As individuals, we’re all different. We have different likes and dislikes, different hopes and dreams for the future.
If you need help, support or advice from Social Services, we will always strive for the best outcome for you. To do this properly, we need to understand what’s most important to you and your family and make sure that we’re helping you to plan ahead in a way that’s going to make the difference you’re looking for.
We’ve been improving how this happens for young people with disabilities, as they “transition” into adulthood, and looking at innovative ways of listening to Looked After Children.
Transition
Background
A Transition service has been in existence in Conwy for 8 years. It was originally made up of one Transition Co-ordinator located in Children Services and one Transition Co-ordinator in the adult Learning Disability Team. Conwy recognised early on the value of appropriate transition planning with young people and therefore committed resources to developing a team.
What’s changed?
Today the team is made up of a Transition Manager, Senior Practitioner, 2 Social Workers who act as Transition key Workers and an unqualified Transition key Worker. Since April 2012 we have had an ASD Community, mentoring and support worker in post. This is a shared post with a neighbouring authority and it is hoped that we will be successful in securing funding for three years in total.
For the past 2 years an additional post has been attached to the team (ESF funded – Reaching the Heights) to focus on young people within mainstream schools who have Asperger’s and who have been identified as likely to benefit from support in planning for adult life. This has now come to an end. The ASD Community, mentoring and support worker (ASD Strategy regional Grant) who works with 16 to 25, young people with Asperger’s has been able to continue some low and moderate level pieces of work, with this group to assist with the exit strategy.
The team is located with the adult Learning Disability service but has allocated space within the Children with Disabilities Team. The Transition team also work across the range disabilities, including learning disability, physical disability, sensory impairment, ASD / Asperger’s,
The aims and objectives of the Transition service is to ensure a smooth transition for young people with disabilities during their transition from childhood to adulthood.
The team works with other agencies to provide appropriate and accessible services for young people with disabilities. It is a multi-agency process which promotes and enhances future multi-agency developments.
The Transition process begins at the Year 8 school review. The Transition Key Worker undertakes a range of activities over the next 4 years, focussing on planning using person centred approaches. This culminates in a completed Community care assessment and care plan prior to the young person’s 18th birthday and where needed services provided immediately after their 18th birthday. The Transition key Worker remains involved with the young person until it is deemed that they have fully transitioned into adult services.
What difference has it made?
– “I’ve gone through changes …. leaving school, college and going to day services. It’s been hard but I had a plan of what I wanted to do. I couldn’t have got through it without my transition worker.” (Service user)
– “There have been lots of changes ….. but the consistent thing has been the Transition workers for {my daughter and son}”.(Parent of 2 service users)
– “I’ve worked with the Transition Team for a number of years and they make a huge effort to get to know the young people in my class. It would be easy to make decisions about the future for the students, especially the ones with communication difficulties, but the Transition Workers try hard to find out what they really want to do and in a very natural and friendly way.” (Teacher)
(Careers Advisor) – “I work alongside the Transition Workers to help young people and their families choose from a range of options when they leave school. We have joint meetings so families don’t have to repeat things, which is great and the Transition Workers can answer questions about day services and things that are available after they have been to college”
LAC Forum – Loud Voices
Background
We wanted to:
- engage Looked After Children in our Service Delivery
- engage Looked After Children in the wider Youth forum in Conwy as LAC were previously not represented
- develop opportunities for Looked After Children to be recognised for
their talents and contributions to Society
What’s changed?
- Engaged with NYAS to organise the quarterly meetings
- Guest speakers have come to consult with young people this has led to a change in service delivery e.g. leisure passes for LAC
- Professional officers have been accountable to Young people to drive forward changes
What difference has it made?
The group helped (together with some members of the Youth Council) to produce artwork for a young-person friendly version of the Corporate Parenting plan.
Young people have been offered opportunities to guide student Social Workers from Bangor University, to give them some insight into what makes a good Social Worker.
The forum is a successful support group for LAC, and well attended by a regular group.
Buddies Project
Background
Sometimes children and young people go missing or “run away”, and it’s obviously very worrying when it happens. It is important that we understand the reasons why children run away, so we need to be able to hear their views, and to act on what they tell us.
A group of ex care leavers who had previous experience of going missing were invited to work with staff on a project to work on it. They advised that if they’d had someone other than a “professional” to talk to whilst they were on the run, this would have been very helpful.
An idea was born, to involve ex care leavers in the running of a phone line, for young people who were missing. They would offer advice on how to keep safe, and be someone to talk
to without being judged on why they have run away. The “buddies” project had begun.
What’s changed?
Within Conwy we now have an established group of committed “buddies”, who are all ex care leavers. The buddies meet on a regular monthly basis with Children Services employees and the Missing Children Co-ordinator for North Wales Police. They are working towards helping professionals with ‘return home interviews’.
The group has developed plans for the telephone support line and looked at how they can make a difference, for example by providing information via a website, to help prevent young people from going missing in the first place.
What difference has it made?
All Buddies have been trained to enable them to mentor others. They presented the project at a Children’s Services staff day to share their aims and goals. They have also presented at Barnardo’s Child Exploitation and Trafficked Children conference. This was very well received by all professionals present.
The Buddies are currently in the process of completing a questionnaire with children who have gone missing in the past, to get a better understanding of what would help. The project has been shared with all North Wales counties and all have a keen interest in its progress.
In line with the “All Wales Protocol Missing Children”, children are sending us a clear message that they need help in dealing with problems in their lives.