The CLA works with all care leavers over the age of 16. We are guided by the views of our membership and thus have a wide range of areas of interest and activity. However, our work can be grouped into five main areas:

  • User Led Support – A Network Project, group support, social networking site and virtual mechanisms to help people connect.
  • Projects – Areas of work with specific outcomes – young people, access to records, speaking out media.
  • Training and Assessment – We work with a wide range of organisations to improve service delivery to care leavers through training and quality assessment.
  • Advice, information and signposting – Focus on informing care leavers about their rights through signposting to additional support services and developing our guides and fact sheets while providing some individual casework.
  • Research, Policy and Campaigns – We conduct, collate and promote research about care leavers and produce policy guides to raise awareness of care leaver issues. We campaign on issues to change the care system and improve the quality of life of adult care leavers.

View our mission statement or view our policy section for more information about the CLA’s position on various issues.

Advice/Information & Signposting

A large part of our work involves providing advise to care leavers and directing them to services that can help them. We are often contacted by young people from care, or who have just left care, who want to know about their entitlements or to get advice on certain issues, such as housing, education and employment etc. However, we also get many enquiries from older adults, who were in care as children, on issues such as access to records, abuse in care and family tracing. Where we do not have the resources in-house to deal with an enquiry we direct people to organisations that can provide further help and information.

If you have a query, please contact us: 0161 236 1980 or info@careleavers.com

Presentations/Conferences & Training

Over the past couple of years, the CLA has been developing its work to reach out to social workers, students, foster carers, policy makers and other professionals working in this area, through delivering presentations and training on leaving care issues. We are happy to work in partnership with any organisation and will delivery training that will imoprove services for care leavers

Our Websites

We currently run two websites, www.careleavers.com and www.careleaversreunited.org. The CareleaversReunited website, allows care leavers to register their former children’s homes or in the area in which they were in foster care and reconnect with others whom they were in care with.

National Network

We are establishing network groups of care leavers who meet throughout the country. For more information contatc Darren Coyne

Young Person’s Project

A specific project working to raise awareness of the issues affecting care leavers aged 16 -25. For more informaiton contact Carrie Wilson

Previous Work

For an insight to our achievements in previous years download this document.Activities Update 2004-9