National Care Leavers Month 2026

National Care Leavers Month (NCLM) takes place every November. It’s a month dedicated to celebrating care-experienced individuals, shining a light on their achievements, and calling for positive change.

What is NCLM?

Building on over 15 years of National Care Leavers Week (NCLW), created by The Alliance for Children in Care and Care Leavers, NCLM expands the celebration to the entire month of November.

NCLM brings together care-experienced individuals, the public, professionals, carers, decision-makers, and the media to CARE:

Celebrate care leavers and their achievements
Amplify their voices and experiences
Raise awareness of the challenges they face
Encourage change in policy and practice

This Year's Theme

Each year, care-experienced individuals choose a theme to guide NCLM.

This year's theme is 'Leading the way: From experience to empowerment.'

This theme celebrates the resilience of care-experienced individuals and honours the personal growth and transformation that their journeys inspire.

NCLM 2026: What’s Happening

Logos and Social Media Assets:

The NCLM Steering Group, a group of organisations and care-experienced individuals that meet throughout the year to plan NCLM, has created a Canva template full of various social media assets for anyone who would like to use and adapt for the promotion of NCLM and the activities they might be running.

To use the templates: click ‘View template’ → ‘Open editor’.
Do not click ‘Edit Template’, as this will change the version for everyone.
Image versions are also available for download here.

Programme of Events, Opportunities and Campaigns

Every year, the NCLM Steering Group collates events, campaigns, resources, and services for care-experienced individuals into a programme shared across the Alliance for Children in Care networks and social media. You can find the first round of this here.

Get involved:

If you are running an event, campaign, activity, or launching a resource for care-experienced individuals, please complete this form.

Deadline: Friday, 24th October.
A second round of promotion will happen closer to NCLM.