The Care Leaver Covenant is a national inclusion programme for care leavers between the age of 16-25 in England. The Covenant is a promise made by the private, public and voluntary sectors to provide support for care leavers through 5 key areas: independent living; education, employment and training; safety and security, mental and physical health and finance.
The Covenant team works with organisations such as John Lewis, Amazon, Barnardo’s, Metro Bank and many others to find (or in some cases develop) and promote a variety of opportunities direct to the care leaving community.
These opportunities could take the shape of internships and employment, work experience or taster days, specialist bank accounts and access to employment support or CV workshops, for example. The Covenant may also be a resource to direct someone to an independent person or organisation to chat to about their current situation.
Some of the Covenant’s work is also directed within the Higher Education sector, challenging colleges, and universities to provide enhanced support for care experienced students and employees. We ask institutions to detail the support they offer to care leaver and experienced students, which we publish online. To find out more about which colleges and universities have signed up and how they’re developing their support, take a look here.
The Covenant believes that with the right, extended support network, working alongside the statutory provision of the Local Authority, we can broker experiences that could enhance and reshape someone’s journey out of the care system.
If you are a care leaver and you’d like to receive information on Covenant opportunities in and around your area, sign up to Connects to get tailored information to your inbox or drop us a line to find out more.