As part of our support for children and young people’s rights, we commissioned research to explore issues for parents with care experience to understand where our funding can make the biggest difference. We’re pleased to share the findings from this work and our future plans, supported by recommendations from a steering group of parents with care experience.
Parents with care experience are people who have experience of the care system and are, or are about to become, parents. Through our work, we have found that this is a group whose needs and strengths are often overlooked. So, over the past year, we have been listening to parents with care experience, reviewing the research, and speaking with organisations supporting families across the UK.
Janet Grauberg and Richard Crellin, the co-facilitators of our Young People Leaving Care Learning Programme have led this process and produced a scoping report which brings together these insights.
The findings from this showed many parents experience stigma and don’t get the support they need. But ultimately, it was the clear messages of hope that convinced us to focus on investing in parents with care experience.
My hope is simple: that this investment leads to stronger families, joyful memories, and futures where parents with care experience are supported not just to care for their children, but to pursue their own ambitions with confidence.
Louise, Parents with Care Experience Steering Group Member
Through a programme of work in this space, described in more detail below, our intention is that we can contribute to realising this vision.
Alongside this, we have also shared our findings from this journey – and will continue to do so as it develops. The insights from the research, from best practice, and crucially, from parents themselves, will continue to shape our programme – and may serve to inspire and inform the work of other funders and those working directly with parents with care experience.
What the research tells us
The research paper synthesises key messages from conversations had with young parents, from open-access and grey literature research and provides an overview of some of the services we were signposted to. This is by no means an exhaustive list, and we continue to discover organisations and practitioners doing brilliant work to support parents with care experience.
Many parents with care experience described becoming a parent while navigating stigma, judgement and isolation. They expressed fear that asking for help could lead to their child being taken away. They described struggling to access mental health support, affordable childcare, suitable housing, and practical help during pregnancy and early parenthood.
At the same time, parents also spoke powerfully about the difference the right support can make. Small interventions - a trusted advocate, a peer support group, help navigating complex systems, somewhere welcoming to go with their child - can transform outcomes for whole families.
Even small amounts of the right support can transform a family’s future, especially in a landscape where services are inconsistent and often hard to access.
Louise, Parents with Care Experience Steering Group Member
Parents with care experience repeatedly told us that they are too often judged by their own childhood experiences rather than recognised for their strengths, ambitions and love for their children.
Similarly, the research shows that parents with care experience face multiple disadvantages, including higher rates of poverty, poor mental health, insecure housing and domestic abuse. Studies also show that women with care experience are more likely to become parents at a young age and are more likely to encounter statutory intervention once they become parents.
But the research also challenges damaging assumptions.
The vast majority of children born to parents with care experience do not enter care themselves.
What next for Esmée’s support
As part of our scoping work, we worked with a steering group of young mothers with care experience to develop recommendations for Esmée’s future funding and who challenged us to think differently about what meaningful support looks like. We have published these recommendations in full, and will be prioritising them in our decisions about what to fund.
Parents told us that support should be:
- Co-designed with parents who have lived experience
- Holistic and non-judgmental
- Independent from social services where possible
- Focused on both parent and child
- Grounded in peer support, advocacy and community
- Designed to build confidence, connection and hope
The steering group also directed us to focus on supporting organisations providing direct support to parents with care experience and their children. This includes support for:
- Pregnancy and preparation for parenthood
- Early childhood
- Separation, adoption and reunification
- Co-parenting and support for young fathers
Alongside this, we also want to help strengthen the wider ecosystem around the sector. This means investing in learning and evidence-building so that we can better understand what effective services look like. It also means supporting convening, knowledge-sharing and influencing work that challenges stigma, and contributes to improving policy and practice nationally.
We will be working closely with Birth Companions and NYAS’ new national parliamentary inquiry into the intergenerational cycle of care involvement in England.
We also want to support promising models to grow and spread – and earlier this year, we made our first grant under the new programme to support NYAS’ Project Unity, which aims to bring its rights-based advocacy model for care experienced mothers from Wales, into England.
We are also pleased to be kicking off work with FrameWorks UK who will be exploring existing narratives – and how we might change the way that practitioners and the public think and talk about parents with care-experience.
Looking ahead
This work sits at the intersection of Esmee’s leaving care, gender justice and early years long-term outcomes. It reflects our belief that strengthening support for parents with care experience can help disrupt cycles of inequality and create better futures for parents and children alike. This means that we will not be re-opening applications under the outcome: ‘A shift in early years provision to ensure that young children (aged 0-5) and their families facing barriers have quality support’.
Instead, we will be proactively looking for opportunities with a narrower focus on services which help build the foundations for children of parents with care experience. Whilst, at the same time, also contributing to a future where parents with care experience are met with understanding rather than stigma, where support is accessible and compassionate, and where more families are able to thrive.
If you know of a programme that does a wonderful job of supporting parents with care experience, we would encourage you to submit evidence to the Inquiry, which is accepting submissions until 4 September 2026. You can also let us know by emailing louise.jones@esmeefairbairn.org.uk.
