Our Vision For Equal Rights For All Care Leavers Gains Momentum!

Can you believe that we are now in to our third week of campaigning to get equal rights for ALL looked after Children & young people to get support until 21? And together we have nearly 3,500 signatures.

We are all connected in this vision that no matter where young people are placed, they should all be entitled to equal provision.

Among you, the #ResCareTo21 team, we have young people, care leavers, Social Workers, Professors of Social Work & Psychology, leading academics, lawyers, barristers, celebrities and the public who support this and are standing side by side to raise awareness and campaigning.

As we move forward, our support is growing by the hour. Fostering and Residential providers, Charities, Organisations and people who advocate for Children & young people are all passionate about this call out to the Government for equality for ALL young people in care.

We should not be surprised by this as we are all passionate about our desire for young people to have better outcomes and be successful rather than featuring in the statistics that we are all too well aware of.

With the correct support is place we believe that young people, already facing challenges, will have a better chance of moving into adulthood with a better chance of living a fulfilled life, not one plagued by disadvantage and even more challenges.

Young people have clearly been discriminated against through the introduction of this new legislation in April 2014 which is to benefit young people in foster care only.

As Mr Gove pointed out, a minority of residential homes are not up to standard and do need to be brought up to standard quickly. We agree! But this is not a good reason to only offer support up to 21 years of age, where required and appropriate, to only those young people who are fostered.

The question we need to ask is, would extending support to ALL looked after to 21 reduce offending behaviour, homelessness, drugs and suicide? We know the statistics:

• up to 40% of 18-21 year olds in custody have been in care
• 27-35% adult male prisoners have been in care
• 57% of women in prison have been in care
• 1 in 5 homeless people have been in care

This campaign is about demanding equality for all young people in care wherever they may be placed: in foster care or residential care.

We look forward to all the Charities & Organisations to follow in the footsteps of others and publicly support our campaign on twitter, Facebook and their websites and Newsletters.

Please join in the discussion on Twitter by using #ResCareTo21.

Finally, let’s all give ourselves a big pat on the back and thank every single one of us who is supporting this campaign and has signed, shared, re-tweeted or liked.

Please keep sharing, tweeting, Face-booking, caring and together we can all be part of creating this change. #Teamwork