Project News 12/11/2020

The CarePath Conferences shines the light on the need for aftercare for care leavers across Europe

On 13 October 2020, the CarePath Partnership held our online conference, Aftercare for Care Leavers: Learning lessons across Europe, to conclude our two years of cooperation and to raise the issue of aftercare for children and young people on the EU agenda.

We were delighted to achieve both of these goals, as we welcomed 300+ participants from Europe and beyond to listen and engage with our 20+ speakers, whose inspiring interventions offered perspectives across policy, research, practice and, most importantly, lived-experiences of leaving care. We welcomed experts both at national level and those working in the heart of the European Union to improve the lives of children young people in care.

Our keynote speaker, Professor Mike Stein, surmised well the key message for decision makers at the conference: “The EU has a critical role in ‘levelling up’ standards of aftercare across Europe by offering opportunities for exchange and learning, and channelling EU resources towards policy reform and service development through its funding programmes.”

The CarePath Partnership fully supports this recommendation and hopes that the tools and resources developed throughout the CarePath project will be used to support this goal. We welcome you to explore the project’s tools and resources that will be available on the CarePath website in the coming weeks.

Our livestream recordings of the conference have clocked up almost 6,000 views and a total of 17,000 engagements. Were you unable to join us on the day? Or did you miss part of the conference? View the recordings of both the morning session and the afternoon session on CarePath partner Eurochild’s Facebook page. You can find the Conference Presentations here. Our speakers have also provided answers to participants’ questions. View the answers in the sidebar of this page.

Launched during the conference was our Memorandum of Understanding – a valuable resource to help mainstream trauma-informed aftercare for care leavers across Europe. If you and your organisation is interested in endorsing this Memorandum, please email [email protected] for more information.

Connect with the CarePath Project’s partnering organisations

The CarePath Conference served as a conclusion for the CarePath Project. If you would like to continue following the work of the partnering organisations, see below:

Further information

For background information on the CarePath Conference, read the press release here.

Further questions can be sent to Ciaran O’Donnell, Policy and Projects Assistant, Eurochild at [email protected].