ABSTRACT

Each year approximately 8,000 young people leave the care of local authorities and, if unable to return to their families, seek a place for themselves as young adults in the community. Concern at the vulnerability of young people leaving care has grown from the mid1970s. Despite those looked after constituting less than 1 per cent of their age group, evidence from a range of studies and reports has persistently placed care leavers amongst the most disadvantaged. These concerns have rested upon the early age at which young people were expected to assume adult responsibilities and their lack of preparedness for the task (Stein and Carey 1986); the failure of the majority to attain qualifications at the end of their schooling and, in consequence, for large numbers to be unemployed once they have left care (Garnett 1992; Broad 1994; Biehal et al. 1995); and the tendency for those with a background in care to be overrepresented amongst the young homeless (Randall 1989; Strathdee and Johnson 1994) and the prison population (National Children’s Bureau 1992).