Creating new pathways into work for care leavers
30 Oct 2025
November marks national Care Leavers Month – a time to raise awareness of the challenges faced by young people leaving the care system, celebrate their achievements, and showcase opportunities to better support their futures.
For many care leavers, stepping into the workplace can feel daunting, with barriers such as limited experience, lack of support, and stigma holding them back from fulfilling their potential.
At Break we are always looking for ways to encourage people to recruit differently and we’re proud to be launching Breaking the Mould – a new initiative co-produced with our young people to help care leavers gain vital skills, build confidence, and access meaningful work experience, whilst also influencing how that work experience looks.
Working closely with Health Transport Group (HTG) in Norwich, our young care leavers have designed a supportive and inclusive work experience programme that reflects their aspirations and tackles the barriers they face, through two workshops together. In the first, young people shared their past experiences of work placements, the challenges they’ve faced, and their goals for the future. In the second, they shaped what an ideal programme would look like – from the type of roles on offer to the kind of employer support that would make the biggest difference.
The result is a unique three-week programme combining hands-on experience with HTG’s crew and logistics teams in the community, alongside classroom-based employability workshops chosen by the young people themselves, including CV building and mock interviews.
Karen Hutchinson, HTG-UK Communications Officer said: “I am really looking forward to working with Break Staff and the students we will support. HTG is a family spread across the UK, but we work as one team. We are all excited to see the students thrive.”
The pilot programme is about more than work experience – it’s about breaking down stigma and showing employers the talent, resilience, and determination of care leavers when given the opportunity, as Ruth, Breaks Co-Production and Aspiration Lead explains:
“Employers have an incredible opportunity to diversify their workforce and offer inclusive and supportive work programmes where care leavers can thrive personally and professionally, showing themselves to be the resilient, adaptable and problem-solving creatives they are. HTG share this vision, and we’re excited to see this pilot develop and take others on the journey with us.”
And at the heart of the project has been our young people’s voices, as Liam, 23 says of his involvement: “This is the first work experience I’ve ever done, I never had the opportunity through school. It’ll make me more comfortable when I’m in an actual workspace. I want to be taken seriously, as some workspaces might look at my background as an excuse not to take me. Care experience is not something I’ve put on my CV before. For me personally, actual work experience is what I want to get and it’s one thing I’m missing, and I want a job.”
Through this initiative, Break and HTG hope to inspire other employers to re-think recruitment and embrace the benefits of offering inclusive opportunities for care leavers.
We’ll be sharing updates, stories, and learnings from the programme on our website and social media and if you’re business would like to be part of this, complete this form below: