priorities. The ‘Pledge’ conference provided colleagues from the public, private and voluntary sector from across the region, the opportunity to hear from our young people. Leaders and decision makers from a range of council departments, organisations, and businesses, as Corporate Parents, were invited to attend the conference and were asked to consider 5 key themed outcomes, and think about how their organisation, department or business can support, now or in the future.
Regional Leaving Care Directory
Through regional co working it is recognised that Leaving Care Personal Advisors hold expert knowledge of leaving care services and best practice in their own authority area. Working outside a home local authority is challenging particularly when finding the best opportunities and services for care leavers as they are often promoted to the local team. We have created a regional directory of teams to help personal advisors access each others specialist knowledge.
The regional directory can be found : Southwest leaving care directory