The moment talent meets opportunity
KAIROS
connecting care experienced youth with sustainable creative career opportunities
KAIROS : MISSION
Kairos empowers young people transitioning from foster care to build sustainable careers through tailored apprenticeships that honour their potential and transform their futures.
KAIROS : VISION
We envision a world where care experience becomes a foundation for strength—where every young person leaving care has access to meaningful career pathways that lead to professional excellence and personal fulfillment
KAIROS
The Employment Gap: A Statistical Reality
The employment disparity between care leavers and their peers represents one of the most stark indicators of systemic inequality in our society. Approximately 40% of care leavers aged 19-21 in East London are not in education, employment, or training (NEET), significantly exceeding the rate for young people who haven't experienced care. This statistic alone, however, fails to capture the full complexity of the issue.
Even among care leavers who secure employment, job stability and quality remain serious concerns. Research indicates that care-experienced young people are:
• More likely to be employed in precarious, temporary positions
• Overrepresented in minimum wage and zero-hour contract roles
• More frequently employed in sectors with limited advancement opportunities
• More vulnerable to unemployment during economic downturns
• At higher risk of cycling between employment and unemployment
This employment instability has profound financial implications. Care leavers earn an average of £6,600 less per year than their peers by age 26, with this wage gap persisting throughout their working lives. The cumulative effect of this disparity means many care-experienced adults face lifelong economic disadvantage, with implications for housing security, physical and mental health, and overall quality of life.
FUTURE
KAIROS
The Opportunity for Transformation• Disrupting intergenerational cycles of disadvantage through sustainable career pathways
• Creating economic self-sufficiency that reduces long-term system dependence
• Building a model of trauma-informed employment support
• Demonstrating the untapped potential of care-experienced young people to employers
• Challenging societal narratives about the limitations of those with care experience
By understanding the depth we develop interventions that aliviiate root causes rather than symptoms, creating pathways to employment that acknowledge the unique challenges and strengths of care-experienced young people.
The employment exclusion of care-experienced young people represents not just a failure of support systems but a significant lost opportunity—for individuals, businesses, and society. Through focused intervention at this critical transition point, we can transform what is currently a predictable pathway to disadvantage into an opportunity for care-experienced young people to build careers that honor their resilience and potential.