New partnership announced

We are pleased to announce a new collaborative partnership between Royal National Children’s SpringBoard Foundation (“RNCSF”) and Buttle UK.

Both charities have long been associated with providing the opportunities of a boarding school education for children who are in care, as well as to help prevent children from entering care.

In 2020, RNCSF were awarded a contract by the Department for Education to deliver the “Broadening Educational Pathways for Looked After & Vulnerable Children” scheme – working with Local Authorities and boarding/independent schools to broker more bursary places for Looked After Children and Children in Need as part of their care arrangements.

Buttle UK have committed a multi-year grant in support of the Broadening Educational Pathways Challenge Fund – a fund set up by RNCSF to provide small grant contributions towards boarding costs, deployed strategically to unlock more school places and incentivise Local Authorities to engage in the scheme.

Through this collaboration, both charities will work closely together to share common learnings and approaches in order to influence more Local Authorities and boarding schools to understand the benefits of bursary places for children in, and on the ‘edge of’ care.

“This multi-year commitment from Buttle UK in support of the Broadening Educational Pathways scheme is really significant: not only will it enable us to provide more vulnerable children and young people with the potentially life-transforming opportunities of a boarding school education; but through our broader collaboration it will also help us to build the evidence and relationships with Local Authorities and schools that are needed if we are to have the impact at scale that we know boarding school places for this very vulnerable cohort of children can provide as a public policy initiative.” – Ali Henderson, CEO of RNCSF

“Buttle UK has long believed that the use of boarding to support vulnerable children and young people is something that should be utilised more widely by statutory services.  We have seen over many years how effectively boarding can support a child’s developmental needs, and result in consistently impressive outcomes. We are delighted to be working in partnership with RNCSF on the Broadening Educational Pathways scheme. Together we have an important opportunity to build the case for more Local Authorities to use the practice in the future, while offering this transformational experience to more children.” – Joseph Howes, CEO of Buttle UK