Get Online Greater Manchester — Digital Poverty Pilot for Care Leavers (Salford)

Young people leaving the UK care system are especially likely to be digitally excluded: Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) estimates that around 4,000 care leavers up to age 25 across the region need support, and many lack the devices or connectivity to access the education, employment and welfare entitlements they are owed.
Salford City Council piloted a package for local care leavers combining free devices through its device-donation scheme, 12 months of free mobile data, and digital skills training, delivered with support from leaving-care teams so young people did not have to navigate the offer alone.
The pilot supported 48 care leavers: 60% were successfully connected with data and devices, and 20% signed up for additional digital skills support; strikingly, 61% of those supported were unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, pointing to acute need within that subgroup.
England's Children's Commissioner, Dame Rachel de Souza, reviewed the pilot and recommended it be made available to care leavers nationally. From 2022 the offer was rolled out across Greater Manchester, and in October 2022 GMCA and developer Focusgov, working with care leavers who said entitlement information was too hard to find, launched the 'Bee Connected' app, giving the region's 4,000-plus care leavers a single place to access free devices and connectivity alongside bus passes, prescriptions, and education and employment support, as part of the region's Care Leavers Guarantee (launched 2019).

Read the full analysis: https://www.greatermanchester-ca.gov.uk/news/new-pilot-launched-to-address-digital-poverty-for-care-leavers-in-salford