A PSYCHOLOGY graduate who spent time in foster care has learned by chance that County Hall must act as a rent guarantor, despite earlier advice to the contrary.

Mary-anne Hodd grew up in Ashburton, Devon, where she spent time in foster care.

She completed a psychology degree at the University of West of England in Bristol, then decided to return home to Ashburton to share a rented house with friends before starting teacher training.

But during the process she realised she had no one to act as a guarantor for her rent.

When she asked Devon County Council, she was told the options were to live in council accommodation or share with other care leavers.

She said: ‘It was not what I wanted. I felt really angry, I felt like I was being pulled back into the system. I felt like I had jumped all of the hurdles that had been asked of me.

‘I got good grades at school, and I was looking to go on and do further study and become a teacher.

‘I felt I had done everything that had been asked of me, and at the final hurdle I was let down, and not given a choice.

‘I felt frustrated and really let down by the system. I felt my life choices were being taken away from me.’

At the time she was volunteering with the council and co-chairing the corporate parenting board.

During a conversation in a corridor, a councillor told Mary-anne that the authority had the same responsibility to her as a parent.

Mary-anne realised that as a parent would act as a rent guarantor for their child, she ought to be able to expect the same from the council.

So she prepared a report on a new policy and presented it to councillors, including a risk assessment to ensure that the care-leaver was ready to become independent.

The council backed it straight away, and Mary-anne was able to apply under the new scheme for the authority to be her guarantor.

That meant she was able to go ahead with her plans and move into the rented house with her friends in Ashburton.

The policy was also taken up by Kent Council in 2018, and Mary-anne, 27, has been working to promote it to other councils, after seeing a Facebook post about a care leaver facing the same problem.

She said reading about the young man’s experiences brought back her own feelings of anger and frustration.

Since then, Mary-anne has been contacting councils across the country with her idea, and is planning to present the policy to representatives from social services departments who have shown an interest in taking it up, at an online meeting on Tuesday, May 4. 

She said: ‘If this can happen in Devon and Kent, then it can happen across the rest of the country. No young person should be experiencing those feelings, if they are ready for independence.’

Around 100 young people have already been helped by the guarantor scheme in Devon and Kent and it has only had to be called on for a payment once so far, when a month’s rent had to be covered after a young man lost his job due to the pandemic.

Mary-anne has been working with Terry Galloway, who has been campaigning nationally to improve the support available for adult care leavers.

He is supporting the roll-out of the guarantor scheme, and is in discussions with representatives of the property sector, hoping they will back it and ask letting agents to give it full support. 

Terry, who spent part of his childhood in care in South Devon, is now setting up a website called Care Leaver Local Offer, which will provide information supplied by councils to care leavers about the support available to them locally.