Care-Experienced Students in Higher Education Thematic Interest Group

Co-convenors: Dr Neil Harrison (University of Oxford, United Kingdom) & Dr Andrew Harvey (La Trobe University, Australia)

The purpose of this new thematic interest group within INTRAC is to bring together researchers with a particular interest in care leavers and other care-experienced people who participate in higher education.

It is intended that the group will be broad-based and interdisciplinary, with an expansive remit to include (but not be limited by) the following:

The experiences of care-experienced students, including outreach, entry, retention and completion.
The national, regional or institutional policy around supporting care-experienced students, including related fields such as housing.
The mental health of care-experienced students and how they are supported by professional services.
The interfaces between higher education and other fields including schooling, vocational education and graduate employment.
The professionalisation of support services and the implementation of national quality schemes.
The specific experiences of older care-experienced students who are returning to study after a substantial break.

Cognisant of the different national models in place, a broad definition of higher education is being used to include undergraduate and postgraduate levels, as well as vocational and other variants.

The aims of the group will be:

to enable members to share their published and ongoing work with other interested parties;
to provide a forum for discussion of findings, methodology or good practice;
to explore communalities and differences between national contexts;
to discuss possible collaborative funding applications; and
to organise international network meetings or similar events.

To find out more about the group or to join, please contact Neil Harrison at [email protected].