Supporting the Progression of Looked After Young People to University

Evaluating the work of the North-East Raising Aspirations Partnership in the context of analysing differing pathways to university progression for looked after young people.

Project Dates: Start date: September 2013 End date: July 2014
Project Leader: Laura Mazzoli Smith
Staff: Karen Laing, Laura Mazzoli Smith, Lil Collingham
Sponsors: Catherine Cookson Foundation

Background

Local Authorities have a strategic requirement to increase the numbers of their LAYP (Looked After Young People) progressing to university, since current numbers are very low. Of more than 89 000 children in care in Britain only 6% in England were in Higher Education by 19 in 2011, and only 4% in the North-East, compared with 33% of young people overall.

The Buttle UK Charity has carried out a major national study of this issue (Jackson et al. 2005), which has highlighted not only the poorer educational levels of care leavers, but also the sustained lack of information, support and encouragement they are likely to receive whilst in care.

There is however very little research on the progression of ex-care leavers as they are hard to locate and rarely continue into Higher Education. Whilst Newcastle University has both a strategic and practical commitment to widening participation in general, with good results, this group of students continues to be particularly under-represented.

This project is based on a relationship between CfLaT and Lil Collingham of the North-East Raising Aspirations Partnership (RAP), which works with the Universities of Newcastle, Sunderland and Northumbria to support the progression of disadvantaged young people into Higher Education.

This study is linked to the work of the Newcastle Institute for Social Renewal in its understanding of Newcastle University as a civic university and in its concern with social justice in education.

Aims and objectives

an external evaluation of the North-East Raising Aspirations Partnership (RAP) Programme ‘Choices Together’, supporting looked after young people (LAYP) in secondary education to progress to university in the North-East
an analysis of differing pathways to university progression for other LAYP in the North-East, considering both barriers and supportive factors and the recommendations of LAYP themselves
recommendations to North-East Local Authorities and Higher Education providers on widening participation provision designed specifically for LAYP
an expansion of the knowledge-base around progression to university for LAYP in the North-East in particular
baseline information on which a national study looking at supporting the progression of LAYP to university can be developed

Methods for undertaking the review

We will be constructing a three-way comparison group:

one group of LAYP who attended Choices Together in the North-East and progressed to university
one group of LAYP who attended Choices Together in the North-East and did not progress to university
one group LAYP who did not attend Choices Together and are now at a North-East university

We will be using an in-depth narrative life history method (Mazzoli Smith, 2012 and 2013), the focus of which is to understand the overall educational pathway which each student encountered in the context of their own lives, including barriers and supportive factors, as well as their own recommendations for improvements, countering the usual focus on outcome measures or correlation factors.

References

Jackson S, Ajayi S and Quigley M (2005) Going to University from Care, London: Institute of Education.
Mazzoli Smith L (2014, forthcoming) Innovative Narrative Life History Interviews, Sage Case Study Methods Online.
Mazzoli Smith L and Campbell JR (2012) Families, Education and Giftedness: Case Studies in the Construction of High Achievement, Rotterdam: Sense.

Contact

For further information contact:
Laura Mazzoli Smith, Principal Investigator.
Email: laura.mazzolismith@ncl.ac.uk
Telephone: 0191 208 6380