Care Leavers are set up by the system to fail, but this charity won’t settle for that

Rica is vivacious and charismatic but also struggles with anxiety and depression. “I suffer from mixed anxiety and depressive disorder, known as MADD,” she says, telling her story to the Standard, and also to award-winning performance poet Lemn Sissay (who himself grew up in care) for a film supporting our campaign. MADD, she adds, is a condition in which both anxiety and depressive symptoms occur, but with neither severe enough to merit a separate diagnosis. “My engagement with the unresponsive hostel manager left me burnt out and exhausted. I didn’t have the energy to fight her and was away from my friend support network in Leeds. I started to lose my ability to manage everyday tasks.”