“Breaking the pernicious link between background and success will be a defining mission for Labour.” The Labour Party Manifesto.

The government’s Opportunity Mission is ambitious, encompassing promising reforms to education and early years support, investment in the creative sector and housing, and reforms in employment and benefits.

In all of this, there is a strong focus on economic disadvantage. This is vital. But it is not the only barrier. Creating opportunity for every child means tackling other forms of disadvantage as well, such as disability, and care experience.

To be care experienced means having had to endure separation from your birth parents and often siblings too, often many moves between foster families, nurseries or schools, and changes of key trusted figures like social workers. On top of this there is the stigma and discrimination care-experienced people face whether that’s in school, in the workplace, or in wider society. The vast majority of adopted children are adopted from the care system. Many will have experienced neglect or abuse; all have experienced separation from their birth families. Many will have multiple homes before being adopted. I met one young boy who had 15 different homes before he was six. This can have lasting impacts on a young person’s mental health, relationships and learning.

Adopted children are more likely to have special educational needs, more likely to be suspended and excluded, and to be on part time school timetables. Over half have sought help with their mental health. They have a higher likelihood of neurodiversity, including Autistic Spectrum Disorder and Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder. Adopted young people are twice as likely to be NEET (Not in Employment, Education or Training) as their peers. Is it any wonder when they have faced so much disruption at such a young age? Many adoptees show extraordinary resilience in overcoming such early adversity, but they should not have to fight the system to do this. There is little understanding in the health service, schools and across wider services about what it means to be adopted or to have other care experience:

"I went to CAMHS as a child and no one understood about being adopted. Now I am over 18 I can't access any support at all other than at my college. I have an EHCP and my mum had to fight to get that for me." (Young adopted person, Adoption Barometer 2024)

The way to ensure care experienced people can benefit from the reforms set out in the Opportunity Mission is to listen to them. Talk to them about their lived reality of the education system and the world of work. Put these voices at the centre of the Opportunity Mission.

Adopted people tell me that reforming schools isn’t just about recruiting teachers and encouraging children to attend. It’s about tackling the deep-rooted problems of a rigid, results-driven education system that leaves no room for meaningful relationships between teachers and pupils.

Reforming employment isn’t just about providing apprenticeships and making work pay. It’s about properly understanding the barriers to employment including poor mental health, learning difficulties and neurodiversity - and doing something about it.

To truly break down barriers to opportunity for those with care experience, government must:

• Ensure curriculum reforms bring in greater flexibility and inclusion, making room for real relationships between teachers and pupils and setting teachers up to succeed by ensuring they have the right training to support those with traumatic early childhoods.
• Commit to lifelong support for adoptees, including therapeutic and peer support, and support understanding identity and maintaining important family relationships. This should be explored ideally through an Adoption and Permanence Green Paper, but at the very least a review of the existing national Adoption Strategy.
• Make care experience a protected characteristic. Adoption UK is supporting the campaign for care experience to become a Protected Characteristic under the Equality Act – and because adoptees and those who grew up in kinship arrangements are care-experienced, they must be included.

Breaking down the barriers to opportunity includes ensuring that families are supported to stay together where possible, and that every child or young person unable to grow up with their birth parents has the support they need to have an equal chance to thrive, in childhood and throughout their lives.