Support for care leavers

As you start to think about living independently, you have the right to get support from us.

Personal advisers

Your personal adviser will be allocated to you after you turn 16 years old.

Your personal adviser is there to support and work with you. Their role is to keep in touch with you to make sure you're doing well and getting the support you need.

They will:

  • Make sure you have a safe, suitable place to live.
  • Help you find work, training or carry on your education.
  • Be there for you if you need advice
  • Help to develop your pathway plan

Pathway plans

When you live independently, you'll need to be able to do a lot of things for yourself. It's a good idea to find out now what you can do already and what you're going to need to practice.

Your personal adviser and social worker will give you advice and guidance to help prepare you for living independently.  This will include a plan to help you move from care to independent life.  This is called a Pathway Plan

There are different areas that will be covered in your pathway plan, these include:

Through the pathway plan, we'll work together to look at the different aspects of your life to help understand your individual needs and make sure that they are met both now and in the future.  

Building relationships

Relationships are important to everyone. We can help you to build relationships with people who can support you.

We can:

  • Provide you with an independent advocate. A person who can help you to make decisions about the support you recieve and understand your rights.
  • Help you to stay in touch or reconnect with people special to you. This could be someone like former foster carers, social workers or independent visitors.
  • Help you to build and maintain healthy relationships with your friends and family.
  • Reconnect you with your birth family, if that's what you want and it's in your best interests.

Get support

To get our support you can:

  • Get in touch with us using the contact details on this page
  • Speak to your personal adviser or social worker

 

Contact The Step Ahead Service

Telephone: Click to call 0300 303 0440

Address: The Step Ahead Service
Floor 3
Fashion Corner
57–59 Drake Street
Rochdale OL16 1XL

Phone:
Monday–Friday: 8.30am–4.30pm