Below are some of the ways you can support CEYP in applying and moving on to higher education.
Identifying Care Experienced Applicants
- Encourage self declaration - make clear in applicant information that ticking the UCAS box will NOT influence their application but CAN trigger additional guidance and support during application, transition and post arrival.
- Provide multiple opportunities to self-declare- Learners may not have disclosed their care expereince on the UCAS form or may have applied through a direct route so having other opportunities to disclose can encourage learners to share their satus with you. Enrollement, accomodation and student services interactions are good places for this!
- Follow up with your data management team to get an idea of how many students have identified themselves as care experienced. It’s worth noting that most institutions find that there are usually some students who tick the UCAS box in error; it may be that they have worked in care or been a carer prior to university.
- Check at enrolment: use the new HESA data fields to check if students are care leavers or care experienced during your internal enrolment/registration process. NNECL has developed a decision tree to help with this process and it is worth co-ordinating this with your Student Records or Data Management team.
- Promote your available bursaries/scholarships: if you have specific care leaver/care experienced scholarships or bursaries, promote them actively.
- Link with virtual schools: building relationships with your local virtual schools may help you and them to identify, track and support students earlier.
- Follow up with Local Authority Leaving Care Teams: in some areas, a single Leaving Care worker may support all young people who are moving into higher education within the authority. Offer your support and assistance in helping them to support their cohort of young people.
- General publicity: communicate your support for care experienced students across the whole student community including via email, VLEs (Virtual Learning Environments), posters and in student accommodation.
- Staff awareness: promote the support internally across your institutions and ensure that academics, tutors and other staff know how to signpost relevant students to you.
- Website: make sure that your package of support is clearly outlined on your outward facing website, along with your contact details.
Engaging applicants
- Ongoing communication: send personalised letters and email throughout the application process, as CEYP may move placements and might miss important information about the support available.
- Supported visits: offer the opportunity to attend an open day, applicant day or tour. Care experienced applicants may be put off coming on their own and may not visit at all before they arrive.
- One to one meetings: if they don’t want to attend a full event with you, offer to meet informally to introduce yourself. Try and time meetings whilst they are already on campus, at an applicant day or open day.
- Increase awareness within the admissions team: some Care Leavers struggle to provide relevant ID and paperwork which can delay the admissions process or lead to rejections that could be avoided.
- Liaise with Local Authorities: with the student’s consent, work with the Local Authority to outline the support package the student will receive.
Useful pre-entry support
- Interview support: offer sessions to support applicants to prepare for their course interview as this can sometimes be a challenging area for CEYP.
- Support for UCAS and student finance applications: reading through a personal statement or supporting CEYP to complete relevant paperwork or apply for Student Finance can make a massive difference.
- Other scholarships and bursaries: keep them informed of any institutional specific scholarships or bursaries that they might be eligible for over and above the care leaver/care experienced bursary.
- Guarantor support: highlight potential stumbling blocks such as any requirement for a guarantor for student accommodation sooner rather than later. Some institutions are willing to be guarantor for care experienced students, others may offer access to a guarantor scheme.
- Attend Pathway planning meetings (with students' permission): all Care Leavers should have pathway planning meetings to plan the level of support they will receive before they come to college or university. It is really useful for everyone involved if the university or college can be represented as it allows everyone to be clear on the full package of support available.
- Prioritise CEYP for compact schemes or Summer Schools: this really help more vulnerable students with transition so do promote these opportunities to any CEYP or care leavers you work with.
Hints and tips
- Ensure a clearly visible named contact for prospective students and staff to contact.
- Ideally offer impartial advice and guidance pre-entry to all CEYP.
- Ensure local authorities in your area are aware of the support available.
- Make clear to care experienced applicants any policy on additional considerations during application, e.g. lower or conditional offers.
- Provide details of additional support available on results day if applicable.
- Remember that care experienced students don’t necessarily want to meet other care experienced students and may avoid it all costs.
- Keep things informal and friendly.
- Prepare for the fact that some students may be untrusting or unwilling to engage. Remain positive and don’t see this as a reflection of your own skills. CEYP have often been involved with a plethora of supporters and workers throughout their lives; you may just be one of many.
- Build links with the admissions team so that you can request them to run ‘queries’ for you at appropriate times of the year.
- Be flexible: you need to be prepared to deal with ad hoc concerns or queries that sometimes take a little time to resolve.
- Make clear in application information that ticking the UCAS box will NOT influence their application but CAN trigger additional guidance and support during application and post arrival.
- Determine the level of support available at time of arrival on campus, e.g. is 24/7 support available during the first week? Communicate this in welcome packs along with other relevant information, e.g. financial support available, any additional accommodation services and reminders on the key liaison/contact person to access additional support.
- Some CEYP may approach you to access the financial support available but then may not want further contact for some time. If it’s right for them at that particular time and they don’t feel they need support, that’s fine. It is worth remembering that they may need support in their second or third years, so do keep reaching out regularly and reminding them of what is available.
