News
A government-commissioned review published this week has found that young people leaving care are dying at up to four times the rate of their peers, with the sharpest risk landing at exactly the age statutory support falls away: 18.
The Review of Early Deaths of Care Leavers, led by broadcaster and care leaver Ashley John-Baptiste alongside social work leader Clare Chamberlain, examined 112 deaths of care leavers aged 18 to 24 notified to the Department for Education in 2025, including six in-depth case studies.
Its headline findings:
The review's central finding is straightforward and stark: young people leaving care are profoundly isolated, often losing the people and structures around them at precisely the point they need them most.
In response, government has committed £25 million this year to a national rollout of housing models built around connection and support. From 30 September, councils must publish how they will support care leavers into independent living, and a care leaver can no longer be found "intentionally homeless".
This is the moment Step by Step exists for. Across our Foyers, Supported Lodgings and fostering services in Hampshire, Dorset, Surrey, Wiltshire, West Berkshire and West Sussex, we see what happens when a young person turns 18 and the support around them disappears out overnight, and we see what changes when it does not.
It is also why we campaign on 18 Isn't Cheaper. The isolation this review describes has a financial mirror image: care leavers turning 18 losing income and support at the exact age this review shows to be the most dangerous. A funding cliff and a support cliff, hitting at the same birthday, is not a coincidence we can ignore.
Young people leaving care are capable, resilient and full of potential. What this review shows is not that they cannot cope. It is that too many are asked to cope entirely on their own. That is what good support exists to change. And it is what we see, every day, in the young people we work alongside.
Find out more about our 18 Isn’t Cheaper campaign.
Read about just some of the young lives we've helped to transform.
Source: Review of Early Deaths of Care Leavers, Department for Education, published 25 August 2026.
We welcome the PM's announcement. The funding matters, the urgency matters, and a government willing to say plainly that no one should sleep in a doorway is good news.
But if we are serious about ending rough sleeping, we cannot only wait until someone is already on the streets. We have to stop them getting there in the first place.
