How does King's support care leavers/care-experienced students throughout their studies?

All care-experienced and care leaver students are assigned a designated Faculty Wellbeing Advisor who can assist you with initial inductions into the university, and can help to connect you to any additional support you may need during your studies.

Your Faculty Wellbeing Advisor will contact you via email to introduce themselves at the beginning of the academic year and will regularly check in with during your studies. You can also arrange follow-up appointments as you need.

Your Faculty Wellbeing Advisor can also act as your first point of contact if you’re unsure who else to speak with at King’s. You will need to attend an initial appointment with your Faculty Wellbeing Adviser to initiate your care-experienced bursary payment.

If you are unsure who your Faculty Wellbeing Advisor is, you can contact studentwellbeingandwelfare@kcl.ac.uk. 
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All students at King's are allocated a Personal Tutor from within their department or faculty. To learn more about this, visit our article Who is my personal tutor & what do they do?. 

Care-experienced and care leaver students will be allocated their department Senior Tutor or a similarly experienced personal tutor, who will act as point of contact throughout their time at King’s. 

Personal Tutors are provided with additional training to better support the needs of students with experience of care and can provide further support with academic struggles, if required. Your care experience status is not disclosed to your personal tutor. 

When you first meet with your Faculty Wellbeing Advisor, they will discuss if there is anything you think it would be helpful to share with your personal tutor, to enable them to best support your academic progress.

Below you'll find a list of useful external links where you can find more information about support and advice for care-experienced and care leaver students:

• Unite Foundation, This Is Us Community: The foundation provides a platform for care-experienced and estranged students in Higher Education to connect with each other and join a social network with other people from similar backgrounds.

• EaCES (Estranged and Care Estranged Students): A resource space that signposts to higher education support and guidance in an accessible way to care experienced, care leavers and estranged students.

• Become (former The Who Cares Trust): This charity provides help, support and advice to children in care and young care leavers.

• The Catch 22 National Care Advisory Service (NCAS): delivers holistic support to looked after children and care leavers through their nationwide network.

• The Rees Foundation: this charity supports young people and adults with foster care and residential care experience, they provide mentoring and a network for people with care background.

• NNECL (National Network for Education of Care Leavers): provides Higher Education activities and resources for care leavers, children in care and those who support them.

• Drive Forward: Drive Forward is a charitable organisation that provides employability support to young adults with experience of care.

• Care Leaver Covenant: is a national inclusion programme that supports care leavers aged 16 to 25 through meaningful opportunities in five key areas: independent living, education employment and training, safety and security, mental and physical health, and finance.

• U-Belong: This resource, created by students, researchers, and professionals, offers tailored tools and resources to guide you through your university journey as a care-experienced or estranged student.