Remembering Poppy: A Life and Legacy

 

Poppy was born in 1994. When this petition began, she would have been 30 years old.

 

It was not just another birthday. It was a painful reminder of the life she should still have been living, the years she should still have had, and the support she should never have been left without.

 

Poppy was my childhood friend. We met as children in local authority care, and she became deeply rooted in my life. Through knowing Poppy, and through living that system myself, I witnessed first-hand the intense disadvantage, emotional turbulence, instability and lifelong impact that care-experienced children can carry long after childhood ends.

 

Poppy was diagnosed with cerebral palsy at a young age. From the beginning, she faced barriers that most people never see, never understand, and never have to survive. Yet her spirit still shone through. She was warm, creative, funny, determined, and remembered by those who loved her for the kind of laugh that could lift a room.

 

Poppy was not just a survivor of her circumstances.

 

She was a fighter.

 

But no one should have to fight the state, disability, trauma, poverty, housing insecurity, mental health decline and adulthood alone.

 

As Poppy transitioned into adulthood, the support that should have protected her began to fall away. Like too many care-experienced people, she was expected to become independent at an age when many young adults without care experience are still supported by family, housing security, emotional safety, and financial fallback.

 

For care-experienced people, the cliff edge is not theoretical.

 

It is lived.

 

In November 2020, Poppy’s life ended in the most heartbreaking way. After battling mental health challenges, disability-related barriers, trauma linked to childhood experience, and the lack of sustained support into adulthood, she died by suicide.

 

Her death was not simply a private tragedy.

 

It is part of a wider public failure.

 

Poppy’s story is why this campaign exists.

 

Why Poppy’s Law Is Needed Now...

 

The national evidence has now caught up with what care-experienced people have been saying for years.

 

In April 2026, the Government launched a review into the deaths of young people leaving care after official data showed 91 notifications of care leaver deaths in 2024–25. Of those, 66 were aged 16 to 21, and 25 were aged 22 to 24.

 

That is not just a statistic.

 

That is 91 families, friends, communities and futures torn apart.

 

The Department for Education described the number of deaths as “unacceptably high”, and the review is expected to examine what more could have been done to support those young people.

 

This matters because Parliament has already exposed a serious national data gap. In July 2025, the Department for Education confirmed that it does not hold information centrally on care leavers’ cause of death, whether they died by suicide, their mental health, or any past history of sexual abuse.

 

That is one of the most important reasons Poppy’s Law is needed.

 

Because if the state does not properly record how care-experienced people are dying, it cannot honestly claim to know how to prevent those deaths.

 

Project R’s position is simple:

 

You cannot prevent what you refuse to count.

 

The Current System Still Stops Too Early

 

Current care leaver support in England is still largely structured around support up to age 25. Government guidance states that personal adviser support may continue until a care leaver’s 25th birthday, and separate official guidance confirms that on a person’s 25th birthday, most care leaver support stops.

 

Poppy’s Law challenges that cliff edge.

 

Care experience does not stop affecting someone at 21.

 

It does not disappear at 25.

 

For many people, the most dangerous period comes later — when statutory services have stepped back, housing becomes unstable, trauma resurfaces, relationships break down, employment fails, mental health declines, and no one is clearly responsible anymore.

 

That is why Poppy’s Law calls for Priority Access Rights until age 35.

 

Not because care-experienced people are incapable.

 

Because the state acted as parent.

 

And no decent parent withdraws concern at 25 and calls it policy.

 

Recent Statistics Show Why Reform Cannot Wait

 

The evidence is stark.

 

NICE records that around 45% of looked-after children have a mental health disorder, rising to 72% among those in residential care, compared with around 10% of the general child population aged 5 to 15.

 

Official Department for Education statistics for 2025 show that 40% of care leavers aged 19 to 21 were not in education, employment or training, compared with an estimated 15% of all young people aged 19 to 21.

 

Government homelessness statistics for 2024–25 recorded 8,370 households with one or more care leavers aged 18 or over as having a care-leaver-related support need. Of those, 67.4% were already homeless when assessed, rather than only threatened with homelessness.

 

That means the system is still reacting after crisis.

 

After homelessness.

After mental health decline.

After someone has already reached the edge.

 

Poppy’s Law says prevention must come first.

 

What Poppy’s Law Is Calling For...

 

Poppy’s Law is not just asking for more sympathy.

 

It is asking for enforceable legal reform.

 

Project R is calling for a statutory reform package built around four core duties:

 

1. Priority Access Rights Until Age 35

 

Care-experienced individuals should have protected Priority Access Rights until age 35.

 

This should include priority access to:

 

housing and homelessness prevention;

 

social housing pathways;

 

emergency accommodation where risk is identified;

 

education, training, apprenticeships and higher education support;

 

employment schemes and public-sector opportunities;

 

mental health services;

 

trauma-informed counselling and therapeutic support;

 

neurodevelopmental assessment pathways, including ADHD, autism, PTSD and complex trauma screening;

 

independent advocacy;

 

financial hardship support;

 

support after bereavement, family breakdown, exploitation, domestic abuse, disability, homelessness risk, or mental health crisis.

 

This means care-experienced status should carry real weight across public services.

 

Not a leaflet.

Not signposting.

Not “come back when you are already homeless”.

 

Priority access means care-experienced individuals should not be forced to compete at the bottom of waiting lists against barriers created by the very system that raised them.

 

2. Coroners Amendment: Care-Experienced Status Must Be Recorded After Death

 

Poppy’s Law calls for a Coroners Amendment.

 

Where a person dies and they were care-experienced, that status should be formally identified, recorded and reported.

 

This should include:

 

a duty for coroners to ask whether the deceased was care-experienced;

 

mandatory recording of care-experienced status in relevant inquests;

 

notification to national data bodies where a deceased person was care-experienced;

 

annual publication of care-experienced death data;

 

recording of age, broad circumstances, and whether suicide, suspected suicide, self-inflicted death, neglect, homelessness, service failure, or safeguarding concerns were relevant;

 

publication of national patterns so the public can finally see the scale of the issue.

 

This amendment is essential because Parliament has already confirmed that the Department for Education does not centrally hold key information on care leaver cause of death, suicide, mental health or abuse history.

 

Without the Coroners Amendment, care-experienced people can die and disappear into fragmented records.

 

Poppy’s Law says they must be counted.

 

3. Mandatory Suicide Prevention Duty

 

Poppy’s Law calls for a mandatory suicide prevention duty for care-experienced individuals up to age 35.

 

This duty should apply to local authorities, NHS bodies, housing authorities, mental health services, education providers and relevant public bodies.

 

It should require:

 

early identification of suicide risk;

 

mandatory risk screening at key transition points;

 

urgent review where a care-experienced person presents with homelessness, self-harm, suicidal thoughts, domestic abuse, exploitation, substance misuse, repeated crisis contact, or disengagement from services;

 

named multi-agency responsibility where risk is known;

 

no closure of support during active crisis without senior review;

 

automatic independent advocacy where the person is struggling to navigate services;

 

mandatory learning reviews after suicide or suspected suicide involving a care-experienced person.

 

The current system too often waits until the funeral, the inquest, the review, the parliamentary question, or the “lessons learned” statement.

 

Poppy’s Law says the duty must come before the death.

 

4. Independent National Oversight

 

Project R is calling for independent oversight of care-experienced deaths, suicide risk, homelessness and serious outcomes.

 

The same systems that may have failed a person should not be the only systems allowed to examine what went wrong.

 

There must be independent scrutiny, annual reporting, public accountability and consequences where patterns of failure are identified.

 

Project R’s Care-experienced Reviewing Unit has already been examining the wider pattern of care-experienced deaths, hidden data gaps, suicide risk, poor aftercare, weak accountability and the absence of national visibility after young people leave care.

 

Poppy’s Law strengthens that work by turning it into a clear legislative demand:

 

care-experienced lives must be counted;

 

deaths must be recorded;

 

risk must be acted on;

 

public bodies must not be allowed to quietly lose people in fragmented systems;

 

and care-experienced individuals must not be abandoned at the edge of adulthood.

 

Current Reform Is Welcome — But It Does Not Go Far Enough

 

In April 2026, the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act received Royal Assent. Parliament states that the Act will strengthen children’s social care safeguards and increase support for care leavers.

 

That is welcome.

 

But Poppy’s Law goes further.

 

Because the current national conversation still does not fully answer the hardest question:

 

What happens after support ends?

 

What happens after 25?

 

What happens when a care-experienced adult dies by suicide, and no national system properly records that care experience as part of the picture?

 

What happens when the state was once the corporate parent, but nobody is accountable for the adult outcome?

 

Poppy’s Law exists because partial reform is not enough.

 

Our Petition

 

We are petitioning for Poppy’s Law: a statutory reform package to extend Priority Access Rights for care-experienced individuals until age 35, introduce a Coroners Amendment, create a mandatory suicide prevention duty, and establish independent national oversight of care-experienced deaths and serious outcomes.

 

This campaign is for Poppy.

 

It is also for every care-experienced person who has been told to be resilient while being denied the safety nets other people take for granted.

 

It is for those who became homeless.

 

Those who disappeared from services.

 

Those who were labelled “hard to engage” when they were actually drowning.

 

Those who were moved, assessed, discharged, closed, referred on, forgotten, and then blamed for not surviving a system that never properly held them.

 

Poppy’s life mattered.

 

Care-experienced lives matter.

 

And if the state is going to call itself a corporate parent, then it must be held to the standard of one.

 

Please sign and share this petition.

 

Help us make Poppy’s Law real.

 

Help us make sure care-experienced people are counted, protected, prioritised and never abandoned at the edge of adulthood again.