Neoliberalism is not kind to vulnerable populations. Care leavers as a vulnerable population have faired particularly poorly under successive governments. Policy and practice have maintained a position for decades in New Zealand where care leavers are responsible entirely for their own lives at the age of seventeen. This article reviews current literature, locally and internationally, in order to identify the needs of care leavers in the New Zealand context. It will question what is working already, what works elsewhere and how we might change the outcomes for these young people who have not chosen this path and yet appear to be punished through the government turning a blind eye