The Independent Care Review’s Six Missions

14 February 2023

Over the last couple of years plenty of you have taken part in helping to shape the Independent Care Review.

Lots of you spoke to Marvin, and you told him about your ideas for change that you think would benefit young people across the country. And some of you even went along to Westminster itself for last year’s It’s Our Care event.

As a result of all that, the government have come up with six missions to improve the care system. We will be discussing aspects of the Care Review at Takeover Day later this week, and we will have ongoing conversations with our local politicians about the six missions over the next few months. So have a read through them and let us know what you think!

The Six Missions

Mission One

Social workers and other practitioners make sure children and young people can see and spend time with the people who love and matter most to them.

Mission Two

We want to have more people and organisations act like, or be, corporate parents.

Mission Three

We want to make sure there are enough good foster homes and children’s homes for children to live in. We will do this by:

• Increasing the number of foster homes across the whole country, so that children can stay nearer to their friends and family when they come into care.
• Building more children’s homes in areas where there aren’t enough, so children don’t need to move so far from home.

Mission Four

We want to make sure children in care are supported to do well in school or get good jobs, including older children aged 16 to 19. We will do this by:

• Creating more training and jobs for care leavers.
• Increasing how much money we give to care leavers who do an apprenticeship.
• Working with universities to support care leavers to go to university and to succeed and do well when they are at university.
• Offering more support in school and colleges such as working with a tutor.
• Giving more money to the Care Leaver Covenant who support care leavers aged 16 to 25 with jobs.

Mission Five

We will make sure more care leavers live in safe homes by:

• Helping young people who leave care to stay living with their foster family or give help and support as they start to live on their own
• Increasing the amount of money young people get when they leave care

Mission Six

We want to make sure adults working with children in care and care leavers know how to support them with their physical and mental health needs.

We will give people more training on this. We will make sure children in care and care leavers can see doctors or nurses more easily.