Care trajectories and imagining potential: Positioning the need for skills, confidence and communication among key professionals supporting the higher education progression of care-experienced young people

This paper sets out to develop understanding around supporting the journeys of care-experienced young people towards higher education (HE) in South-East England, through the professionals working with them. Those with care experience remain less likely than others to enter HE. In contrast to individualised approaches that implicitly or explicitly assume a deficit in care-experienced young people to be ‘filled’ by approaches focusing on increasing their resilience and aspiration, we focus here on the role of professionals who work with them. Findings discussed here come from a set of interviews with seven foster carers and three social workers, carried out as part of a wider project involving an interprofessional team encompassing education, social work and widening participation. We identify that while professionals are often motivated to support care-experienced young people in progressing to HE, many lack the necessary skills and knowledge. This leads us to identify the need for more targeted support both from and for professionals, for young people and those who work with them, to be able to imagine and create HE futures. This requires wider understanding around the impact of trauma on young people's ability to engage with education opportunities, and the need for recognition of the potential of care-experienced young people and differential targeting of resources, drawing on insights from Sen's capabilities approach.