How A Charity Is Helping Care Leavers Pursue Their Education Dreams

Did you know only one per cent of foster children go on to pursue higher education?

These children are doing life all by themselves: paying rent, bills, groceries and transport – something those with the support of parents and friends let alone struggle with.

Without such support, it’s a key reason so few make it into higher education.

Listen to the episode of The Briefing here:

If you’re working all the hours you can just to get by, you don’t get the opportunity to study and break the cycle of poverty, irrespective of how bright you are.

In this episode of The Briefing, Katrina Blowers speaks to former foster care kid Ruby Sait – one of the one per cent of foster children who have made the leap into higher education.

“Young people out of home care get support from the age of roughly 16 until the age of 21. But once you are 21, you are cut off … from the age of 16 until 21, that’s a really big chunk of your adult life and you’re getting support and then it just disappears overnight,” Ruby said.

“When I got cut off from it, I was like, what am I going to do with my life?”

Ruby took to the internet to search what support there was for care leavers, and found the Sisters of Charity Foundation.

Sisters of Charity is able to provide scholarships for care leavers who wish to pursue higher education.

In this chat with The Briefing, Ruby discusses the support she has received from Sisters of Charity Foundation and how her studies are going. Listen to the full episode now on the LiSTNR app.