Workshops
1. Rebecca Murray, Director of Article 26, and Emily Bowerman from the
Refugee Support Network: ‘Supporting Unaccompanied Minors towards
Higher Education’
This workshop will enable participants to understand the barriers facing
unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in their educational journeys towards
university and equip them with the information they need to plan ahead and
overcome the challenges. Suitable for all levels, this interactive workshop will ensure
that all participants become confident in understanding the relevant terminology
around immigration status and the eligibility for higher education funding attached
to different statuses. Drawing on the trainers' experience in offering advice and
guidance to young asylum seekers and in supporting universities to develop tailored
scholarship schemes, this workshop will offer participants advice about alternative
sources of funding for asylum-seeking students and tips for how to enable these
students to develop appropriate educational plans from an early stage.
2. Natalie Latham, Outreach and Progression Coordinator, University of
Wolverhampton, Balwant Bains, Virtual Head for Sandwell LA and Peter
Cox, Director of Creating Chances Trust Charity : ‘Aspire2Uni – A progressive
long term outreach programme for LAC: a partnership approach’
The workshop is designed to share good practice in terms of partnership
working/progressive programme approaches and working with the third sector. The
workshop will begin with an interactive quiz to set the scene and then participants
will have a chance to hear about how the programme works, the partners that are
involved and the role of the third sector. Participants will then have chance to ask
questions and form groups to share practice relating to their own experiences and
begin to discuss how they may move forward with their approaches relating to
raising the aspirations, attainment and progression of LAC within their own
organisations.
3. Rachel Calver, Virtual School Kent: ‘Supporting Transition from Key Stage 4
into Key Stage 5’
With the government focus around the NEET agenda, VSK has responded by
increasing its remit to include the post 16 age group, resulting in a new way of
working for the post 16 team. Through the success if this work, developments have
expended to now include specific VSK staff for the year 11 cohort and now reaching
into the 18+ service.
This workshop will explore how Virtual School Kent works in partnership with key
agencies to support the transition of young people entering Key Stage 5 through:
 training offered to professionals,
 promoting post 16 options,
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allocating Post 16 Support Officers to young people
new Year 11 Progression Support Officers
working with other local authority teams with a focus on NEETs in local areas
success and areas to develop
transition policy
The workshop will include a presentation on Virtual School Kent’s model, group work
activity on successes and group discussion around developments.
4. Vanessa Chapman, Kent and Medway Care Leaver Progression Partnership
& Sharon Smith, Director of HEAT: ‘The Data Flow: Using data to inform
objectives for care leaver support’
TITLE: The Data Flow: Using data to inform objectives for care leaver support
DESCRIPTION: How can we make best use of the data we gather to help inform our practice?
The collection and analysis of qualitative and quantitative data is often seen as the end point
of a piece of work, rather than a stage within the flow of work. This workshop will focus on
how to use data to inform objectives, and then put those into practice in our work with care
leavers.
FORMAT: The workshop will draw on examples from Kent and Medway, and will encourage
delegates to think about applications in their own work through an interactive practical
exercise. There will be an opportunity for delegates to share their own examples and ideas
for how they make practical use of data in their work.
5. Andy Turner, Rochdale Council – ‘Care 2 Work project: Identifying and
overcoming barriers into apprenticeships, training or employment for those
in care’
The Care 2 Work project was aimed at supporting Greater Manchester’s Care Leavers into
employment, apprenticeships or training. It aimed to identify and promote best practice in
each LA and also seek solutions to barriers for young people in care who wish to access
Apprenticeships, training or employment.
The project looked to ensure a consistent, high quality approach to those leaving care
throughout every area in Greater Manchester.
Andy Turner (18 years’ experience within the Apprenticeship sector) led on the Care 2 Work
project on behalf of The Greater Manchester Combined Authority and all 10 Greater
Manchester Local Authorities.
The workshop will…
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Identify the main barriers faced by young people from care in accessing
Apprenticeships, training or employment.
Identify best practice within Local Authorities in relation to Apprenticeships, preApprenticeship programmes and Guidance.
Explore potential solutions to the barriers.
6. SPA: Jeni Clack, SPA: ‘Using Admissions to bridge the gap for care leavers case studies of good practice and group discussion to further the
engagement of admissions staff in supporting care leavers’
This workshop will seek to build on SPA’s guide ‘Using Admissions to bridge
the gap for care leavers’ through participants discussing and sharing their
insights and practices together. The workshop will therefore include:
1. An overview of SPA’s guide, highlighting case study examples of what’s
already being done within admissions at different universities.
2. Open discussion on the benefits of supporting care leavers through
admissions (this will inform a short list of benefits that SPA will circulate
to admissions staff across the UK).
3. Working in small groups to:
a. identify participants’ experiences of successful support in outreach,
transition, retention and other areas
b. work out what intelligence/data/expertise already exists and what’s
missing
c. consider what could be done in admissions to support and join-up
long-term success
d. develop a ‘request list’ to admissions, noting how care expertise from
other areas can support admissions activity and vice-versa.
After the conference, SPA will compile the lists from each group and circulate
amongst those who participated, so they can discuss proposals with
admissions staff in their own institutions.
7. Suzanne Marchment, Aimhigher London South: ‘Year 12 Higher Education
Champions’ coaching programme: building capacity through the coaching
relationship for mutual benefit
The workshop will describe the development of the Higher Education (HE)
Champions programme. The six month peer programme matched 15 University
undergraduates with 16 learners across 7 local authorities in year 12 and
those studying at level 3 and above to support their transition to University. One
of the highlighted outcomes was that involvement built capacity for both
learners and coaches for developing resilience. The collaborative programme was
developed through the Aimhigher London South LAC-HE network and is a
combination of face to face and e-mentoring communications where the learnercoach pair were given the responsibility of negotiating and agreeing meeting
content and targets. The workshop will identify the challenges: designing and
delivering a programme with multiple partners, engaging with learners,
maintaining the momentum and explore the benefits of a learner-led
programme: the mutual development of trust and resilience in both coach and
leaner. Participants will have the chance to experience an element of the
training.
8. Tony Clifford Tony Clifford Head of Virtual School Stoke-on-Trent, Sharon
MacDonald, Stoke-on-Trent Virtual School and Sarah Rivers, Head of Virtual
School Staffordshire Virtual School: ‘The West Midlands Learner Support
Agreement – better support for Post 16 young people’
A group of West Midlands Virtual Heads have been working with social care, careers
and Post 16 providers to develop a learner support agreement, designed to ensure
the best possible multi-agency support for young people in and leaving care in Post
16 education.
Our voluntary agreement has provide a powerful focus for support and challenge
and has led to improved outcomes. For example in Stoke-on-Trent all post 16
providers are signatories and there have been no unilateral cessation of placements
and a major improvement in ETE since the agreement’s inception.
We will be sharing how the agreement works and a number of case studies, showing
how the agreement makes a difference.
9. Mary Hinton, Boingboing: ‘Building Resilience in Care Leavers for better
educational outcomes’
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Introduction to the Resilience Framework
Examining the experience of CiC and Care Leavers in education through a
resilience lens
How to make it everybody’s business – a systemic approach.
The workshop will include interactive activities and group discussion.
Participants will also be directed to further materials available on line.
10. Charmaine Valente, IAG Partner Account Manager, Jonathan Vinton Senior
Assessor for the Independent Team at the Student Loans Company: 'Talk to
the Expert from the Independent Team at Student Finance England'
A short presentation will cover all aspects of the Independent Application process
with updates on enhancements to the application, together with an interactive
session based upon some real scenarios and the opportunity for you to ask questions
from a Senior Team member of the Independent Team.
The session will include stats on 2015/16 - Estrangements evidence explained Estrangement forms - 2017 Financial support - Resources - Useful contact details for
practitioners for Estrangement - reference to a booklet developed between SLC and
Stand Alone as a resource for practitioners
11. Lauren Hedges, Operations Manager, AccessHE: ‘Life after university’
collaborative event – supporting care experienced students as they begin to
consider life after graduation, from rights and entitlements to employment
and postgraduate study’
This workshop will provide an overview of an event delivered by AccessHE, hosted by
London South Bank University, aimed at penultimate or final year care leaver students
currently studying in Higher Education. The event focused on life after graduation, from
leaving care to future employment or further study. Students learnt about their rights
and entitlements, which we will explore in this workshop too through an interactive
activity. The event also provided workshops covering money management and mental
health and wellbeing. The collaborative event was supported by local authorities,
employers, charities such as Drive Forward and Working Chance, and Higher Education
Institutions. The event featured a networking session led by an employer and delegates
will have the chance to experience this for themselves with tips on successful
professional networking.
12. Lisa Saxby, and Alice Frank, Catch22 NLCBF: ‘Pathway planning, what it’s all
about and how it can support care leavers to have a smooth transition into
higher education’
The work shop will be suitable for all levels and all stakeholders who are involved
with supporting care leavers before, during and after higher education placements.
Relevant everyone, including those who are not involved with completing the
pathway plan.
The workshop will seek to
 Introduce the legal and practice context of pathway planning
 Demystify pathway plans and explore their benefits
 Have a go at developing pathway plans
 Encourage the delegates to share experiences and examples of good practice
in pathway planning
 Hear young peoples’ views on pathway planning
 Construct a work plan for NNECL & NLCBF to develop better pathway plans
for 21-25 year olds
13. Chrissie Farley, WP Officer and KU Cares designated member of staff,
Kingston University and Emily Hughes, Access and Support Manager, KU
Cares and Compact Scheme: ‘A support programme that has shown success
in engaging, retaining and empowering care experienced students: KU Cares
at Kingston University’
A discussion about some of the challenges and opportunities in working with
this group.
Engagement
 Engaging key stakeholders to identify Care Leavers pre-application
 Open Day declaration on booking form and AHLS shadow event
 The UCAS application tick box and how we use it (and the challenges
in using SITS data to develop further)
Retention
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Peer transition support
Raising the profile of Care Leavers within the wider University
community – designated personal tutor pilot scheme
Partnership working with KU Talent careers and external
organisations
Empowering and success
 KU Cares ambassador development and Summer work placement
programme
 Graduation package and Postgraduate Opportunity
 How to work with Alumni and Development team to build platform of
opportunities and support for Care Leaver students and graduates
OTHER AGENCIES REPRESENTED:
Andrew Rawson will also be present, representing the new Action on Access guide
The Caring university 2016: Practice, Partnership and Strategy with Care Experienced
Students on post-Buttle
POSTER ABSTRACT:
Gemma Harrison-Thornton Cardiff University
It is accepted that the educational achievement of 'looked after' children is significantly
below that of the general population (Berridge 2011). The poor academic experiences of
young people in care has a significant impact on their future opportunities thereby
increasing the likelihood of social exclusion (Cameron and Jackson 2001). Focussing on this
has resulted in those who nevertheless manage to achieve high levels of academic success
being overlooked. Research is limited, with no official data on the numbers of such
individuals attending universities in Wales. The Department of Education in England
estimate that only 6% of young people leaving the care system enter university (Department
for Education 2011) compared to 52% of those outside of it (Government 2012). Analysing
the support young people receive whilst in 'care' highlights the successful aspects of social
work interventions in encouraging academically talented individuals. Adopting a mixed
method approach to data gathering and analysis, this research aims to explore and
understand what contributes to the success of 'looked after' young people in higher
education. Through semi- structured interviews with young people in university, the study
will seek to explore the support and interventions that young people believe encouraged
and supported them through the higher education process. This research intends to
challenge the negative perceptions of the academic ability of this group and understand the
motivators and inhibitors to higher education. It is hoped that key findings and
recommendations identified can be used to inform future policy and front line practice.