Care leavers’ views on their transition to adulthood: a rapid review of evidence

By Claire Barker

High-quality local authority services to children in care and care leavers
must be grounded in an understanding of children and young people’s
experiences and views, which in turn requires effective mechanisms to
listen and respond to them.

Not only does this review contribute to our understanding of care leavers’ experiences, it was also the first stage in a project to develop a survey of care leavers’ subjective well-being. Subjective well-being looks at young people’s own evaluations of how they feel about their lives.

The rapid review explores the research into what care leavers say about their transition from care and informs the development of an online survey. The new care leaver survey will be co-produced with care leavers. It complements an existing suite of ‘Your Life, Your Care’ surveys capturing the ‘subjective well-being’ of looked after children developed by the University of Bristol and Coram Voice as part of the Bright Spots Programme.