\n<\/p>\n
Your article draws attention to a landmark review that describes the \u201ccare cliff\u201d for young people leaving care at 18 leading to tragic outcomes (\u2018He was left on his own\u2019: the care-leaver lives lost to a system that abandons them at 18, 25 August). The good news is that there are ways to fix this problem, but they are neither quick nor straightforward.<\/p>\n
My own research found that first and foremost the responsible local authority requires sufficient funding, staffing and planning to assess and implement care options when a child is taken into care.<\/p>\n
The provision of support need not automatically mean foster care. It can mean kinship care where, following an assessment, a member of the child\u2019s extended family becomes the carer for the child in transition to adulthood. Both foster care and kinship care options require dedicated, skilful carers, extended family members, staff and funding in order to provide the flexibility that both young people and carers need. The late Eric Sainsbury pioneered research on care leavers in the 1980s. The In and Out of Care study pinpointed the same vulnerabilities among care leavers as this recent research, 40 years ago.<\/p>\n The researchers recommended greater participation by young people and parents, more continuity and stability in relationships with adults, and better preparation for leaving care. Most importantly, they argued that care should not be an administrative placement but a set of relationships and experiences extending across a child\u2019s life.<\/p>\n The test of a civilised society is how it treats its most vulnerable members. The shocking death toll among care leavers challenges this country\u2019s right to call itself civilised. Have an opinion on anything you\u2019ve read in the Guardian today? Please <\/em><\/strong>email<\/em><\/strong> <\/em><\/strong>us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our <\/em><\/strong>letters<\/em><\/strong> section.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Your article draws attention to a landmark review that describes the \u201ccare cliff\u201d for young people leaving care at 18 leading to tragic outcomes (\u2018He was left on his own\u2019: the care-leaver lives lost to a system that abandons them at 18, 25 August). The good news is that there are ways to fix this<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":52064,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[165,21161,3948,1119,204],"class_list":{"0":"post-52063","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-care","9":"tag-leavers","10":"tag-lives","11":"tag-save","12":"tag-social"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=52063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/52064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=52063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=52063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=52063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Dr Bob Broad<\/strong>
Former professor of children and families research, De\u00a0Montfort\u00a0University<\/em><\/p>\n
Alan Walker<\/strong>
Emeritus professor of social policy, University of Sheffield<\/em><\/p>\n