SCOTLAND’S leading organisations which support care leavers have written to Richard Lochhead calling on a £8100-a-year bursary given to students who have spent time in care to be raised to around £11,000.
The Care Experienced Bursary is made for students who have spent time in care and is aimed to encourage them to continue their education. As with other forms of student support it is paid during term time.
The groups want the grant to be increased but also want it to be paid all year round rather than just in term time, saying care-experienced students are at particular risk of financial hardship during the holidays from college or university.
The bursary currently provides £8100 per year based on 38 weeks of study. If it were to move to 52 weeks at the same rate it would provide just under £11,000 per year, an increase of around £2900 annually.
Financial hardship for care leavers is a particular risk with job opportunities hit because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Lochhead, the Minister for Further Education, Higher Education and Science, was told that many students from care experienced backgrounds cannot fall back on family support.
“As you will know, care-experienced young people often lack the family support networks of their peers, making it more challenging for them to weather financial shocks and changes to their income, particularly as many already face additional financial deprivation. This will, unfortunately, continue to be the case beyond the current crisis,” said the letter.
“There is therefore a need, and an opportunity, to build a longer-term solution to this issue that ensures a better normal for care-experienced students. Care-experienced young people cannot and must not get lost in this pandemic. We believe that the simplest and most effective solution is for the Care Experienced Bursary to be increased to cover 12 months of the year. This would ensure that no care-experienced student in further or higher education would face holiday hardship between term times.”
The organisations say the change they want would benefit more than 2500 students in Scotland.
Jo Derrick, of the Scottish Throughcare and Aftercare Forum (Staf), Scotland’s care leaver charity, said: “Care-experienced young people are less likely to have the family support network of their peers or have a ‘bank of mum and dad’ to rely on.”
The letter has been signed by Derrick; Claire Burns, director of CELCIS (acting); Lorraine Moore, manager of The Hub for Success; and Duncan Dunlop, CEO of Who Cares? Scotland. A total of 2510 young people received the care-experienced bursary in 2018/19.
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