Care Leaver Covenant

Care leaver Anne reviews new app 'Care Leaver Covenant'

Hello, it's Anne!

Sorry I have been gone for so long, at the end of May I moved into a level 2 supported lodgings and have been busy settling in and trying to look for new work. I start college again this September so I have a lot of things happening at the moment, but let’s leave that for a different time. For now, I'd like to tell share my review on a new App just for care leavers...

There is this new app out called Care Leaver Covenant, it’s funded by the Department for Education. It’s a very new app that’s in the beginning stages. I’m doing a review because it’s so new and I may have to do another one later on, in its development stage to give it a fair review.

So let’s start with a section the Care Leaver Covenant says on their website:

Responsibility

'There is a responsibility to continue to help and support care leavers, and this App is part of that ongoing assistance. It has been created to provide you with useful offers provided by organisations, charities and businesses across the UK, that are exclusive to care leavers, and are intended to help you start your career, stay healthy and make new friends. Largely, this App is designed to work offline, so once it is installed you don’t need to rely on having WiFi or an internet connection to be able to use it.’

Let’s start on what the App is about, first off it's for care leavers (as you can guess from the title) helping them with many different parts of the young adult's new life. On the App it has different sections for different parts of care leaver’s life that they may need that little extra help in:

My Learning

My learning has many different learning experiences, different types of training such as mental health first aid training and includes many wide sectors of collages that play a role in different parts, such as the RVC (Royal Veterinary College). There are many different types of free courses on here to help care leavers improve access, performance, experience and progression. There is one on here that takes you to a website where you can access 50 free different types of courses, and what’s even better, all these are spread across the UK so you don’t need to be in just one location.

My Jobs

My jobs has companies from all over the country who are posting their internships on here. Some are paid, so you will be earning money while learning. On here at the moment, they have work experience as an Arts Admin, Care leavers Internships in the Department for Education, a Painting and Decorating training course, paid hospitality work for festivals and events, a Reed Internship programme and so on. So if you’re at a loss looking for work, check it out, because you have an advantage here - take it with both hands and run with it.

My Health

My health shows you activities that you can be participating in whilst you’re out of work, getting you out of the house and socialising with others. On here they advertise free weekly drama drop-in workshops, free virtual mentor and work support services. There is not much on this sector at the moment, but they do try to update it regularly, so keep an eye on it as something you might fancy might just pop up one day in your area.

My Experiences

My experiences is very similar to 'My Health' as it's there to get you out of the house and doing something. They give away free tickets to all sorts of different places such as free audition vouchers, free tickets to The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, European Rugby Pool Matches and they even advertise a group that young ladies can join called Creative Collective, age 13 to 20.

My Housing

My housing show you different letting agencies who are willing to help you and be on your side. There are 3 on the App at the moment: Commitment to the National Housing project, Ng Properties Management and Lettings – shortlist for a rental property and positive steps with Blackpool Coastal Housing. When they update it, there will be more and some are only going to be located to only a small area, but it's a good place to keep your eye on while you’re doing your steps into housing and on the council housing list.

You are also able to save things on the App - if at the time you feel that something catches your eye but you don’t have time to look over it fully right at the moment, you can find it on the App later.

You can find the App on the Google app store or the Apple store; they also have their own website if you just type the App name in Google.

If you'd like more info on the App, visit: https://mycovenant.org.uk/get-the-app/

From what I have seen about the App, I would say it definitely needs more time to grow as it's so new, but also for such a new App at its beginnings, it's impressive how much they have on there already. I will be keeping it on my phone to have a look through when I’m waiting for the bus or in the doctors waiting room and I'll definitely be waiting excitably to see what becomes of this new amazing App and what the future brings.

I hope you give it a try and if it’s not for you, it’s not for you, but there's no harm in looking!

Anne