As you start to think about living independently, you have the right to get support from us.
Personal advisers
After you turn 16 years old, you'll be allocated a personal adviser 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.
Your personal adviser 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.
Support if you're a parent who has been in care
If you’re a parent who has been in care, you might need extra support. This isn’t because you’ve done anything wrong, parenting is important and sometimes really hard, especially if you haven’t always had stable support around you. Our aim is to support both you and your child so you can feel safe, connected and cared for.
If you're a parent who has been in care we can:
- Give you a setting‑up‑home allowance to help buy things for your baby.
- Talk with you about the level of contact you want before and after your child is born.
- Put you in touch with your local family hub so you can access support in your community.
- Support you if you need extra help from children’s services. We’ll attend meetings with you, explain what is expected in clear language and help you understand what needs to happen to keep you and your child safe.
- Act as your advocate so your views are heard and you feel supported throughout.
Support if you're in custody
If you’re a care‑experienced young person in custody, you might need some extra support. That’s completely normal. Being in care can mean you haven’t always had the same people around you, and being in custody can feel confusing, lonely or overwhelming.
If you're in custody we can:
- Keep in contact with you and the people involved in your care every month (by email, video call or direct visits)
- Visit you in custody at least every 8 weeks, where possible.
- Make sure you have a personal advisor, no matter what age you are when you enter custody.
- Help you plan for your release with the professionals and important people in your life.
- Hold a release‑planning meeting 1 month before you leave custody. We’ll explain what will happen, including who will collect you, where you will live and any licence conditions you need to follow.
- Help you apply for benefits when you are released. We can also discuss a weekly allowance while you wait for your benefits to be processed.
- Discuss providing you with money or items worth up to £10 per month. This depends on your needs and on you positively contributing to prison life (for example, working, attending education and maintaining good behaviour)
- Collect you from custody on your release day, where possible, and support you to any probation appointments. If we cannot collect you, we’ll meet with you within 2 days to check your welfare.
- Visit you within 1 week if you are remanded to custody, to explain what is happening and check you are okay.
- Visit you within 2 weeks of sentencing to check your welfare and offer emotional support.
Support if you're seeking asylum
Moving to a new country and seeking asylum, can be a lot to deal with at at once, a new country, new rules and big changes. It can feel confusing or frightening, especially without family around you.
If you’re a young person seeking asylum we can:
- Help you access a solicitor to make your asylum claim.
- Support you at meetings with the Home Office.
- Make sure you have an interpreter for all meetings, if you need one, so you understand what is happening.
- Provide safe and suitable accommodation if your asylum claim is delayed or you need to appeal after you turn 18.
- Help you connect with communities that reflect your identity and culture.
- Make sure you are offered an enhanced health assessment.
Supporting you to build relationships
Relationships are important to everyone. We can help you to build relationships with people who can support you.
If you need help building relationships 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