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Service has introduced a range of initiatives including “teatime chats”, video doorbells for at-risk young people, and “random acts of kindness”
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Care leavers in Oldham say they trust their personal advisers and appreciate the work to strengthen relationships
ACTION
Oldham Council's children's services department has worked incrementally to improve support and provision for care leavers in recent years with initiatives run by personal advisers forming a central plank.
On the back of changes to legislation in 2018 extending personal adviser support to all care leavers up to the age of 25, the local authority has reassessed its provision with a focus on relationships and improved support.
The service currently has 11 personal advisers, a figure that increased in recent years to help support care leavers through the impact of the pandemic, with efforts made to maintain caseloads of between 20 and 25 young people for each of them.
Nick Whitbread, assistant director for corporate parenting at Oldham Council, says the team has sought to offer extended provision up to the age of 25 in partnership with young people, while also providing new initiatives in response to their needs.
“There were a lot of young people at that age [between 21 and 25-years-old] who didn’t deem themselves as being at need,” he says.
“What we have always maintained to our young people is you can always come back at any point between the ages of 21 and 25.
“It was like a two-pronged approach to it. We wanted to send some communications out to those young people who had already turned 21, to see if they still need a service and tell them ‘we are available for you still’.
“For those young people who were turning 21 we sat down with them to formulate a joint assessment to determine if they still needed the service, and if they still wanted a service.
“It was very much a young person-led decision about what level of involvement there would be.”
Whitbread says the uptake has been strong.
“We talk about the cliff edge being at the age of 18 at the point children and young people leave care – but there was another cliff edge at 21. Now it is much steadier,” he says.
“We are observing many more young people staying in touch with the service, but then gradually being weaned off in a way that is led by the young person.”
One of the initiatives introduced by the team emerged from discussions with young people about what kind of engagement or meetings they would like with the service, and the idea of “teatime chats”, taking place every Thursday at 4.30pm, was conceived.
Young people attend a venue, food is provided, and they get to speak with each other and members of staff.
“The young people who attended the teatime chats really formed a relationship,” Whitbread says.
“There were two young people there who had children of their own and they would bring them as well. It became a real support network for them.
“I have been a few times to talk about housing and it helped inform conversations I went on to have at a more senior level.”
Other initiatives include a Thai boxing group to provide physical exercise and get young people involved and engaged, as well as a regular newsletter providing updates in service development and details of what is available for young people.
For higher-risk young people, the service has distributed 40 Ring doorbells – which allow them to monitor their front door via a real-time video feed.
“It provides that extra level of security and confidence in their home,” Whitbread says.
“They can see who is at the front door on their phones. We’ve had some direct feedback from young people to say they’re feeling better with that being there.”
According to Whitbread, one of the most impactful initiatives the service established during the pandemic was the introduction of “random acts of kindness”.
Young people are sent a card, or a gift, or paid a visit if they were going through some specific challenges, or a bereavement, or have something to celebrate.
“We did it even if we hadn’t heard from someone in a while,” Whitbread says. “We got really good feedback on that and how valued it was during the lockdowns.”
Whitbread adds that the service is relationship-based – there is a Facebook page for young people and an internal foodbank within the office with frozen and non-perishable food “so they don’t have to go to a foodbank and have that stigma attached to it”.
Another development for the service has been suicide intervention training in the wake of a young person tragically taking their own life.
“[The suicide] had a real impact on the team as you could imagine and we have worked very hard to support the service, the team and our young people,” Whitbread says.
“We have made sure the whole team is trained on ‘assist training’, which is a bit like mental health first aid, so the staff can recognise some of those triggers.
“They have trained on what kind of questions to ask to improve some of that explorative work to support the young person and give them someone to talk to.
“We know from the survey that our relationships with young people are really strong. So that young person has got the trusted relationship with the personal adviser, and with the training as well – the two collide together in a positive way.”
IMPACT
A survey conducted by the service found that 73 per cent of young people said they had the same leaving care worker for the duration of their involvement with the service, with 88 per cent saying they had trust in their worker all or most of the time.
There were also positive comments about young people's pathway and the support they receive, having access to technology like a smartphone, and their understanding of why they were in care.
Whitbread says that, based on the findings of the survey, the service is seeking to increase support for young people in establishing and maintaining friendships with their peers.
“The numbers for young people saying they have a good friend were not quite as high as we wanted them to be,” he says. “It just highlighted to me the importance of maintaining relationships, but not just professional relationships.
“When we are assessing young people and supporting them it's about having conversations with them about who is your friend and maintaining that.
“We are very strong on maintaining contact relationships with family members but the challenge back to my team is how strong are we at asking the same questions when it comes to friends.”
