Celebrating Care Leavers Month

Today marks the start of Care Leavers Month, and in honour of our campaign to support young care leavers and care experienced in East London, we have become a charity partner with Care Leaver Covenant.

The Care Leaver Covenant is a promise made by private, public or voluntary organisations to provide support for care leavers aged 16-25 to help them to live independently.

The Care Leaver Covenant was established in 2018 as part of the Government’s Keep on Caring’ policy aimed at supporting young people leaving care. 10,000 young people leave the care system every year. Councils support care leavers up to the age of 25, but young people need wider society to play its part, as they do not have access to the resources and networks that other young people have.

So far, more than 600 organisations have signed up by making ‘offers’ to support care leavers aged 16-25 in taking their next steps.

Offers might include:

• One-to-one mentoring
• Work experience placements, internships, apprenticeships and jobs
• Access to sport, leisure and cultural activities, discounted retail offers
• Financial guidance

Pledges

Starting today, we’re sharing the pledges made by guests as part of our campaign launch for Co-Creating Meaningful Change with Care Leavers. 30 powerful statements of intent to help make young lives better.

In June 2025, we launched a new campaign to explore how meaningful change could be made by and with young care experienced and care leavers from the social care system in East London, with a panel event. We invited guests to share pledges about the changes they plan to make after the event.

The event was held at Toynbee Hall, London, and was led by Baroness Lola Young, Co-Chair of the Foundation for Future London.

Here’s our CEO, Sarah Nelson, talking about what this year’s theme means to her and her hope for care leavers and care experienced young people.