Insights into post‑16 experiences for care‑experienced young people

Every year, the Lyle’s Local Fund invests up to £50,000 in small local organisations that help make Newham a healthy, safe and prosperous place to live and work. In 2024, the fund awarded grants to 10 organisations, including the National Network for the Education of Care Leavers (NNECL).

With funding from our 2024 Lyle’s Local Fund, Allen Lane Foundation, St Saviours Southwark and The Haberdashers Company, NNECL’s Inspire project researched how care‑experienced young people in Southwark, Newham and wider London are supported as they move into post‑16 education, training and careers.

Executive Director of NNECL, Denise Rawls, highlighted the impact of our funding, “The whole team at NNECL sends huge thanks to the Lyle’s Local Fund. Your support enabled us to gather vital insights from care-experienced young people and the professionals who support them in navigating careers and post-16 education.

“Without your transformative support, we would not have been able to dedicate the time to this work or share our findings with potential partners to take Inspire to the next stage.”

Denise Rawls, Executive Director of NNECL

About the Inspire project

The research focused on understanding what support is currently available to care‑experienced young people, and how effective it is in practice. Care‑experienced young people, those who have been looked after by a local authority, fostered or lived in residential care, often face additional barriers when progressing into education and employment. Nationally, around 40% of care‑experienced young people aged 19–21 are not in education, employment or training (NEET), compared with 12% of their peers.

Insights were gathered from young people and the adults who support them, helping to build a clearer picture of where gaps remain and where change could have the greatest positive impact.

A central feature of the work was the involvement of a Young Person Ambassador, Shaunna Devine, who is care experienced and a PhD researcher at Liverpool John Moores University. Her role brought academic expertise and lived experience into the process and helped shape discussions in a way that was credible and meaningful for participants.

Findings

The work identified two key priorities: care-experienced young people’s lived experience should be centred in policy and practice, while the trusted adults and professionals supporting them need practical tools to guide them effectively.

Building on the insights from the exploratory phase, NNECL will seek to develop practical resources to strengthen support for care‑experienced young people and those around them. This includes a young person toolkit offering clear guidance on education, careers and wellbeing, a trusted adult toolkit to support informed conversations and effective guidance, and professional training for education and leaving‑care teams focused on best practice and trauma‑informed approaches. The project also suggests reforming Personal Education Plans (PEPs) to be career-focused, less bureaucratic and more empowering of young people.

For full details on the project and to follow their work, visit NNECL’s Inspire project page: https://www.nnecl.org/inspire.

We are proud to have supported NNECL’s Inspire project and the meaningful findings it has produced for the care-experienced young people and their support networks in our community.