It’s no surprise that young parents and particularly young mum’s have to overcome immense barriers to access education, employment and training. A 2017 piece of research by Action for Children found that only one in ten young parents went to university, compared to 45% of young people in general. 39% were only just scraping by financially. Social isolation was also an issue with 19% never or rarely seeing friends and it’s no surprise that mental health difficulties amongst young parents were significantly higher. This study was over seven years ago and with an ongoing cost-of-living crisis these numbers have undoubtedly increased.
 
This episode will examine the challenges young parents face when trying to access education, employment and training. It will also aim to highlight available support and discuss what more could be done.
 
We talk to young mum and former resident, Louise who highlights the difficulties that she faced as a young parent and a care leaver and signposts to some of the help available.

Louise mentions the charity Become who support care experienced young people https://becomecharity.org.uk/,  and  https://driveforwardfoundation.org/ 

Here are some other useful links if you are a young parent seeing education, employment or training (EET)

https://centrepoint.org.uk/what-we-do/education-training-and-employment
https://thisisusatuni.org/
https://www.gov.uk/care-to-learn
https://www.turn2us.org.uk/