Submission to the Education Committee inquiry into the impact of COVID-19 (2020)

The COVID-19 outbreak has significantly impacted on the lives of the children in care and young care leavers we support. We have moved to delivering all of our advice and support services over the phone and online. Our coronavirus advice webpage was published on Tuesday 17 March 2020 to answer key questions for care-experienced young people and offer tailored information on how the outbreak might impact on the care or support they receive. In the month following lockdown, we worked with more than double the number of young people compared to the same period last year, and the majority of enquiries to our advice services were related to the outbreak.

In this submission, we detail our concerns about the impacts of COVID-19 on the delivery of statutory services to children and care and care leavers, and identify through our support work ongoing issues around ensuring financial security, accessing entitlements, preventing homelessness, and getting consistent support from professionals at this time.