The Big Lottery Fund has delivered just shy of £30m worth of grants for English projects dealing with young people leaving either care or young offenders institutions.

Thirty projects have received ranging grants from £548,000 to £1.5m via the programme developed to fill the “void” in support services for vulnerable young people between the ages of 10 and 25 years, the funder announced today. The projects and the programme itself were “co-developed” by the young people themselves, BIG said.

The largest grants, worth around £1.5m each, have gone to the Church of England Children’s Society, Fairbridge and Nacro.

Fairbridge’s grant will see it explore the relationship between young people leaving care and their support workers in an effort to ensure the transition to independent living goes as well as possible. Nacro, meanwhile, will be working to provide better support for young offenders leaving institutions.

In keeping with BIG England’s new holistic approach to funding and impact, a critical element of the projects funding will be for those involved to liaise with policymakers and raise awareness of where there are gaps in the care for these vulnerable young people.