The young people leaving care in Doncaster and heading for uni

Many young people across the country are gearing up to spend the summer waiting for their A-level results with the prospect of going to university, but for some young care leavers, getting a university place will follow years of overcoming more hurdles than most.

“I remember I would come out of school and a social worker would say, ‘hey, we’re moving to a new place’ and I would be whisked away,” recalls 20-year-old Orianah Upland in Doncaster.

“I guess my friends at school didn’t know where I went. I just disappeared with a black bag. That happened a lot.”

Orianah was three-years-old when she entered the care system and she spent her childhood attending different schools.

Despite having no consistency with her education, she is now doing a national diploma in music technology, with the aim of going on to university and having a career as a performer.

In her words, she has “lots of siblings” who were also in care at different ages.

“I moved around a lot as a kid and my siblings lived everywhere,” she says.

“We all got split into different placements, but we bounce off each other’s experiences.

“We’ve all had similar, but also different experiences at the same time.”

Orianah says that when she was younger, “I moved a lot during primary school, so that was a bit tough.”

“Then, when I was in secondary, it was Covid, so I had to do a lot of online education. That didn’t really work out for me so I re-sat my GCSEs,” she says.