Five teams have been selected to take part in the JAM. The teams are from: Care Visions, Falkirk Council, Hot Chocolate, Includem and Kibble. Each team is going to focus upon one barrier they would like to address to support workers to have ongoing positive relationships with young people as they leave care and live interdependently.
Sooooo, the barriers are:
Judgement from others
Barrier: Workers feel judged if they choose to remain in contact with young people when they leave the service. “I feel anxious about what my colleagues, friends and family will say if I stay in contact with Ronnie once he has left the service I work for, or if I meet him outside of work time”
Question: How can Care Visions support staff to remain in contact with young people when they leave the service?
Needing permission
Barrier: Workers don’t know if they are allowed to offer ongoing relationships with young people they have cared for and supported when they move on from living in care. “Am I allowed to do this within my current role? It makes me feel terrible when young people ask if they can stay in touch and I can’t explain how they can do this”
Question: How can Falkirk Council give staff and young people clear guidance that both supports ongoing relationships as well as ensures these relationships are safe and manageable?
Where is the love?
Barrier: What’s love got to do with it? Where is the ‘L’ in SHANARRI? If we are ‘getting it right for every child and young person’ surely they need to feel loved? But what does that look like in a professional context? Some professionals feel awkward with the word love, never mind enacting this emotion. It may also make some young people feel uncomfortable, or may lead to misunderstandings. But should young people who are in and leaving care feel love any less than any other young person?
Questions: How can we show more love in a professional context? and; What do professionals and young people need, and what do they need to do differently, to show and feel love?
Personal and professional boundaries
Barrier: We all have boundaries in different relationships, but what happens when professional boundries blurr with personal ones? Some workers are concerned that they should not become overly involved with a young person when they leave the serice they provide beacuse they feel their professional boundaries discourage the continuation of this relationships. However for some this does not feel right, “If my child was in trouble, needed someone to talk to or somewhere to go, I would not turn them away” and “We are told to trust and talk to staff about our problems and share our good times in the unit, but I can’t fill you in on my life after I leave?” The boundaries of care and support will change in 2015 as support will be avalible until young people are 26, what does this mean to workers?
Question: How can Kibble support relationships for our young people to continue with the significant adults that have become part of their young lives? and; What guidance do professionals need from their organisations to continue to support young people after leaving their care?
Life has ups and downs
Barrier: Leaving care or home is not a linear journey and independence is never acheived by anyone; we are all interdependent. However some young people who find they need support after they stop accessing support can be reluctant to get back in touch with Includem to ask for help. “My brothers kept on telling me ‘You’ve got to phone Includem, see if you can get any help.’ But I kept on putting it off… I was too proud to ask for help again. It was the fact that we’d already been in Includem and they’d signed us off, they already felt that we were able to stand on our own two feet and work our way through life”
Question: How do we ensure young people feel that getting back in touch with Includem is a normal thing to do, and they will be supported just like any other young person who has left home and come up against new challenges they are not sure how to deal with?