21+ offer

Turning 21

At least 6 months before you turn 21, your personal advisor will start to talk you about what might change when you are 21.

This will give you time to think about what support you might want.

It is your choice once you reach 21 years old to decide if you still want to have -

• an allocated worker
• agreed visits
• pathway planning

If you do not feel that you want a service after 21, then we will work with you to plan a positive ending. Your personal advisor will arrange to take you out for a meal or an activity of your choice. 

Your personal advisor will also send you a letter highlighting your journey through leaving care.

Higher education for those aged 21 to 24

Your personal advisor will continue working with you until you finish your course.

We recognise that you are busy studying and now that you are over 21, you may want not want or need to see your personal advisor as often. It is important that you have the support you need to complete your studies, so you can agree with your personal advisor how often you want to see them. We would still expect this to be at least once every 12 weeks.

This helps us to work with you, if you are finding you need support and for us to ensure we can continue to support you whilst you are studying. You will still have a Pathway Plan review every 6 months.

Support available after turning 21

After you turn 21, it is up to when you choose to no longer work with the service.

You and your personal advisor will review how you are and what support you might need after you turn 21. This might include -

• your home
  • helping you feel settled in your home
  • helping you have a long term tenancy
  • if you are in custody, do you feel you will need support when you leave custody
• your relationships
  • relationships that are important to you
• your health
  • access to your GP and health services
  • support you may still need around your physical and emotional and mental health
• your aspirations
  • support to get into or go back to work or college or university
  • help to progress on your chosen career path

If you decide to stay with us after you turn 21, you can agree how often you have visits (we would still expect this to be at least every 12 weeks) and calls. Your pathway plan can just focus on the areas where you still need some support.

When you start to feel you no longer need any support, you can discuss with your personal advisor at any time and you can review this together. When you are ready, you can tell us that no longer want to have an active service.

Opting out at 21

By the time you are 21, you may -

• be settled in your home
• managing your money well
• feeling confident that you know where to go for support from other services or in the community, if you need it

As discussed above, you and your personal advisor can talk about this and if you decide to no longer have an active service, you can choose to opt out and this will be reflected in your final pathway. This means your personal advisor will no longer call or visit and you won’t have any pathway planning.

Keeping in touch

Even though you may have chosen to no longer work with your personal advisor we still want to keep in touch and be there for you if you need us.

You can still contact the Duty Service if you need some advice or support. We will also give you a call at least once every year to check in and see how you are, if we can’t get hold you, we’ll send you a letter, just to remind you that you can contact us if you want to.

We will always send you a

• birthday
• festival
• Christmas card
• email out our quarterly newsletter so you know what’s going on in Leaving Care

we will do this until you turn 25.

You can also access our drop in which is just for 21 to 24 year olds every Thursday from 11am - 12.30pm at Room 42, where we can offer access to -

• information and advice
• support around housing
• education
• employment
• training

along with connection to service and support in the community.

Change in circumstances

If your circumstances change (anytime up to you turning 25) and you feel you need help and support, you can contact the Duty Service, who can provide advice and support for a short period of time.

If your circumstances change and you feel it would be helpful to have some longer-term support, you can contact us and we will complete an assessment of your needs and we can look to provide you with a personal advisor (we will try and ensure this is your previous worker whenever we can) who will talk to you about what support you need and work with you on your pathway plan. 

You can choose to opt out of the service whenever you feel ready.

Help for those over 25

Once you are 25 years old we won’t be working with you anymore as the service will come to an end.

We are happy to always give you any advice and guidance if you need it and still enjoy our young people contacting us to tell us how they are doing or celebrate thier success.

If you need any advice or guidance, you can contact us and we will always try to signpost you to the services that will be able to offer you support.

The Leaving Care service work closely with the Warren and you are able to access support from the Warren up to the age of 29.