Care Leavers' Association

On 9th October 2006, the government launched a new consultation paper, entitled ' Care Matters: Transforming the Lives of Children and Young People in Care'. The green paper examined the current care system and made suggestions for improvements (summary available here).

The paper made suggestions for improvements to be made to the current system, including allowing young people to stay in foster placements up to the age of 21, giving them priority for places at the bets schools and introducing a tiered framework of foster carers in order to better match children to placements.

The paper was open to consultation until January 2007 and the CLA produced a response, which was circulated to members for their input in the belief that this was an excellent opportunity for care leavers to use their experiences of life in care to achieve positive change in the current system.