HE Professionals

Connect with your HE colleagues across the UK to build community for care experienced and estranged students.

This peer-support network exists to support HE professionals wanting to create/maintain community and a sense of belonging for the care experienced and estranged students at their own institutions. We only gather once a term.

The next meeting is: Tuesday 6th October 2026, 11am-12noon.

This is your space to ask for advice or to share good news and learning from your own institution. So, please do come with topics and ideas you want to discuss – speak up in meetings and use both your voice and/or the chat bar readily to get what you need from the group. We don’t record the meetings, but we can share helpful links and documents afterwards that members have asked us to circulate.

Our 150+ members have roles ranging from from Named Contacts and wider access roles: to Residential Life, Student Advice, Library Services, Student Union/Association/Guild Staff and Finance colleagues.

To get on the list for the next meeting and be welcomed into the group, get in touch with our network chair, Ira, at Ira.Hakim@unitefoundation.org.uk.

The network was created in a response to popular demand from a Unite Foundation seminar at a National Network for the Education of Care Leavers (NNECL) in 2024. You can download the outputs from that first seminar below. We’re committed to continually sharing resources created for HE professionals and be assured that its a safe space to meet and share the tribulations as well as the triumphs.

A Winter Guide for HE Professionals

Check out this simple guide to making your university inclusive through the winter break when many care experienced and estranged students still rely on services.