This pioneering and ‘beautiful’ idea can help keep young care leavers from falling into homelessness

When care leaver Bayley Tubman moved into her own home, she had a network of ‘aunties’ around her to prevent her from falling into homelessness thanks to Lifelong Links – but four out of five youngsters in care are left to face the move alone.

Lifelong Links allows children to mend and build bonds with relatives and adults like school teachers or social workers to ensure they get the guidance, support and protection they need as they enter adulthood.

The pioneering programme is operated across 42 UK councils with £30m in Department for Education funding extending it to enable 1,000 children in care to build support networks across 23 additional and existing local authorities.

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The charity that developed the Lifelong Links alongside young people, Family Rights Group, is calling for the programme to be rolled out nationwide.

Tubman, 19, from Coventry, believes more people could benefit from Lifelong Links too.

“When you leave then you get to choose what support is around you. It’s like choosing your own family to be honest. I think it’s quite beneficial,” said Tubman, who entered care at the age of 13 and has been living alone since she was 17.

“I definitely think Lifelong Links should be nationwide. Kids are missing out on a great opportunity to build and reconnect with those bonds. You get to reconnect with people that you lost contact with and that really helps you in a difficult time.

“They get to choose to be a part of it as well and that makes it magical, kind of beautiful. That gives you that nice comforting feeling because it’s nice to know that they actually want to be a part of your life as well.”

The number of children in the care system across the UK is now more than 100,000 but care leavers are vulnerable to falling into homelessness.

The number of care-leaver households who required support from English councils for homelessness has risen by a third since 2018, up to 3,710 in 2022-23.

Adapting to a life after care can be difficult with youngsters sometimes living alone and required to get their head around bills and other responsibilities to keep their home.

Analysis from the Policy Institute at King’s College London found Lifelong Links reduced the possibility of a young care leaver becoming homeless by 10%. For Tubman, who has ADHD and autism, Lifelong Links meant she could call on her former schoolteachers and care workers for advice and support. She calls them her ‘aunties’.

She told the Big Issue it was instrumental in helping her fill out forms to make a claim for personal independence payments (PIP) from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), for example.

Tubman said her claim is currently awaiting the result of a tribunal after her appeal was rejected.

“When you leave care you don’t really have support apart from your personal advisor,” said Tubman.

“When you’re 18 and when you move into your flat, you are just left to figure it out. I think it’s important to have bonds with people and connections and support so you’re not on your own, because that was one of the worst feelings.”

Lifelong Links began as a three-year pilot in 2017 but has since been hailed as “one of the most successful innovations” in children’s services in recent years by Isabelle Trowler, the government’s chief social worker for children and families. 

The announcement of £30m government funding to enable 23 additional and existing councils to run Lifelong Links is a “gamechanger”, according to Family Rights Group.

But the new government can go further to help more young people, the charity said.

“Today’s announcement is an important step in the right direction, taking the total number of UK local authorities offering Lifelong Links to 42. But it still leaves young people in the care system in four in five councils denied the opportunity to benefit,” said Cathy Ashley, chief executive of Family Rights Group. 

“Our Build Not Break campaign is calling on the new government to ensure it is available to all children and young people in the care system and care leavers. 

“Lifelong Links is transforming lives for children in care. It is increasing the number of people they can turn to, improving their mental health and sense of identity, and reducing the chance of becoming homeless. These and other impacts reduce councils’ social care costs by bringing down the demands on social care teams, meaning that the programme more than pays for itself.” 

The charity also argued that wider adoption of the programme could help councils save cash at a time when some local authorities are struggling to avoid effective bankruptcy.

Recent evaluation of Lifelong Links has shown that Hertfordshire County Council avoided more than £800,000 in costs having supported 44 young people through the programme.  

Matt Clayton, strategic lead – children in care, children with disabilities and care leavers at Coventry City Council, which is among the councils being funded to extend the scheme, said: “Far too often the care system damages or breaks relationships instead of repairing or maintaining them.

“Lifelong Links allows for something really different where children and young people in care are supported to build a loving network of support which will remain with them throughout adulthood. We all know that relationships matter and Lifelong Links allows the most important relationships for children and young people to be nurtured and supported.

“Lifelong Links is one of the most transformative developments to have taken place within the care system and really allows those young people leaving care to do so in a much more supportive way.”

For a young care leaver like Tubman, the programme means she can look to the future.

She dreams of being a TV presenter and has already had a taste of the small screen after featuring in a Channel 4 documentary on the care system called KIDS last year.

“I have quite big dreams and aspirations but universal credit says to me: that’s being unrealistic,” she told the Big Issue. “I say to them that your dreams are realistic if you work hard enough and push them and make them come true. I want to be a TV presenter, I want to be in that entertainment industry.

“I think it’s crucial to build bonds with people before you leave care. If someone doesn’t really speak to anyone and has no support whatsoever and doesn’t have Lifelong Links. What are they going to do if they don’t really have anyone to go to and they are struggling? They won’t have food, they won’t understand the bills, they’ll feel lonely. It’s very unfortunate for them. I feel bad for them. I just want to give everyone a hug.”

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