Into the Big Wide World

Care leavers make up about a quarter of the prison population and children who have been in care are two and half times more likely to become a teenage parent. To try and tackle this, one London borough has decided on an experiment. This winter they are taking 11 vulnerable care leavers (young people who have grown up with little or no parental support) to the other side of the world. For two weeks they will work and live together in the middle of South Africa and experience life far removed from their London streets.

The aim is to give them experiences they would never otherwise have, to make them realize that there is more to life than the streets where they have grown up and to break the care leaver cycle of crime-imprisonment-re-offending. Big Wide World follows this group of young people and their social workers, as they prepare for and go on a trip that could change their lives forever.