While most young adults continue to rely on family well into their twenties, and even thirties, care experienced young people are expected to become independent almost overnight, managing housing, finances, education, work, and wellbeing without a safety net and community to support them.
This abrupt drop off in care is linked to significantly poorer life outcomes, not because of individual failure, but because support ends too soon. Research shows that care experienced young people face poorer life outcomes across many critical areas including education and employment, housing, mental health, physical health and are over represented in the criminal justice system.
The ‘care cliff’ happens at a critical life stage, when stability, relationships, and emotional support matter most. Care experienced young people are not failing, the system is. With the right relationships, stability and support, outcomes can and do change.
How will what we offer address the care cliff?
Leaving care should not mean losing care. The care cliff is not simply a gap in services, it is a loss of relationship, containment, and continuity at a critical life stage. The Gathering Ground CIC exists precisely at this threshold, offering nature based mental health support to accompany young people to move into adulthood with greater steadiness, confidence, and belonging.
The Gathering Ground CIC was founded with a clear intention: to support the care community to thrive through creating a sense of belonging to the natural world, finding a home within themselves and connection with others in community. Our programmes facilitate this and offer continuity at a point where statutory support often ends, working preventatively as well as restoratively, strengthening resilience whilst responding to ongoing needs. Nature is not used as an ‘add on’, but as a co facilitator of grounding, identity, and connection, supporting participants to slow down, feel safe, and integrate their experiences in ways that traditional indoor provision often cannot.
Our approach is shaped by the belief that care experienced young people do not need to be ‘fixed’, but supported to understand their inner nature, and guided to recognise and listen to their inner wisdom and resourcefulness as a means of navigating life, alongside trusted adults and mentors at the pace that is right for them. What makes The Gathering Ground CIC truly distinctive is our whole system approach. Alongside transition programmes and retreats for care experienced young people, we deliver restorative, nature based professional development weekends for the adults who support them.
By supporting professionals to regulate, reflect, and resource themselves, psychologically and emotionally, we strengthen the quality, consistency, and relational safety of the support available to care experienced young people during transition. This is a vital, yet often overlooked, factor in addressing the care cliff.
Our long term vision is for The Gathering Ground CIC to be a place people can return to, not outgrow. We aspire to create pathways for young people to return as peer mentors and facilitators, helping the community grow across generations and remain a source of connection for life.
