Care to Go Higher
As a partnership of West Yorkshire Higher Education (HE) providers, we have a shared responsibility to help care leavers reach their potential through economic and educational progress. To address the challenges young people face when leaving the care system, our Care to Go Higher CPD programme gives the key influencers of care-experienced young people the tools they need to support informed decision making in relation to HE.
Care professionals will attend sessions that include information about HE, resources, activities and guest speakers. This will enable them to be more informed about the interaction of care-experience and HE, which they can share with those for whom they are providing care.
Read our evaluation reports at the bottom of the page to find out more about the programme, how it increased participant knowledge, and feedback from those who have completed it.
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Care to Go Higher evaluation reports
Care to Go Higher Evaluation Report (2022)
The third iteration of Go Higher West Yorkshire’s (GHWY) CPD programme for key influencers of young people in care was held from March to July 2022 with 11 participants graduating from the programme.
The large majority of the participants were foster carers and the programme was adapted between sessions to better accommodate the needs of the participants.
The sessions were run via online meetings including both session content and talks from guest speakers delivered to the participants. Each participant was given access to session resources and slides after each session and additional links/resources of relevance to follow on from the presentation.
Four of the sessions included guest speakers on varying topics including both Higher Education (HE) professionals and care-experienced students. The guest speakers were sourced via our partners and provided a variety of unique insights.
Report considers success of Care to Go Higher’s virtual CPD programme (2021)
GHWY has prepared a short report on the 2021 edition of the Care to Go Higher CPD programme that summarises the key findings from the programme and considers potential improvements for future courses.
The programme brought together key influencers of children in care from across West Yorkshire to take part in six different sessions based around topics relating to care-experienced young people and higher education. In total 27 participants graduated from the course and their views shape the content of the report.
The report analyses the findings from surveys that participants completed before and after the course as well as pre and post each session. Using the same criteria as the pilot programme for these evaluations meant that direct comparisons of results could be made, and the results suggest that the virtual programme was equally valuable in improving participants’ knowledge.
Care to Go Higher Evaluation Report (2019)
In this report, Go Higher West Yorkshire shares impact and insights from the evaluation of its innovative Care to Go Higher programme. The training programme is designed to equip key influencers to support care-experienced young people to make informed choices about their educational progression.
It finds that the programme has a strong impact on participants’ knowledge, understanding and perception of higher education, particularly in relation to the care-experience. It also shows that participants engage more strongly with the influence they can have over young people, and their ability to advocate for young people’s potential, as a result of participating in the programme.
It advocates for a collaborative approach to widening participation that engages meaningfully with whole communities and their specific lived experiences. Likewise, local authorities are encouraged to work with partnerships of higher education providers to ensure their corporate parenting workforce has high expectations for young people’s futures, exposure to a broad range of HE provision, and is well-equipped to support their informed choices.
