Assisting Care Leavers

1. Introduction to assisting care leavers to achieve better outcomes

The passage from adolescence to adulthood is a critical and sometimes difficult life stage transition for young people, but particularly so for “care leavers”. These young people who leave out-of-home care like foster or institutionalised care are similar in a number of ways to their peers who grew up with their family. However, many care leavers had a difficult childhood, have less of a support network and can face specific challenges in accessing jobs, further education and housing when exiting care. As a result, their path to independence is often longer and bumpier, and some are at risk of becoming part of the most socially and economically excluded young people in society. Many OECD countries have legislation and policies in place that enable young people to remain in care placements past the age of majority. But in practice, most care leavers move to independent living at age 18 or even younger (Strahl et al., 2021[1]). An abrupt end to care is radically different from the experience of care leavers’ peers who tend to move out of their childhood homes in a gradual way and often continue to receive emotional and even financial support.

To make the transition more “like” that of their peers, care leavers need support. General social and other services, while more or less widely available, are not tailored to the needs of care leavers, who may moreover have difficulties in accessing them. Therefore, care leavers need both formal and informal supports that go beyond universal services and benefits available to every young person (Marion and Paulsen, 2019[2]). Such support includes flexible assistance through the transition phase, a greater range of supported and independent accommodation options, and academic and non-academic opportunities to develop the necessary skills for the world of work and independent living.

This is not to say there has not been progress in recent years. The relevant literature acknowledges that policy reform, rooted in a better evidence‑based understanding of child development and the needs of specific groups of care leavers, has led to some improvement in many countries (Stein, 2019[3]). However, while we may know more about the outcomes care leavers experience and what will help to improve those outcomes, there still remain significant gaps in our knowledge, particularly about the effectiveness of supports. For instance, we know some care leavers need access to specialist mental health services, however, it is not necessarily clear how accessible and effective these services are (Baidawi, Mendes and Snow, 2014[4]).

There is also a paucity of administrative data collected by any country, evidenced in the quality of data provided by countries for this policy report. Important questions remain, for example, about the uptake of extended care or whether those with the most complex needs are eligible for, choose to, or are able to access what is on offer, because the data are not collected or compiled. Without good data it is impossible to know what is working, for whom and at what cost.

This report builds on information collected through the Policy Questionnaire on Support for Care Leavers (see Box 1.1 for more details), complemented with discussions with experts in the field and desk-based research. The report starts with a short description of the data available in OECD countries on young people in care, and those leaving care. It also gives an overview of the increasing evidence across OECD countries in the effectiveness of supports. The report then discusses how to improve supports for care leavers and provides a range of good practice examples in OECD countries, in order to promote cross-country learning, help strengthen the international evidence base and support countries to improve their policies for young people leaving their care. It concludes with a brief overview of directions for reform.

Box 1.1. The OECD policy questionnaire on support for care leavers

The OECD initiated a new project to improve policies and supports for young people leaving care. Mindful of the challenges but also of the opportunities to improve outcomes for care leavers, OECD countries agreed to undertake a comprehensive overview of countries’ policy settings and aftercare supports to identify promising approaches to supporting young people move out of care. Further in-depth work targeted at specific challenges, to promote ongoing cross-jurisdiction learning or to address the recommendations from this policy report could follow.

To inform the report, a Policy Questionnaire on Support for Care Leavers was sent to all OECD countries at the end of 2020. The questionnaire covered three areas: the general policy and statutory framework that underpins a country’s approach to supporting young people transition from the care system to adulthood, the after-care support services provided, and differences across regions and/or municipalities. Countries were also asked to provide any good practice examples they wanted to share, and data they collect about care leavers.

Information was collected for 30 OECD countries. Twenty-nine countries responded to the questionnaire, whereas the material on France was collected through desk-based research and confirmed as correct by an expert in the field. Two countries, Austria and Australia, provided both national and regional responses to the questionnaire. For Canada, two provinces (Manitoba and Ontario) and one territory (Yukon) sent in their responses to the questionnaire, representing approximately half the population of Canada. For the United Kingdom, England, Scotland and Wales submitted information separately. Information provided by countries was supplemented by country-specific information from the literature where relevant. In addition, 26 countries provided data on the number on children in out-of-home care; 20 countries provided data by type of out-of-home care; and 17 countries provided data on care leavers.