Education, training and employment for young people leaving care

As corporate parents, we want you to succeed in your education, training and employment. We will ask you how you are doing and be ready to celebrate your achievements with you. We track your goals and targets through your pathway plan and our personal advisers will support you to achieve those within an appropriate timescale.

We provide care leavers with access to high quality information, advice and guidance to help you with education, training or employment. Your personal advisor or Virtual School worker will forward you opportunities as they arise.

Virtual School

Whilst you are still look after, our Virtual School alongside your social worker have corporate parenting responsibility to ensure we do everything a good parent would to help you to succeed in education. If you are in year 12 or 13, you will have a dedicated Virtual School advisory teacher with responsibility for helping you to work towards your career goals as well as leading on your Personal Education Plan (PEP) meeting.

Our Virtual School provides three dedicated education, employment and training (EET) officers who support care experienced young people aged 18+ to achieve their education, employment and training goals. They are experts in tailoring our offer to meet your needs.

The Virtual School offer weekly EETs drop-in sessions and workshops on a variety of topics offering a variety of opportunities. These are promoted via the socials, the TV screens at Falcon and your personal advisor. For our unaccompanied asylum seeking young people aged 16 to 21 years, the Virtual School also host a weekly study club here at Falcon Grove which is great fun!

The Virtual School also offer all care experienced young people aged 14-21 years the opportunity to have work experience through the Full Potential project led by Lifelong Learning.

Financial support

To support you with the costs of education we can:

• Provide you with a £200 per year grant for stationary, books, IT equipment and trips
• Provide a laptop up to the cost of £360 (net VAT) if you have not had one given to you before
• Provide up to £200 for prom activity and/or graduation items like gown hire or photos

Educational incentive

We also pay a termly incentive to young people under the age of 21 who are studying at college, training or who are doing regular unpaid voluntary work. This is paid termly in arrears and is to support the costs for the next term. This is £10 per week if you study/volunteer for 12+ hours a week, and £5 per week for less than 12 hours per week.

University holiday

Students at university can access 13 weeks’ vacation accommodation costs at an approve weekly rate (usually the local Housing Allowance for that area) and they can also access the £2,000 bursary provided by Future First. If you need help identifying vacation accommodation, this should be addressed in your pathway plan and Future First can help you with this.

Grants and bursaries

Young people in their first year of an apprenticeship will be supported to claim the maximum bursaries and grants to support their income.

We support all college students to claim the maximum 16 to 19 bursary at their college and we also support them to claim the maximum financial support available to them from the Department for Education or their college/institution of learning.

Former relevant young people can claim up to £75 Commencing Work grant for interview clothes or work clothing. This has to be documented and requested in your pathway plan.

Employment opportunities

We have developed an SSA Care Leaver Apprenticeship and job project which encourages council employers to develop opportunities for care leavers.

We also work with local and national organisations who offer young people education, employment and training opportunities that are right for them!

If you start a new job we will pay your first month’s public transport costs to and from work. This can only be claimed once per year.