Care leavers’ transitions to independence

But these Staying Put carers... I think on reflection they were only really in it for the money. They complained about me having to come back from uni, so I ended up staying at uni full-time, throughout the year, because I had this scholarship from uni which gave me the accommodation for free for the full, like, 52 weeks. I got into a little bit of trouble at uni because I made friends with the wrong sort of people, and ended up losing the scholarship, but by the time I’d lost the scholarship, the carers had said that they weren’t willing to have me as... because I need... because uni were going to kick me out, so obviously I needed somewhere to live back home, and the carers turned round and said, “well, we only agreed to Staying Put, we didn’t agree to full-time,” so I then had to move again.

So, then I was basically saying to my PA, I said like, “Look, I want my own flat,” I said, “I can’t... like I can’t with these like foster carers,” ’cause like it was literally my last straw with them. And the he was like, “Oh, no, but ’cause of where your mental health is at the minute, I don’t think you should have a flat on you own.” So, I was like, “Well, what are my options then?” and he was like, “So you can either go into like this house, or a block of flats with like four flats in it. And then a staff on all night,” and like, “it’s your flat,” and it’s... you’re in there for like, I say about three or four years usually until you’re like 25. And then basically they just kind of like, say if you need help cooking, you can just go and get the staff member, or if you just want someone to talk to at night, you can go and get it.

So, I was like, “Yeah, I wouldn’t mind that, like sign me up for that,” and then he was like, “Or you could do supported lodgings where you live with someone?” so I was like, “What’s supported lodgings?” And it’s basically like you literally just rent a room in someone’s house, like you have no connection to them. Like I guess with supported lodgings it’s different to normal, like a normal lodger ’cause you have a little bit of support, their kind of like mentor, like help you with bills, or they have to make sure and ask you like, “Have you gone to the dentist this...” like every six months, “have you been going?” du-du-du, stuff like that basically, but you don’t have a connection with them. So I was like... I was like, “Yeah, can do that,” ’cause like there’s no attachment there, and I have a thing about attachment, so it was kind of like that. And then he was like, “Yeah, yeah, I’ll look around for them,”

So yeah, did a bit of moving around and sort of constant like, you know, family breakdowns and all that fun stuff. But when I was about 15, 14, I went back to live in the family home, and then essentially it just wasn’t safe for me anymore. So, I just intentionally made myself homeless, to which the social workers... like I ended up living in like random people’s attics and doing... just living in random places, essentially, until I got... basically, there’s this really, really lovely old lady and she lived in a really nice house, pretty much a mansion, but she used to foster kids. But now she was kind of just leaving rooms up for kids that need it. So I just rented a room through children’s social care, a bit like a shared kitchen area and all that stuff.

I found supported accommodation placement and so I lived in a foyer with about sixty other estranged and care leaver students. So, you had to be in education to be in the foyer. And then we had a support worker. We had a team around us. And, obviously, in the 6th form I had regular meetings, as safeguarding leads that sort of intervention. So, the support worker we had regular meetings at least once a month, they sort of worked in the building we lived in. So, you could go downstairs during the office hours and speak to them. At the meetings we’d look at safety plans.

Ninna: So, they did lots of like assessments and they had lots of meetings with like adult social care and their...

Carer: Yeah, so that Shared Lives did the assessment, didn’t they?

Ninna: Yeah.

Carer: And then adult social care assessed Ninna for a social care package.

It sounds like you’re sort of advocating on Ninna’s behalf in a sense that you’re asking for all these things to happen?

Ninna: Yes, [shared lives carer] does a lot to help me and I wouldn’t manage without her because she’s the one that does my medication and anything, and all those things.—

Carer: Yeah. Yeah, and I think I kind of... I guess I kinda see that my role is making sure that

Ninna has what she’s entitled to, but also what she needs,—

Carer: —so there’s the two bits. There’s the bits of, you know, making sure that she gets the money she’s entitled to and the benefits and that that’s all kinda sorted for her, but also that she gets the support and services. But also that she’s got a good quality of life here living with me as well, that... you know, so she gets what she needs at college and... yeah. So I guess I probably do,. and also I am a social worker, so I kind of... although I don’t work in statutory social work, I’ve got a very good idea about what’s meant to happen. So, I used to manage semi-independent and children’s homes, so I kind of know what Ninna’s rights are and I bang on about it.

[chuckles]

And it sounds like it... you’re a good person to have on her side then?

Carer: Yeah, she’s kind of a good housemate though.

[chuckles]

Carer: Yeah.

So, what’s going on with the everyday life; what are you doing in your everyday?

Ninna: I go to college. I do some activities, and I’m gonna play football tonight at a football... at [sports club], and I see my friends and I hang out with [shared lives carer], and then—

Carer: Yeah, we swim and gym and then, yeah, and then she’s gonna start football club tonight. So... ’cause we haven’t lived here that long, we’re still finding activities that we can go and do, and do some things together, and then as I say, football’ll be her first thing that you can go and do, and you’ve got friends now, haven’t you?

Ninna: Yeah.

Carer: —you’ve made through college and—

Ninna: Yeah.

Carer: —we’re looking for things like work experience and—

Ninna: Yeah.

Carer: —stuff so that she can kinda do some of the catching up ’cause there’s bits that she’s sort of missed—

Ninna: Yeah.

Carer: —that other young people her age would have done, so things like work experience, so it’s like trying to catch up on some of those things.

I’ve bounced around a lot. I’ve moved more since being on Leaving Care than when I was in care. I moved foster homes five times, but since being in Leaving Care, I’ve moved so many times: I’ve been in about seven different semi-independent placements. I’ve been in two different training flats, and then the whole moving to [city] for uni has been really badly managed as well. It’s taken two attempts to make that happen and adult social care have been involved as well.

So if Staying Put wasn’t an option, we could have done Shared Lives if that was available at the time, but they didn’t do any of that. I wasn’t actually referred to adult social care until a couple of years ago when I finally referred myself and they contacted the local authority. But there’s never been any kind of factoring in of my disabilities. Despite being diagnosed with generalised hypermobility while being in foster care, I was never put with a foster parent that understood my medical needs or understood my disabilities. I was never in a placement that was even accessible for the issues that I have with my joints and things; my medical needs were never taken into consideration in care, let alone while preparing to leave care. And things like my autism and stuff wasn’t dealt with properly.

Yeah. They said they have to talk to my... to the company, to the organisation that I am currently staying with, like the placement, to see if they will allow me to stay at least for three months more after turning 18. So, they said they’re still waiting to hear from them, but if that doesn’t work out, I will be placed in YMCA. So, it’s like a temporary placement for people, for young people that are 18 and above, I believe.

OK.

So, I’ll be placed in the YMCA if things don’t work out with my current accommodation, and after that, I will be moving to uni, and from there... yeah.

OK. So, if you stayed in your current accommodation, that would be like three months, or something like that. So how long would they put you into the YMCA?

If I don’t get to stay for three months in my current accommodation, then I would have to move immediately to a YMCA until I move for uni.

Oh, OK.

Yeah.

OK. And then when is the uni plan, when are you...?

So, September next year.

OK.

Yeah.

So, you would be in the YMCA from like now—

From now, yeah.

—to next September?

Yeah.

There needs to be work, before that point, like I’d say at least six months before to try and find alternative accommodation, to look at bidding, to look at things like that.  The local authority have a tendency to sort of say, “You’re no longer our problem, you’re the local housing organisation problem,” when really the local housing organisation just another department within the same council, so surely there needs to be a bit more joined up working and somebody needs to take responsibility. But even within the same organisation, the council, you’ll get passed from pillar to post. The local housing organisation said I was the leaving care   children’s... social care’s responsibility. Children’s social care said I’m the local housing organisation responsibility.

Because I had been living in my home town, I was born in this town but I was a... I was a Looked after Child in another City,  and I...  and my care order was with this City but I’d always... I’d spent a lot of time in my home town. I was born here I went to primary school here I went to high school here  and then I was moved around the country. So I was moved to three different cities  this is right before I turned...  well, in my leaving care stages of care, so I’d say between 17 and 18, or 16 and 18 even: three cities  and then back to my home town So I had a local connection to this town and then I was then had applied to go to university here  I went to college here  So I... I had to fight to prove that I had a local connection, and the local housing organisation still said, “Oh, yeah, you might have a local connection, that’s not the issue,  you’re a care leaver from that City, so my home town were saying we’re not accepting responsibility and saying, you know, and you’re not our problem, you need to present to their local housing organisation and I said, “That’s not the case at all. No, it doesn’t matter where I’m a care leaver from, I’ve got a local connection. I was actually born in here and I’ve spent... I’ve been to all these schools here and my GP’s is here Like, you... you know, and I... it was a big fight,  and I had to self-advocate a lot.

So, I did [course name] which I think dropped out just after my first year. So, I was living on student finance that was supporting me for the best part of like a year. But I didn’t attend. I don’t think I even went to one lecture in an entire year. I just, I very much, I kind of just went for the purposes of, like, I had to go somewhere, and I needed money and so I just kind of, yeah. I had that support in place, but I wasn’t present, like I was not present at all. I was just… I was festering in my room for a long time. I was going out, I was eating, but then I was just like… I was not studying, I was not socialising, I was just… I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t particularly enjoy the course. I didn’t even… The thing is, when I was in sixth form there was a pressure for everyone to go to uni, and I just saw it as a way to get out of my circumstances, and I didn’t really know what I wanted to study. So, I just thought, ‘I like reading,’ ‘I like books,’ I would just go and do [course name] and that would suit me. But, I wasn’t really, I didn’t really want to go to uni. I just wanted to get away from my situation. So, I just went... I moved. But I think that’s when everything caught up with me, because then when I moved… when I was living in [UK country], I just kind of like shut down, really, emotionally like I just stopped being able to function and I was surviving on my student finance. But, like I said, I was not coping very well, and then I dropped off the course, and then I found myself unemployed. I never… I kind of… I was… I just… I moved to the [region in England] to work. I did these live-in jobs where I would kind of work and they’d provide accommodation, because I didn't have anywhere to go. Like I was… my tenancy had come to an end, and I dropped off the course.

So, I spent my whole childhood in foster care. And so, when I was turning 18 it was actually during Covid, and, huh, being a teenager I did some things I shouldn’t have been doing, which resulted in me needing to move out of the placement that I was in, but I think it was more like a general consensus that none of us really wanted me to live there anymore, huh, as... as toxic as that sounds. So, when I was 17, during kind of like Covid times, I was actively looking to move out with my friend at the time, but there was obviously difficulty around that due to needing to be 18 to move out, and also like having to need a guarantor, which is something I’ll get into more ’cause that is a topic which definitely needs to be discussed. And yeah, so basically as soon as I turned 18, I had a house arranged for me to move into, which I found myself; I basically sorted it all out myself. My guarantor was my ex-boyfriend’s dad at the... well, he was my boyfriend at the time, and yeah, I moved straight into that. It was like around the corner from where I used to live, which was quite beneficial, so just walk the stuff over. And yeah, it was difficult, but also, I think it needed to happen.

Mm, you don’t know someone until you live with them, I think, we rushed into that living situation together again because of... I felt like I needed to move out and it was kind of, like, I don’t wanna say she was the only option, because we were good friends, but it was like I didn’t think it through at all, you know? I think like where I live now and who I live with, I’ve known him like my whole childhood, basically, and he’s also from [area], and it works so well, like we don’t argue, we’ve... you know, we’ve lived together for a year and it’s like the house is clean and the house was never clean there. So, I learnt a very valuable lesson from it, a very, very valuable lesson. Just with also like tenancy agreements and things like that, which I think again maybe because I didn’t look for the access to learning about it, but I never really learnt about it, I think because I just left it all to my flatmate knowing that she knew, she really like fucked me over with it and I lost a lot of money because of it. They basically stole quite a few grand from me, I lost a lot of furniture and, yeah, just like I had no rights to the property anymore ’cause they took me off the tenancy agreement and I had no idea because I wasn’t actively checking and understanding that this was something that I should be aware of, it that makes sense?

So, I was preparing with my dad from obviously the age of 16 and I started sneaking out and seeing him, and when I had... I remember the day I went to my dad’s home for the first time, and it was just like, right... I’d... like from the start it was I would always talk about moving in with my dad when I turned 18 and I pretty much dreamed for the day to happen ’cause I’d have all the freedom I could ever want. And then Covid hit and that was just an absolute nightmare, it was just... oh, it just crushed everything. But I had ended up moving in with my dad for about a year and then I started university and moved to [city] for my degree, ah, yeah.

Basically I... around that time, social services started putting this thing in place where I would go to my dad’s like twice, like every fortnight for one night a week I’d stay over his so I could get prepared for moving in with him. Everything was great, and I’d see him pretty much every day anyway, you know, if he wasn’t at work. And that that stopped and I... that did like put a lot of damage on my mental health. Obviously, Dad’s the most important person in my life, you know, and it just broke us when I couldn’t see him. So yeah, I did end up bending the rules a bit and going out to see him, even though I shouldn’t have been, I know I shouldn’t have been, but I did. And that was a horrible day as well, but, you know, at least I got to spend the day with my dad, so yeah, it’s... When I did eventually move in with my dad, things got a bit easier, ’cause I fought with my social workers for months, and months, and months to just move in with my dad when the pandemic started. I’d only had a couple of months left until I was 18, and they wouldn’t grant that for us, and that also angered me a lot and, you know, I was pretty upset, but... yeah.