New project launched to help improve educational experience of fostered children

A new project to help improve the educational experience of fostered children and young people has been launched by the Fostering Network Wales.

The three-year pilot aims to reduce unauthorised absence and exclusion among fostered children and young people across Wales. The Audit Commission estimates that looked-after children will miss on average four weeks of secondary school teaching each year. Looked-after children are also over three times more likely to be excluded from school than their peers who live with their parents. Nearly one in five children who have been continuously looked after for more than 12 months will receive fixed-period exclusion.

Educational outcomes for looked-after children lag behind those of their peers. Over half of all looked-after children in Wales leave school with no GCSEs or GNVQs. As a result, 51 per cent of care leavers are not in education, employment or training on their 19th birthdays.

The project will work by helping foster carers to support the children they foster through their education, supporting appropriate training, helping them to build effective relationships with social services and educational personnel and assisting them in identifying sources of help for children in their care. It will also work directly with fostered young people to identify the barriers they face in education and the measures that would enable them to overcome this.

The Fostering Network will aim to work closely with four local authorities across Wales in the delivery of the project, striving to identify innovative ways to support foster carers with improving the educational experiences of fostered children and young people.