Care Experienced Children and Young People Fund: operational guidance 2023 to 2024

What is this guidance for?

The term ‘care-experienced’ refers to anyone who has been or is currently in care or from a looked-after background at any stage in their life, no matter how short, including adopted children. This care may have been provided in one of many different settings such as in residential care, foster care, kinship care, or through being looked-after at home with a supervision requirement.

The reason this guidance uses this term as opposed to the statutory term ‘Looked After Child’ is to ensure that this policy is inclusive and provides for all groups of young people who experience care and could benefit from this funding. This could include children and young people who are on the edges of care and who need support in order to avoid becoming care experienced.^[1]