Solidarity & Awareness Weeks
Dates for your Diary - key celebration weeks 🎉🎉🎉
Every year there are five key dates for your diary to keep an eye out for.
Refugee Week. A UK-wide festival celebrating the contributions, creativity and resilience of refugees and people seeking sanctuary. Founded in 1998 and held every year around World Refugee Day on the 20th June, Refugee Week is also a growing global movement.          Website: https://refugeeweek.org.uk/Â
Kinship Care Week. This is a campaign to celebrate the incredible role that kinship carers play in children’s lives and also to raise awareness of what life is like for kinship families, including students raised in kinship care. It normally runs around the 2nd week of October. Website: https://kinship.org.uk/get-involved/kinship-care-week/
Care Experienced Week (Scotland). This takes place at the end of October every year. It is a week to celebrate the Care Experienced community and provide opportunities for our members to connect with Who Cares? Scotland and each other. It tends to be the week before National Care Leavers Week. Website: https://www.whocaresscotland.org/care-experienced-week/
National Care Leavers Week (NCLW). Care experienced individuals and professionals from across the Alliance for Children in Care and Care Leavers - including Catch22 NLCBF, Become, Coram Voice, Care Leavers Covenant, Rees Foundation, Drive Forward, The National House Project and Barnardo’s - coordinate each years #NCLW efforts nationally. It is the final week of October. Website: https://mycovenant.org.uk/nclw/
Estranged Student Solidarity Week. This is held in the final week of November every year. As it is EaCES who run this, you can see a full section on the week below. This was founded by Stand Alone, but handed over to EaCES in 2024 by Director Susan Mueller upon Stand Alone's closure.
In addition to these weeks, there is also Care Day. The third Friday of February is Care Day – the world’s biggest celebration of children and adults with care experience! Â
Estranged Student Solidarity Week (#ESSW)
The #ESSW theme for 2024 is 'Invisible No More' (25th Nov -1st Dec 24)
Estranged Students Solidarity Week is a national campaign for universities, colleges, student unions/associations and further & higher education sector organisations. Established by Stand Alone in 2017, the aim of the week is to raise awareness of the struggles which estranged students—i.e. students studying without parental support—face, as well as the support available.Â
This year’s campaign, Invisible No More, uses bright and punchy graphics to contrast the often invisible struggles which estranged students face.
As part of this year’s campaign, we have created templates for you to use on your social media. Please find the Media Guidance Document here, as well as links to the templates on Canva. We ask you to please share these with your social media team to post during Estranged Students Solidarity Week.
What can you do
We recommend for you to organise in-person events where possible. Suggestions include: Workshops relating to some of the challenges estranged students may face; Q&A session with your institution’s support staff; Social events for estranged students to meet each other; Networking events for estranged students.
Post on your institution's social media in support of this year's campaign and to raise awareness of estranged students in general. You could post quotes from students, information about your support offer, facts and statistics, etc. See also our Media Guidance Document.Â
Share resources with your estranged students, such as this UCAS-recommended EaCES Handbook, Together Estranged and All Of Us UK.
Past #ESSW campaigns, blogs and thoughts
Here are some previous year's blogs and campaigns for #ESSW.
Student Blog: Estranged Students Solidarity Week by Chloe Pomfret studying Human Sciences at St Catherine's College, Oxford. Read it here (2023).
Estranged Students Solidarity Week – What Is It and Why Does It Matter? by Tina Bhartwas. Read it here on Young Fabians (2022).Â