ENGLAND — The government announced the launch of a national family-finding service for care leavers on Thursday, backed by £8.4 million in funding. Government officials stated that the new family-finding system will "make enduring relationships a central priority of the care system for the first time."
The service will assign specially trained coordinators to locate contacts for care leavers. These coordinators will use social care records, school reports, and public birth and marriage registries for their searches.
Children's minister Josh MacAlister commented on the existing care system. "Too much of the care system breaks rather than builds relationships." MacAlister said. He said the anxiety of professionals around children and young people means short-term decisions are made that rupture relationships to create safety for a short period of time. MacAlister said that very act means, long-term, the young person is at risk because they don't have a tribe and have lost those connections.
MacAlister linked a lack of connections to negative outcomes for young people leaving care. He said that ultimately leads to high rates of young people in care who are lost young, have very poor mental health, or very poor educational and employment outcomes. Government data reported that more than 100 young people in England died after leaving social care in the past year. MacAlister noted a lot of the care-leaver deaths he looked at involve very isolated, very lonely young people.
"We have an escalator in the system that pushes young people towards independence, when actually what they need is interdependence." MacAlister said. He said one of the things he has called for is that every young person leaving care should have at least two people in their life who love them. MacAlister said some people got very worried about that and questioned how love is measured, but the absence of that focus is the reason why lots of young care-experienced people are left very vulnerable, particularly at 18.
Hannah, a care leaver, used a family-finding service to reconnect with an aunt and former school friends. "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." Hannah said. 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."
Family-finding programs currently operate in several local authority areas in England. Government assessments indicate that participants in existing local schemes gained an average of nearly two additional meaningful relationships. More than a third of these participants reconnected with immediate family members. In 2024, 10% of children in care in England moved homes three or more times within a single year, and over 20% lived more than 20 miles from their home community.