Improving the health and wellbeing of young people leaving care - Bob Broad

What are the health and well-being needs of young people leaving care? How do wider social exclusion, family background, or individual factors determine their health and well-being? What difference has the Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000 made? What do young people say about how their current health and well-being needs relate to their earlier lives and what kinds of provision is likely to meet their needs? Research findings, practice examples and analyses - by young people as well as by professionals and academics - will help anyone who offers services that impact on young people in and leaving care to address these questions. They will also inform the work of academics and students. At the book's heart are the findings of two large research studies conducted by the author: the impact of the Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000 on the health and well-being of care leavers is reviewed via the lens of research data gathered from a national overview study of leaving care work in England and Wales a specific two-year young people's health and well-being study highlighting care leavers' own perspectives about their health and well-being needs and service provision.;As well as setting out the legislative, historical and policy framework, the book builds on the research studies, and draws on a range of perspectives to: make good practice recommendations; outline a policy framework for meeting the mental health needs of care leavers; explore the health and well-being of disabled care leavers. It makes the case both for professionals to respond earlier to young people's accounts of damaging abusive episodes in their lives and, at a national level, for a comprehensive system of UK health and well-being indicators for all children and young people, including care leavers, to be introduced as a matter of urgency.