University featured in national guide to support care leavers

19th July 2016

Sheffield Hallam University's award winning outreach team is featured in a new national guide for supporting care leavers wanting to come to university.

The guide, The Caring University in 2016, was launched as part of an Action on Access conference in London, which looked at the successful work that has been carried out in a number of universities to improve the student experience of care leavers. The guide features comments from Sheffield Hallam outreach workers and students who have experience of the care system. The University was chosen to be featured as it had previously been awarded exemplary status by the Buttle UK Quality Mark for Care Leavers in Higher Education in 2006.The scheme was discontinued in 2015, having achieved its goal of raising awareness of care leavers among colleges and universities. Sheffield Hallam University's Outreach and Widening Participation Team also recently won a 'Caring for Carers' award from the charity Sheffield Young Carers. Staff from the team spoke at the conference about how care leavers are supported at the University. Cassie Joicey, Senior Outreach and Widening Participation Officer, said: "We are delighted to feature in this new guide. Helping young people who are care leavers or from backgrounds that traditionally have low participation in higher education to come to university is a key priority for us. "This guide recognises the work Sheffield Hallam has done to support students from those backgrounds and looks at best practice across the sector." Andrew Rawson, Principal at Action on Access, said: "Sheffield Hallam more than justly merited their award of exemplary university in the Buttle UK Quality Mark for care leavers in higher education - which is why I asked them to showcase their work at our conference launch. The team at Sheffield Hallam are so committed and effective and the work improves each year." The guide will be available to download from the Action on Access website from this week.