Moving to a new home is an exciting and nerve-wracking experience for most people. But for care-experienced individuals like biomedical student Georgia, it can be a challenging and isolating process. Despite the progress that has been made to support care-experienced students in higher education, there are still many obstacles to overcome.
When Georgia became one of the few care-experienced people (CEP) to go to university, she made her background clear to her institution. “Everything made sense,” she told HuffPost UK. “All you have to do is tick a box, get a letter from your local authority, and then send it to the university and student finance.” However, she soon realized that despite this initial step, there were still many hurdles to come.
Georgia is not alone in facing these challenges. In England alone, there are over 83,000 children and young people in care. Yet, only 13% of care leavers (young people who have been looked after by a foster carer since they were 14 years old) progress to higher education by age 19, compared to 46% of the general population. This figure is even lower in Scotland, with only 8% of care-experienced individuals progressing to higher education by age 19.
According to Become’s interim CEO, Clare Bracey, “many universities now offer year-round accommodation for care-experienced students” which is a positive step. However, she also noted that the support available “varies” between institutions. One major barrier is money. Not having a guarantor for the private rental market can make it nearly impossible for care-experienced individuals to secure housing. While some universities offer guarantor schemes, they are not widely available, making it difficult for these students to find suitable accommodation. This may even lead some care-experienced individuals to forgo applying to university altogether, as they cannot see a viable way of supporting themselves throughout the course.
Unfortunately, these struggles do not end once care-experienced students have secured accommodation. We know that almost half of care-experienced students struggle with poor mental health. This, coupled with the lack of adequate support while studying, means that care-experienced students are 38% more likely to withdraw from their course than their peers.
For Georgia, who has just finished her third year, finding suitable accommodation during the summer holidays has been a recurring issue. Despite access to “well-meaning” programmes and policies, she has still faced difficulties. Her local authority agreed to pay for her student lodgings, but she claimed her university would not provide a breakdown of which fees covered the summer months. This delayed her council’s payment, and she had to foot the bill herself for four months before receiving reimbursement.
“It’s a three-way argument,” Georgia explained. “The accommodation services have one protocol, but in order to pay for the accommodation services, you’ve got to go through revenue, who have their own protocol and don’t really care about the accommodation services protocol. And then you’ve got the local authorities protocol, which is completely different.”
In her second year, Georgia turned to private renting, which brought a new set of struggles. Without a guarantor, she found it challenging to secure a place. Although her local authority eventually paid her the promised amount for the deposit, it was long after she had already moved in and paid the bill herself. When her landlord decided to decorate over the summer and asked her to vacate her room, Georgia found herself stuck. She was unable to access accommodation, and her local authority’s response was simply, “you should have planned for your summer accommodation sooner.”
Even where year-round campus accommodation is available, the experience can still be isolating and “othering” for care-experienced students. While their peers move into shared housing, care-experienced individuals are often placed with first-year students for the duration of their studies. This can make it challenging to build long-lasting relationships and feel a sense of belonging.
For Georgia, this feeling of “othering” is a constant struggle. “It’s very frustrating because you’re constantly having to reduce yourself to ‘the care experienced one’ to get around the issues of: I just need somewhere to live,” she shared. It also affects her day-to-day interactions with other students who stay on campus over the summer for resits. When she explains her care experience to other summer residents, she often receives looks of pity. “It pains me,” she said. “I
