Care-Experienced Graduates Decision-Making, Choices, and Destinations, 2021-2024

The Care-Experienced Graduates’ Decision-Making, Choices and Destinations project is the first to provide qualitative attention to care-experienced (CE) students’ graduate transitions out of higher education and into employment and/or postgraduate study. The aims of this three-year longitudinal project were to: 1. Empirically explore the influences that inform CE students’ decision-making and choices in relation to their graduate pathways and destinations; 2. Conceptually identify what structural enablements and constraints exist for CE students’ transitions out of HE and into employment and/or further study; 3. Explore what role CE students perceive their care experience as having in: a) the influences informing their graduate choices and decisions; and b) the constellations of enablements and constraints that they face when pursuing these. To accomplish this, semi-structured interviews were conducted with care-experienced graduates in England and Scotland at three time-points: during their final year in higher education (phase one), then at six (phase two), and 12 months (phase three) after graduation. Participants also provided access to a secure online diary to record their experiences of their transitions out of higher education and into graduate life over the duration of the study.

External deposit with UK Data Service.