Care Leaver Support
Become’s mission is to provide help, support, and advice to children in care and young care leavers so that they can take control of their lives and unleash their potential.
Telephone: 0800 023 2033
Become website
Email: advice@becomecharity.org.uk
Helping you trace your family abroad.
Email: DBoulton@redcross.org.uk
Phone: 01158 505942
Listening to, caring about, and empowering children and young people to get their voice heard.
Visit the website: National Youth Advocacy Service website (NYAS)
Phone: 0151 649 8700
The national regulator ensures local authorities are delivering the best possible outcomes for children in care and care leavers. You can view reports of how Cambridgeshire County Council performs when delivering services for looked after children and care leavers.
View the Cambridgeshire Ofsted reports
Support and advice for refugees and people seeking asylum in the UK
Visit the Refugee Council website
Phone: 0808 196 7272
The Capstone Care Leavers Trust offers small grants to help Care Leavers with the following financial hardships. -Further Education courses -Higher Education courses -Training courses -Laptop -Travel costs to the place of study/training -Driving lessons - subject to meeting criteria -Practical Driving Test -Household goods – Sofa, chairs, cooker, fridge, freezer, washing machine bed, wardrobe, drawers.
Please note that they have application ‘windows’ where they open up applications and close when they have received enough. They will not replace anything that should be the responsibility of the Local Authority and will not give more than two grant awards to one person within 12 months.
To apply and read eligibility criteria please visit The Capstone Care Leavers Trust website.
The Care Leavers’ Association provides advice and information about leaving care and your rights and entitlements
Telephone: 0161 236 5665
Visit the Care Leavers Association website
The Children's Society Advocacy Service is a UK charity providing children's rights and socio-legal services. The Children's Society offers information, advocacy, legal representation, and advice to children aged 10 and over and young people up to the age of 21 through a network of advocates.
Telephone: 0808 901 9488 or 0115 900 3104
Supports care leavers and care experienced individuals across the UK. They champion services, projects, and interventions with and for the care of experienced people. They empower and inspire others to effect social change and improve support, policy, practice, interventions.
Visit the The Rees Foundation website
The Spark Foundation provides grants for young people who are or were in care. They can apply for grants of up to £600 for ‘extras’, such as instruments, sports kits, potentially debts, and they will look at furniture applications if it can be proven that Setting Up Home funding has been exhausted.
Visit The Spark Foundation website.
Financial support
Buttle UK’s mission is the maintenance, education, and advancement in life of children and young people who through poverty and family circumstances are in need of, and will benefit significantly from Buttle UK’s support. They can offer financial grants and wrap-around support.
Visit the Buttle UK website
Cambridge Re-Use helps people on low income or benefits to buying furniture, electrical and white goods, and other household items that they may not otherwise be able to afford.
Their address is: Unit H The Paddocks, 347 Cherry Hinton Road, Cambridge, CB1 8DH
Cambridgeshire’s Local Assistance Scheme (CLAS) provides a front-line safety net to those individuals and families facing unexpected financial difficulties and hardship. The scheme provides information, advice, and discretionary assistance that enables eligible families and individuals to improve their immediate financial position; cope and better support themselves, and use relevant resources to succeed in the long term. This could include access to low-cost re-used and refurbished household items, clothing, and food vouchers.
To see if you are eligible to receive any discounts from your Council Tax bill, have a look at the website for the district that you live in:
Cambridge City Council tax reduction webpage
East Cambridgeshire District Council tax reduction webpage
Fenland District Council tax reduction webpage
Huntingdonshire District Council tax reduction webpage
South Cambridgeshire District Council tax reduction webpage
Diamond Hampers are an organisation committed to providing support to local people in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. They are aware of Care Leavers in the area and have pledged their support. They can provide you with free hampers of food and essential items in some circumstances, if you are moving into new accommodation, they can provide you with a Moving In Box with essentials and provide you with low-cost items at their stores in Huntingdon.
Visit the Diamond Hampers website
A church outreach programme that collects baby goods to distribute to those in need. Clothes, Prams, Buggies, Bottles, Sterilisers, Cots, etc.
Ely Baby Bank Facebook page
Email: thesofachurch@gmail.com
Phone number: 07715 908024
Information and financial support to help pay for university or college tuition.
Visit the Student finance website
The Care Leavers Foundations offer small grants to help Care Leavers with any financial hardships they may be facing.
The Spark Foundation provides grants for young people who are or were in care. They can apply for grants of up to £600 for ‘extras’, such as instruments, sports kits, potentially debts, and they will look at furniture applications if it can be proven that Setting Up Home funding has been exhausted.
Benefit calculator to assess your financial circumstances and advise you of any different benefits you are entitled to claim.
Benefit calculator to assess your financial circumstances and advise you of any different benefits you are entitled to claim and support on how to claim it.
Visit the Turn2Us website
General advice and support
Catch 22 works with young people who are in or leaving custody, involved in or on the fringes of crime, out of work, struggling at school, homeless, or facing young parenthood without the safety net of a supportive family. Catch 22 offers practical support services which are flexible, highly personalised, and often intensive.
Visit the Catch 22 website
The Cambridgeshire Home Energy Support Service (CHESS) will help you keep your home warm, cutting the cost of their energy bills and reducing their carbon footprint. If you are not in the position of being able to pay their energy bills then please ask to make a call to 0800 8021773.
This is a freephone number so won’t cost anything. The CHESS project team will then assist them with: switching suppliers, energy-saving tips and advice, signing up to the Priority Services Register, home improvement grants, solutions to damp and condensation, and fuel debt relief.
From housing and health to learning and engagement, Centrepoint aims to help vulnerable young people move on from homelessness and build a future they can believe in.
Visit the Centrepoint website
Phone: 0800 5875158
The Citizens Advice Bureau helps people to resolve their legal, money, and other problems by providing free, independent, and confidential advice and influencing policymakers. Some branches can provide legal advice on immigration and asylum cases.
Contact via Telephone: 0300 330 5457
Or visit the website: Citizens Advice Cambridge and District
Community Legal Advice (CLA) is a free and confidential advice service in England and Wales paid for by legal aid. If you are living on a low income or benefits, you may be eligible for free specialist advice from legal advisers on issues including:
- Debt, if your home is at risk
- Housing, if you’re homeless or at risk of being evicted
- Domestic abuse
- Separating from an abusive partner, when you’re making arrangements for children or sorting out money and property
- Special education needs
- Discrimination
Telephone: 0345 345 4 345
Information from the Department of Education about your rights as a care leaver.
See more information here about: Leaving foster or local authority care - GOV.UK
Information on finding jobs and accessing benefits.
For more information visit the DWP website
Free legal advice in legal clinics hosted in different locations nationally and sometimes virtually. Clients usually have 30 minutes to one hour to explain an issue and you will receive basic advice on the next steps to take. Some clinics may not be able to offer advice immediately but will provide a letter or email containing a summary of advice.
National Debtline is a charity. They give free and independent debt advice over the phone and online.
Visit the National Debt Helpline website
Phone: 0808 808 4000
Offering advice about homelessness and the provision of emergency housing for care leavers
Visit the National Homelessness Advice Service website
Or Phone: 0300 330 0517
Charity offering housing support, advice, and information.
Visit the Shelter website
Or Phone: 0808 800 444
Helping you with the widest range of debt solutions no matter what you're dealing with.
Visit the Step Change website
Phone: 0800 138 1111
Free, independent, and confidential advice, assistance, and representation on a wide range of issues to young people under 21 years old in custody.
Telephone: 0808 801 0308
Health and Emotional Wellbeing support
Cambridgeshire Women's Aid provides a safe environment for women experiencing domestic abuse, with ongoing support, advice, counselling, and learning opportunities.
They run a 24-hour free helpline.
Telephone: Safe Refuge: 01223460947 / Community Support: 01223 361 214
ChildLine is a free national 24-hour telephone helpline for any child in trouble or danger. It is a confidential counselling service that offers information and help to children and young people.
Telephone: 0800 1111
Visit the Childline website
Sexual Health Clinics in Cambridgeshire. Offering sexual health education, support, counselling, free contraception, and testing.
Evolve Counselling will offer discounted therapy sessions for Care Leavers in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough on low incomes. If you are on Universal Credit it is discounted to just £5 a session. As your salary increases, the session costs do, for example, £12,000 salary, is £12 a session. £13,000 is £13. Please call for an initial assessment and let them know you are looking for low-income counselling.
Call the helpline nearest to your location.
Cambridge: 01223 233047
Peterborough: 01733 553166
Keep Your Head brings together reliable information on mental health and wellbeing for children, young people, adults, professionals, and schools across Cambridgeshire & Peterborough.
Visit the Keep Your Head website
Missing People is a free phone confidential service for anyone who has run away from home or care, or been forced to leave home.
Contact them via Telephone: 116 000
Or Visit the Missing People website
Offers information, support, and guidance on drugs and alcohol.
Visit the Talk to Frank website
or contact them via phone: 0300 1236600
The Samaritans offer a safe place for you to talk any time you like, in your own way – about whatever’s getting to you. You don’t have to be suicidal. A free and confidential service, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
Visit the Samaritans website
or contact them on freephone: 116 123
The Kite Trust supports the wellbeing and creativity of LGBTQ+ young people in Cambridgeshire, Peterborough, and surrounding areas through information, support, and groups. They build inclusive communities to tackle inequalities through consultancy, training, and education to all sectors.
Visit the The Kite Trust website
or phone: 01223 369508
Young Minds is committed to improving the emotional wellbeing and mental health of children and young people and empowering their parents and carers.
Visit the Young Minds website
