Who supports you

Telephone advisors wearing headsets.

Who supports you

People that support care leavers and how to get an independent visitor.

Here are all the different people who support you on your leaving care journey.

Social worker

When you turn 16, your social worker will have completed a needs assessment or pathway plan with you. The pathway plan is reviewed every 6 months. The plan includes what professionals are doing to support you to maintain relationships, opportunities to build friendships and how to stay safe.

They support you until you are 18 whilst you are in care and complete personal advisor (PA) roles and tasks for you until you are allocated a PA when you are 17 years of age.

Personal advisor (PA)

Your PA is there for you from age 17 to 25. They support you to leave care and become more independent. Between the ages of 16 and 17, your social worker performs the PA function.

They will complete pathway planning with you after you are 18 - before that, it's your social worker. They will complete a pathway plan with you at least every 6 months.

Your PA has statutory (legal) responsibilities. Your PA must:

  • support you with all aspects of your transition from care towards independence
  • keep in touch with you and meet responsibilities for contact including visiting at least every 8 weeks or more frequently as needs or risks require
  • visit your accommodation within 5 working days of a move or change
  • maintain and review your pathway plan at least every six months and when there is a significant change in your circumstances
  • ensure the plan meets its purpose and achieve the aims and objectives set out in your plan
  • support you to access appropriate health, wellbeing or welfare services
  • coordinate the provision of services and take reasonable steps to encourage you to makes use of such services
  • support you to develop skills to enable you to become independent
  • provide you with support to develop financial capability-how to manage day to day finances
  • support you to access housing options
  • support you to access and maintain education, employment or training
  • identify and address risk, working with you to manage risk taking behaviour and develop resilience
  • act as advocate or intermediary and if you require refer you to the advocacy services
  • provide you with high quality information, advice and guidance and signpost to appropriate provision
  • record work and interactions with you on our recording system (MOSAIC)
  • administer your setting up home allowance (SUHA) and any other entitlements

Conference reviewing officer (CRO)

Your conference reviewing officer, previously known as independent reviewing officer (IRO), makes sure your plan is working for you. This includes ensuring you stay in touch with those who are important to you. Like your social worker, they support you until your 18.

You can comment on, complain about, or compliment the support you receive. It is the CRO’s role to make sure your views are heard and act on these if this is not happening.

Foster carers

If you live with foster carers, they will support you with your everyday needs, interests, education employment and training choices and will support you to develop independent living skills. They will also help support you with opportunities to build friendships and to remain in contact with people who are important to you.

You will agree what support they will provide you with in your pathway plan.

Your social worker and PA will talk to you about your housing options. You can remain living with your foster carers past 18 in a staying put arrangement. For more information about this, see our Types of housing page.

Keyworkers

If you live in a home where you have a keyworker, they are there to provide for your everyday needs and help you build resilience and the independence skills you will need on your journey to living more independently.

They will support you to engage in activities of interest, your education, work or training. They will also help you to find opportunities to build relationships within your community and support you to have contact with people who are important to you. You will agree what support they will provide you with in your pathway plan.

Independent visitors

Independent visitors are adult volunteers from your local community who enjoy spending time with young people. They are there to support, listen and advise you, but most importantly to have fun – they are there just for you! They work with young people who are looked after by the local authority between the ages of 8 and 17 years old. If they are working with you prior to turning 18, we can usually arrange for this support to continue post 18.

Independent Visitors Service match someone with you who they think you will get on well with. They will visit you once a month, building a friendship and doing things with you which you enjoy. This might include:

  • going for a bike ride
  • having a chat over a hot chocolate
  • watching a film together
  • visiting a museum
  • doing sports together, like football, swimming or basketball
  • doing crafts together

Most visits take place at weekends or in school holidays when you are free.

How do I get an independent visitor?

If you are a looked after child aged between 8 and 17 years old and would like to have an independent visitor, talk to your social worker, carer or CRO and ask them to make a referral.

Keeping in touch

Before turning 18, your social worker will be visiting you every 6 weeks and you will have their contact details. If you are living in settled circumstances, they may visit you every 3 months.

Your PA will meet you when you turn 17. Your PA will visit you every 8 weeks and more if needed. When you turn 18, your social worker will stop visiting you. Your PA will continue to visit you at least every 8 weeks up until you are 21.

The law states this is the minimum a PA should see you. Your PA will meet with you as often as you need and stay in contact between visits. This may be by text, mobile, email, Skype or WhatsApp. You and your PA will agree how you want to keep in contact with each other.

When you turn 21, if you are not in education, your PA will talk to you about whether you wish for their support to continue. If you do, this is fine, they will continue to support you. If you choose to stop seeing them, you can come back to us at any point up to the age of 25 and request a PA again.

If you are in education, the law states we must continue to provide a PA to you until you complete your education. If you are 21 and still in education, you can agree how often you will see your PA, but we would like this to be a minimum every 3 months so we can check everything is going okay for you.

Your pathway plan will continue to be reviewed every 6 months whilst you remain in contact with your PA.

After you turn 25, we are still here for you. We would love to hear from you and find out how you are doing. If you need support or advice we will do our best to support you. The only thing we cannot do is allocate you a PA.

Contacting your personal advisor

When you first meet your PA, they will provide you with their telephone contact details. They will also provide you with their email address.

Your PA will let you know the days they work and their working hours. If they are on leave, they will put a message on their phone and email alerts to notify you they are off and when they will be back.

If your PA is not available when you call, they may be in a meeting or driving. Leave a message and they will call you back as soon as they can. This may not always be in the same working day, but they will do their best.

If your PA is off work, or you cannot reach them and the matter is urgent, the Care Leavers service has a duty line.

Care leavers duty line

The duty line is manned by PA’s from the Care Leavers team. The duty workers will be able to help you, but they may need to ask you some questions or make enquiries on your behalf.

Managers are also available should you need to speak to one. If you do, you can ask the duty worker for a manager to call you.

Our duty service is open Monday to Friday from 9.00am to 5.00pm.

You can contact them by:

Emergencies

Our Emergency Duty Team (EDT) is here for you outside of office hours. They respond to emergency situations that cannot wait until the next working day.

The EDT work 7 days a week from 5.00pm to 9.00am.

Contact the EDT by phone: 0330 222 6664.

If you are not happy with your social worker or PA

Who to speak to

Most young people get on with their social worker and PA. If you are not happy with either your PA or your social worker, we want to hear about this. It maybe you want to change your worker, or you are not agreeing on a specific matter.

If you cannot talk to your PA or social worker, you can ask to speak to their manager.

You can also talk to someone you trust and ask them to contact your social worker or PA's manager. This could be any professional, including your:

  • CRO
  • foster carer
  • keyworker
  • independent visitor
  • school
  • college
  • advocate