Supporting Parents with Care Experience
Recommendations to Esmée Fairbairn Foundation from the Parents with Care Experience Steering Group
June 2026
Introduction
We are a group of five mums with care-experience. Since September we have been supporting the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation to understand the experiences of parents with care experience.
In this document we set out some key recommendations we believe Esmée Fairbairn Foundation should follow when making grants to charities and other organisations working to support parents with care-experience.
In making these recommendations we want to acknowledge:
• Our recommendations are informed by our lived experience, but also by thorough literature review and consultation activities with parents and professionals conducted by Janet and Richard from the Esmée Fairbairn Leaving Care Learning Programme.
• We are all mums caring for our children at home. We acknowledge that some parents with care experience cannot care for their children themselves. We have worked hard to consider their needs as well as our own.
• Similarly, we have worked hard to consider the needs of dads in this work.
• We live in England and Northern Ireland, but we know this issue matters in Wales and Scotland too.
• We all have links to organisations the Foundation already funds through the Leaving Care Funding Programme.
• We cannot represent all parents with care experience, but we have worked hard to be inclusive. As a result, we feel that the recommendations should be useful to the Foundation when working with parents with care-experience in any context.
Key insights and recommendations
What types of activity should be funded?
We considered a range of different types of activity the Foundation could fund including research and evaluation, campaigns and influencing, training and support for statutory services and work to change the narrative and challenge the stigma that affects many parents with care-experience.
Recommendation 1
Whilst we see the value in all these types of activity, we strongly recommend that the majority of any funding is focused on the direct delivery of support to parents with care-experience and their children.
We make this recommendation because:
• there is a postcode lottery of services and support for parents with care-experience,
• even a relatively small amount of support can make a huge difference,
• dedicated services and support for parents with care-experience enable us to build support networks and community,
• We can find it hard to access services aimed at parents because of both our age and our care-experience.
What kinds of support and service should be prioritised?
Parents with care-experience and their children have all sorts of different needs that the Foundation could support.
Broadly, we considered the following:
• Support aimed at young people before they, or their partner, get pregnant, or during their pregnancy
• Support following separation, or adoption, of the children of parents with care experience, and support for the reunification of parents with care-experience with their children
• Support for parents with care experience and their children
• Support for all young parents and their children (not specifically parents with care experience)
• Support for young dads, including co-parenting, healthy relationships and stopping domestic violence
Recommendation 2
We recommend that funds be targeted at support for parents with care experience and their children, with smaller targeted funding opportunities for support around; pregnancy; separation, adoption and reunification; and support for co-parenting and young dads.
What should be considered when assessing applications?
We think the following characteristics would be part of any strong applications:
Involvement and representation of parents with care experience
3. The voice and participation of parents with care-experience should be evident throughout the application. This could be seen through codesign but also in other ways, for example with parents with care-experience leading delivery or acting as volunteers or mentors. There should be “people like us” in the room.
Access and inclusion
4. Inclusive access criteria are essential. Care experienced parents should be prioritised, but we would not want to see support exclusively aimed at those legally defined as “care leavers” or with children of a particular age or circumstance. We particularly think that the age of the parents should not be relevant for eligibility. Attendance criteria should be flexible. We would welcome applications to deliver support that included all young parents (as they face many of the same challenges as parents with care experience) and would like to see as broad a definition of ‘careexperienced’ as possible. We would prefer to see services that do not operate a waiting list.
5. Applications that include elements of outreach or community engagement to ensure that all parents with care experience (and not just those currently on the radar of children’s social care services) are included.
Approach and ethos
6. The tone of the application and the way parents with care experience are described should be positive but realistic about the challenges parents face. Parents with care experience can be incredible parents and have so much to offer our communities, but it is the case that current support is not good enough and that parents with care experience face too many challenges.
7. An element of advocacy should be valued. All parents need non-judgemental advice and signposting to the services and support they need. Having someone independent who can fight your corner is invaluable.
Support offer
8. Support should be holistic and should address the needs of both parents and children. Support could include child development activities, peer support for parents, education, advocacy, material support like a baby bank or food/fuel vouchers. There should be a particular emphasis on fun activities that allow parents and children to make precious memories together. It is important that any support services actively celebrate the achievements of parents and children and also celebrate life events like birthdays. There should also be opportunities for parents to do fun and relaxing activities on their own, without their children, but high quality and trusted childcare will need to be made available.
9. Applications that identify short term and long term impacts of the support for both parent and child should be prioritised. Parents are not just carers for their children –they have their own hopes and ambitions. Support that helps children to thrive but also parents to build their own skills and confidence and pursue their dreams is essential.
Environment and delivery
10. The places and spaces where interactions take place should be high quality, attractive and thoughtfully designed or selected. They should be fully accessible and have private spaces available in case they are needed.
Sustainability and long-term planning
11. Services and support should be funded for as long, and as sustainably, as possible. This requires commitment from Esmée Fairbairn Foundation but also requires longterm planning from organisations receiving grants who should be able to clearly set out how they will spend money, how many parents they will work with and how they will work to achieve sustainability where possible.
What types of organisations should be considered?
Whilst the most important thing is the type of support on offer and the way it has been designed and will be delivered, we also think that Trustees should consider the qualities, values and commitment of the organisations applying for grants:
12. It matters to us that organisations have a clear mission and real clarity about how any funds will be spent. We would like organisations to have a strong understanding of the context that parents with care-experience raise their children in. They must have done their homework!
13. Whilst not essential, we would recommend organisations that deliver an element of Care Awareness training, as part of their work, to local professionals and services who may be supportive care-experienced individuals.
14. Organisational leadership and the staff involved in delivering this work should be committed, non-judgemental and inclusive. We value professionals whose heart is in the right place and who are keen to learn.
What should the strategy of the Foundation be in this area?
When making grants in this area Trustees should act strategically.
We have prioritised services and support because there is so little and they are so needed. In the longer term however, we must change the landscape. We would love to see a highquality and well-evidenced support offer for parents with care-experience from every local authority and action and commitment from all four home nation governments. We think this could be achieved through research, evaluation, best practice networks and influencing activities.
Recommendation 15
Promising services and forms of support should receive the support they need to scale and spread across the country. This could be through support with research and evaluation or through campaigning and influencing
We acknowledge that the organisations delivering services and support might not be the best placed to make those changes happen.
Recommendation 16
Funded organisations should be properly supported by expert organisations to have impact across the whole country
We understand that the Foundation may take a variety of approaches in finding the right organisations to fund in this area. Whatever approach is taken, it is important to us that:
17. The bidding process should be demystified and accessible. Whilst a well written application might be helpful in understanding the proposed work, we know that there is more to being successful in this area than just the ability to write a good bid. We would encourage you to have a conversation or casual interview as part of assessment. The grant-making team should be approachable, open and easy to talk to. Parents with care experience should have a role in examining applications.
18. We would encourage an application process that is accessible to organisations that are led by care-experienced individuals and to newer or smaller organisations.
Final words
Through our own lived experience, and the research and consultations we have reviewed, we are certain that parents with care-experience face unique challenges and that change for the better is sorely needed. We would encourage you to commit to this area as much as you can.
As a group, we also wanted to say that we appreciate being involved in this process and that many of us would like to stay involved if possible.
A final message from Abbie:
It has been lovely to finally have a voice in an area where I often feel lost, judged, discriminated against and looked down upon even though you know you are a good parent who would do anything for your child but society, people and professionals make you doubt this. For once I was heard, not ignored because of my age or status.
For any parent of any age, becoming a parent can be so daunting, isolating and scary as we navigate a new world. Being a parent can be scary and worrying at any time for anyone as a child grows and we navigate new challenges such as toilet training or our child’s first sleepover. We often doubt and worry if we have done the right thing, only because we all want the best for our child/children. For any parent figure, we all know this feeling and at least once felt alone in being a parent.
For young parents and those with care experience, Society, which is supposed to be adaptable and accepting to our more diverse needs, is still failing to accept and welcome those who are young parents or those parents with care experience even though young parents are becoming the norm with more people having kids young. Doors shut in our face, other parents look away, made to feel like a monster often by others’ perceptions, left to be made to feel there is no place for us. Lack of services and support that is affordable and non-judgmental, left to deal with it all alone but somewhat we still manage because we are amazing and adaptable. We walk down the street and find other young parents but are often left to wonder where are you hiding as there is no place for us in this judgmental society.
Yes, we may be young and care-experienced but most of us are sure to be some of the best parents you will ever meet. Determined and strong, giving our children every opportunity we can and of course teaching them to have better values than everyone else, e.g. not singling a child out because they have a young parent. We are young and care-experienced but we would not change that in the world as it makes us the great parents we are today!!
A final message from Louise:
Dear Trustees,
Thank you for the opportunity to contribute to this important work. As a young mum with care experience, I deeply appreciate being trusted to share our insights and help shape how the Foundation understands and supports parents like me. Our recommendations draw on lived experience, research, and consultation, and reflect the diverse realities of mums, dads, and families across the UK. I believe that directing funding toward high quality, inclusive, and holistic support for parents with care experience and ensuring that parents’ voices are central to design and delivery will make the biggest difference. Even small amounts of the right support can transform a family’s future, especially in a landscape where services are inconsistent and often hard to access.
Looking ahead, I hope this work becomes part of a wider shift toward long-term, sustainable support for parents with care experience in every local authority. With strategic funding, promising services can grow, expert organisations can help them scale, and more parents can access the advocacy, community, and practical help they need to thrive. My hope is simple: that this investment leads to stronger families, joyful memories, and futures where parents with care experience are supported not just to care for their children, but to pursue their own ambitions with confidence.
A final message from Chereece:
It has been a privilege to have involvement and have my opinions and experiences not only heard but enabled to implement change. I am excited to see what comes from it for the future.