Local Offer for care leavers

We are ambitious and optimistic about what you can achieve. We will support your goals and dreams with an accessible, up-to-date and inspiring Care Leaver Local Offer. We will help you reach your full potential.

Our Care Experience Network (Voice) have told us the following are the most important issues for our young people:

1. Education and employment: We will work with local colleges, universities and employers to ensure you have access to courses and opportunities. This will help you reach your potential in both education and work.

2. Finances: We will support you to develop the skills you will need to be financially stable.

3. Health: We will ensure that you understand the physical and mental health services available to you and how to access them. We will work with health professionals to help them understand the needs of Care Experienced young people. They will then offer services that meet those needs.

4. Housing: When the time is right, we will work closely with housing providers to help you find a place that you can truly call home. We will make sure you get the support you need.

To help with this we will provide you with a dedicated Personal Adviser. They will build a trusted relationship with you. They will keep in touch regularly and be your champion when you need one. We will support you to make informed choices about your present and future, as you get ready for independence.

Cambridgeshire Children's Services and the County Council has a responsibility to act as your ‘Corporate Parent’. This means it is a shared responsibility to be good parents to you, working together to help you to achieve.

The Corporate Parenting Panel has 7 key principles. These are set out in the Children and Social Work Act 2017.

The 7 principles are:

• To act in the best interests, and promote the physical and mental health and well-being of those children and young people.
• To encourage those children and young people to express their views, wishes and feelings.
• To take into account the views, wishes and feelings of those children and young people.
• To help those children and young people gain access to and make the best use of, services provided by the local authority and its relevant partners.
• To promote high aspirations and to seek to secure the best outcomes for those children and young people.
• For those children and young people to be safe, and for stability in their home lives, relationships and education or work.
• To prepare those children and young people for adulthood and independent living.

If you are a care leaver from another local authority, or want to see how we compare to other local authorities, you can visit Care Leaver Local Offer.