Author: Cherry Casey / Source: Positive News
For years, a group of vulnerable students has been falling through the cracks. Now, a charity is making sure their voices are heard, with life-changing results
Across England and Wales, there are more than 9,300 university students who are estranged from their family.
Distinct from care leavers — often because the family breakdown happened when they were too old to be taken into care — these students have no financial support, no home to go back to and, often, no one rooting for their success.The impact this has on their wellbeing can be huge. Forty-one per cent consider quitting their course and the number that are able to complete their studies is three times lower than the national average. “There was a lot of self-doubt at the beginning,” says Keiran Cull (pictured above), a student at the University of Sunderland, who is estranged from her family. “I was really depressed. I had no one.”
Good journalism can be about good things too.
That’s where Stand Alone comes in, a charity that supports adults who are estranged from their family, or from a key family member. It was founded in 2015 by Becca Bland, who became estranged from her own family while in her twenties. “The assumption is that all families are unconditionally close, functional, loving and caring,” says Bland. “But it unfortunately…
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