The government’s announcement (16th April 2026) of an urgent review into the deaths of care leavers is a significant and long overdue step.
Our founder, Carolyne Willow, spoke on Sky News this week about the need for fundamental change, not just incremental reform, but a system that genuinely reflects what any of us would expect for a young person growing up in a loving family: care, stability and support that does not abruptly fall away at 18.
This review has not emerged in isolation. It follows sustained work by Article 39 and others to bring attention to the risks faced by young people as they leave care, including our involvement in the inquest into Nonita Grabovskyte’s death. Nonita’s case was devastating, and the findings laid bare a pattern of missed opportunities, poor coordination and systemic failure. Sadly, Nonita’s story is not unique.
Again and again, we see young people reaching adulthood and encountering a cliff edge of support. Services fall away, responsibilities become fragmented, and the presence of a consistent, caring adult disappears at the very point it is most needed. These are not isolated gaps, they are built into the way the system currently operates.
In the year to March 2026, councils reported at least 105 deaths of care leavers aged 16 to 24. Even that figure is likely to underestimate the true scale, given how many young people effectively fall out of view altogether. Behind each of those numbers is a young person who should have been held more safely.
Too many care leavers are moved into settings that offer support in name but not in practice, accommodation without care, systems without coordination, and services that fail to join up around the reality of a young person’s life. At the same time, the legal and policy framework creates a two-tier system that continues to treat older children as if they require less protection, when in reality the transition to adulthood is often when risks intensify.
Risks to care leavers begin well before adulthood. At 16 and 17, increasing numbers of children are placed in care-less supported accommodation – settings without day-to-day care, where safeguarding is weaker and responsibility becomes diluted, leaving older children exposed at a critical point in their lives. Article 39’s research and freedom of information work has consistently highlighted these risks, including evidence that older teenagers are disproportionately represented in cases of serious harm and death. The link is clear; when care is reduced, risk increases.
Nonita’s experience reflects this wider pattern. Her death came shortly after leaving care as a child, having been placed in supported accommodation at age 17, and following a period in which services failed to co-ordinate around her needs. Her case is not an exception; it is an illustration of how the system too often operates.
The review now announced must confront those structural conditions directly. That means looking honestly at the role of care-less and unregulated accommodation, ensuring consistent and enforceable standards of care across all settings, and strengthening duties on local authorities to remain meaningfully connected to the young people they are responsible for. It also means recognising, in law and in practice, that care leavers face known and heightened risks and ensuring safeguarding and inquest processes reflect that reality.
This moment matters, because the issues are already well understood. The risks have been identified, there have been numerous inquiries and reports, the patterns are clear, and the consequences are devastating. What has been missing is not evidence, but meaningful action. This review now presents a clear test of whether that will finally change. Until that changes, the conditions that lead to the deaths of young people with care experience will remain.
