Study title

United Kingdom

Individual

A qualitative, longitudinal, narrative inquiry approach was used to empirically and conceptually explore how a background of care affected care-experienced peoples’ graduate transitions.Care-experienced students in their final year of undergraduate and postgraduate degree programmes were recruited from English and Scottish higher education institutions. Calls for participants were disseminated via higher education (HE) practitioners, the National Network for the Education of Care Leavers (NNECL) plus local affiliated groups, online communities, charities providing support to those with care experience (The Rees Foundation, the Unite Foundation, and the Become charity), and research centres who undertake work focused on the care system such as The Rees Centre (England), and the Centre for Excellence in Children’s Care and Protection (in Scotland). A Google Form was used for those who were interested in participating to request further information. This also functioned as a means of screening those expressing an interest to ensure that they met three essential criteria to participate; in line with the purposful sampling approach taken, it was necessary for potential participants to: 1. Have spent time in the care system, 2. Be enrolled in the final year of a higher education degree programme, and 3. Be undertaking their studies in either England or Scotland. Hence, the Google Form asked a small number of questions to establish that those expressing an interest were care-experienced, and undertaking the final year of their degree studies in either an English or Scottish higher education institution. A total of 23 care-experienced final-year HE students were initially recruited from England (16 participants) and Scotland (seven participants) for Phase One of the study. In Phase Two, 18 of the original 23 participants agreed to participate. Finally, 14 of the original 23 participants took part in the third and final phase, which took place 12 months after they had graduated.