This HEPI blog was co-authored by Kate Brown, interim Director at Unite Foundation, and Denise Rawls, Executive Director at the National Network for the Education of Care Leavers (NNECL).
In Scotland and Wales, ‘Estranged Student’ is a required field for institutions returning student data. England must follow suit and ensure estranged students are #InvisibleNoMore.
The last week in November was Estranged Student Solidarity Week #ESSW. EaCES – a group of Estranged and Care Experienced students from across the UK and the Republic of Ireland – runs this national campaign. This year’s theme was #InvisibleNoMore, highlighting the struggles of estranged students, raising the visibility of this characteristic and increasing estranged students’ awareness of the support available at their institutions.
An estranged student is someone who has little or no contact with their parents, either biological or adoptive, and this is unlikely to change. You may be estranged before entering higher education, but some people can become estranged during their studies.
The Office for Students Equality of Opportunity Risk Register (the EORR) identifies that estranged students are likely to experience 7 out of 12 sector-wide risks to access and success in higher education, including access to information, academic and personal support, mental health challenges, cost pressures, capacity issues, and the equal opportunity to progress to an outcome they consider to be a positive reflection of their higher education experience. Estranged students are acknowledged by OfS to be an underrepresented group in higher education.
At the start of December, the Social Market Foundation released ‘Care and Learning in Higher Education’, a new research report exploring how society and universities can support care experienced and estranged students to succeed. The research was commissioned by the Unite Foundation’s long-term partner and champion Unite Students. The report is directed towards the new Government and identifies the key policy changes needed to boost access, retention and attainment success of care experienced and estranged students. This sits in the context of the Labour government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity by reforming our childcare and education systems, to make sure there is no class ceiling on the ambitions of young people in Britain.
The report explores 4 thematic areas: funding, data, access and responsibility; making 9 recommendations to the Government, policymakers and practitioners.
We were particularly pleased to see recommendation 3 on data and supporting the development of evidence-led good practice. Alongside many colleagues in the sector, we are desperate for annual Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) data on care-experienced and estranged students to come out from behind a paywall so that it can be routinely put to work by the third sector, academics and other key stakeholders. Fundamental to establishing trackable data is the inclusion of a flag for estranged students in the HESA returns for England; a state of affairs already comfortably in place in Scotland and Wales.
There is natural concern around the data burden for higher education institutions, but an analysis carried out in 2023 by the University of Lincoln noted almost half of England’s institutions had signed up to the Stand Alone pledge to improve access and outcomes for estranged students. This strongly suggests a significant number of institutions already managing this data internally in order to deliver whole-institution access and participation approaches.
NNECL has already responded to this visibility appetite by incorporating support of estranged students into their Quality Mark, as have HEPI and Advance HE by including a category for estranged students within the Student Academic Experience Survey.
At the Unite Foundation and NNECL, we want to see England follow Scotland and Wales in making ‘Estranged Student’ a required field for institutions returning student data. We have to ensure estranged students are #InvisibleNoMore.
Unite Foundation
Unite Foundation supports estranged and care-experienced students in higher education with a rent-free #HomeAtUniversity, through a nationwide scholarship. Currently, the Unite Foundation scholarship is the only intervention for these students with OfS Tier 2 evidence of impact. We believe the availability of data that supports evaluation and, ultimately, evidences outcomes, is a key driver in improving the educational success of these students.
NNECL
The National Network for the Education of Care Leavers (NNECL) works collaboratively with education practitioners and care system professionals to transform the progression of children in care, care leavers and those who are estranged into and through further and higher education.