Care experienced & estranged students: How HEAT members can all better understand this group of students

At the Unite Foundation we’ve been working for over 10 years with a sharp focus on widening participation, and success in higher education (HE), for students who are care experienced or estranged from their families.

Driving forward understanding and practice driven by data has been a key pillar underpinning our current five-year organisational strategy. To support this we have joined HEAT as an Affiliate member – we’re excited to be part of this community of practitioners – and are looking forward to exploring the possibilities of both HEAT functionality, and the membership network itself, in regards to data and outcomes for care experienced and estranged students.

It is fantastic to see HEAT build upon its valuable service in the field of outreach, to an increasingly expansive role informing student success.  It is this potential that brought us into your community.

Our aspirations

In 2022 we published an independent study, conducted by Jisc, that showed strong evidence of impact on outcomes (progression, completion and awarding level) for Unite Foundation accommodation scholarship students to date.

It was great to have this milestone snapshot, but we want to do more and be able to build that picture year by year; particularly as the number of accommodation scholarships grow from ourselves and other universities offering a #HomeAtUniversity. This long-term outcome data is a key goal and one that, ideally, we can utilise HEAT functionality to share and grow.  The HEAT tracking will be complemented by shorter term outcomes, as identified by our Theory of Change and activity evaluation.  (We’re really happy to share our ToC, and to see those of other members, to adapt to our own contexts.)

Working collaboratively

Care experienced students have been identified by the Office of Students as a vulnerable group for some time, and estranged students are noted as an ’emerging cohort’.  There is much to be done to address access, retention and completion rates for these students who are well known to be at high risk of dropping out. The TASO  rapid evidence review for the new Equality of Opportunity Risk Register shows that at every point in the student life cycle students with experience of care (the data isn’t big enough for estranged students) have less positive outcomes.

To address this stubborn gap in access and participation we can all generate, and look more deeply at, the evidence underpinning practice in this space:

Evaluation of interventions with care experience & estranged students, as a comparison to other students, is just starting to happen. This intel doesn’t currently routinely exist because flags for care experience or estranged are not captured often enough within data design.  In 2023 for the first time there was the opportunity within the National Student Survey to cut responses by care experienced students, but not yet estranged students. This is now complemented by the Student Academic Experience Survey data set published in 2024 that excellently gives us further insight into the experiences of those with care experience and, separately, estrangement.  You can see the data tables for each here (lines 510 to 521).  In England there is currently no HESA requirement to return data for estranged students. However, this is already a requirement in Scotland and Wales.  We have picked up the baton from Standalone’s closure in asking for that change to be made in England – you can add your voice to this request directly with HESA.

Whilst data doesn’t tell the whole story, you’ll know as HEAT members, it helps unearth areas that warrant further investigation, grab attention of senior leaders and provide a helpful baseline to inspire activity.

What’s next

We are firm believers in collaboration and hope HEAT members will join us in addressing data visibility for care experienced and estranged students. These descriptors sitting alongside other known characteristics of stubborn differential outcomes like ethnicity and disability will convey a clear message of inclusion.  Three things that members can also do in relation to these populations of students and HEAT activity:

• Include care experience and estranged flags in participant data collection as standard, making sure of course to add to your privacy policy. Whilst not yet a protected characteristic, positioning the flags alongside ethnicity and disability acknowledges these consistent markers of unequal opportunity, whilst also capturing the high intersectionality of this student population.
• Make connections with your institution’s named staff member for care experienced / estranged students. The flow of insight across and between HEAT-using teams, student services, planning, and strategic reporting colleagues is invaluable.  Collaboration of this kind directly informs improved experience and learning.  With participant flags in place,  every activity report can offer insight; low or no engagement out-turns being equally valuable intel. (Propel lists all HEI designated workers and teams.)
• Review activities and evaluations to explicitly include estranged students as well as care experienced. In Outreach particularly these young people are less visible than those in, or leaving, care.  Your routine participant collection flag will help identify them and the new UCAS tick box (from the 23/24 intake onwards) will inevitably trigger greater awareness alongside our hope of eventual inclusion in the HESA return requirement. Get ready!

Want to know more? Do reach out to info@unitefoundation.org.uk if you’ve got more questions on our work around data and insight for care experienced & estranged students