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"The quality of preparation for leaving care,
and of the aftercare subsequently provided, may
profoundly affect the rest of a young person’s
life".
Children (Leaving Care)
Act 2000
Providing the
young people we look after with consistent,
meaningful, and supportive care is extremely
important. Similarly, our experience has
taught us that young people leaving our care and
making their own way in the world need the same,
if not more, support and and reassurance.
Our approach fits naturally with the guidance
given in the Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000,
and supports the view that young people should
be looked after until they are prepared and
ready to leave care, in stable placements, with
continuity of carers and the maintenance,
wherever possible, of positive links. They
should be prepared gradually to be ready to
leave care, with attention given to guiding them
in learning practical self-care needs such in
the areas of health, budgeting, domestic skills,
and personal / relationship dimensions.
Young people leaving care should be enabled to
fulfil their potential in education, training
and employment, and have access to a range of
accommodation and the support and skills to
maintain themselves in their accommodation.
When a child
living at Springfields or Seafields Therapeutic
Children's Homes achieves an appropriate level
of emotional integration, self-control, and
acceptance of personal responsibility, they are
offered a carefully structured plan that allows
them to practice basic life skills and
strategies for gradually becoming less dependent
on the adults around them. However, great
care is taken to ensure they continue to feel
looked after and supported throughout this stage
of their development. They are still
children, and not 'little adults' and have
a right to continue enjoying being treated as a
child.
At Westfields,
we have incorporated the therapeutic community
approach with the principles of pathway
planning. In this way, we have achieved a
balanced care practice that fully addresses both
the emotional and practical needs of
young people as they begin the transition
from adolescence towards adulthood.
An integral and
essential element of this approach to caring for
young people is the "Learning to Look After Me” workbook
specifically created for the young people living at Westfields. It
is designed for those young people at Westfields that
are seen as old enough and grown up enough to begin thinking
about what they are going to do when they leave
Westfields, and when they are no longer being cared for
by their local authority.
The Learning to Look After Me Workbook takes the young
person through a range of skills and abilities that we
think they will need to have when they leave Westfields.
It is a training programme geared to teaching the
young person, over a 12-18 month period, how to begin to look
after themselves so they do not have to rely so heavily
on adult support.
We have designed the
workbook in a way that allows the
young person to start learning the easier and more basic
things first, and gradually move on to learn the more
difficult and complicated things later. Similar themes
are grouped together under different Levels; for
example, skills and abilities related with Food and
Eating are grouped under Level 1, called “My Food”.
There are 14 levels in the Learning to Look After Me
Workbook, the aim being that the young person works
through a level until they have shown that they have
mastered it, then moves on to the next level.
The young person’s Key Worker helps them with each
level, offering advise, support, and encouragement if
they find things difficult to grasp. Other adults are
also around to help as we recognise different adults
have different skills and aptitudes.
For each level, there is a list of skills and abilities
that the young person will be expected to practice. For
most of the skills in each level there is also tasks to
complete to show competency has been achieved. There is
a record of achievement at the back of the Workbook that
shows that the young person has achieved each level.
Each
workbook is individually made so it covers the right
skills for the young person. The “Learning to look after
me” workbook and programme aims to help young people to
learn how to look after themselves properly in their own
time and at their own pace.
For more about our Therapeutic Practice
Approach, please click the button
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