Who Do You Think You Are?-style service to help young care leavers reconnect with their ‘tribe’

Growing up and leaving the care system is daunting enough, but for 22-year-old Hannah, from Hertfordshire, the biggest anxiety was the sudden reality of no longer having a crowd in her corner. Turning 18 as a care leaver in England has been described as a “cliff edge” at which young people lose access to their social worker and support staff who provide day-to-day advocacy and help in a crisis – a reassuring and constant adult presence. While in care, Hannah had lost touch with people from her old life. Then she used a family-finding service for care leavers to reconnect with an auntie and some friends from school, whom she hadn’t seen in years. “It’s really nice to have more of a trusted network now. We as young people need this. We need this to make true connections and find our value,” she said. “We’ve seen the number of deaths from care leavers and a lot of that is because people don’t have a support network around them. This has helped me reconnect with my inner child, to remember a time when I didn’t have as many worries.” On Thursday, the government announced it would be launching a national Who Do You Think You Are?-style service for care leavers, with £8.4m of funding, to help them find family and friends they lost touch with while living in care. …