Care leavers like me need support to dream big
Image by: True Images / Alamy Stock Photo
4 min read
This National Care Leavers’ Week we have an opportunity to reflect both on the challenges faced by care-experienced young people – and what we must do to improve support
This place isn’t meant for people like me.” This was one of my initial thoughts as I took my first steps, wide-eyed, onto the Parliamentary Estate after the election and reflected on the unlikeliest of journeys, from growing up in care to a new chapter in Westminster, that had brought me to this point.
As just one of a handful of MPs known to have grown up in care, I am hugely conscious of just how fortunate I have been on my journey. Fortunate because I had fantastic foster parents who then adopted me, and who always encouraged me in education and supported my aspirations. And fortunate because my experience has been so different from that of so many other care-experienced children and young people.
We know that care-experienced children and young people face disproportionately poor outcomes that affect their education, their careers and other areas of their lives well into adulthood. On top of the upheaval and disruption that mark the early lives of so many children in care, care leavers entering adulthood are often faced with the cliff edge of being expected to leave the care system abruptly when they turn 18, often without enough support to make the transition.
As someone who has been through the care system and as a former city councillor who was responsible for children’s social care and education, throughout my life I’ve worked with many wonderful professionals – from social workers and teachers to foster carers – who do everything they can to support children in care, and who encourage them to dream big and set them up to thrive. But we can’t pretend there isn’t an entrenched and pessimistic ‘aspiration gap’.
I hope that I can give other care-experienced young people a glimpse of what’s possible if they are supported
Too often, care-experienced children and young people are written off before they even take their first steps into adulthood, their futures pre-ordained through negative labelling and their opportunities limited by the barriers of rock-bottom expectations. Care-experienced young people can dream just as big and aim just as high as anyone – and indeed they should. We need to do more to encourage this, and to understand that their childhood experience can be a source of resilience and strength, and not weakness.
This week is National Care Leavers’ Week – an opportunity to reflect on challenges faced by care-experienced young people and celebrate the many fantastic things that they achieve. It’s also an opportunity to reflect on what we, as a society and as a government, must do to improve support. I’m pleased that Labour committed in its manifesto to improving support for children in care as part of a broader promise of breaking down barriers to opportunity. We need to do better at the mentoring, housing, financial, health and wellbeing support we give care leavers. I’ll also use my new role on the Education Select Committee to work on a cross-party basis to explore how we can improve educational outcomes for care-experienced children and young people and narrow the aspiration gap.
Despite the grandeur and ceremony of this new chapter in Westminster, I still have enough self-awareness to know that a middle-aged MP might not be every young person’s idea of an exciting role model. But in my own small way I hope that I can give other care-experienced young people a glimpse of what’s possible if they are supported to dream big and fulfil their aspirations. As I said in my maiden speech, if I achieve just one thing, I hope it’s to say to those whose backgrounds look anything like mine: “Let those challenging times and stigma that comes with social care never, ever hold you back.”
Darren Paffey is Labour MP for Southampton Itchen and member of the Education Select Committee
PoliticsHome Newsletters
Get the inside track on what MPs and Peers are talking about. Sign up to The House's morning email for the latest insight and reaction from Parliamentarians, policy-makers and organisations.
