Leaving Foster Care: Useful Contacts & Resources
Leaving Foster Care: Useful Contacts & Resources
Leaving home for the first time can be a scary and exciting time for any young person but leaving foster care can be very daunting. At Community Foster Care we emphasise the importance of and provide training and workshops for independence and life skills for our young people. Young people in care often do not have the same level of support networks around them as those young people leaving family homes and so leaving care can be a very isolating, lonely time. It is always our aim to support our young people as much as we can both while they are under our care and beyond and we want to make sure they are equipped for the change and feel confident in moving forward into independence.
Our Independence Month in February looked at topics such as money planning and budgeting, cooking, taking care of your mental health, speaking to care leavers, what the world of work looks like and also some workshops for our foster carers in supporting their care leavers’ transition and managing staying put arrangements.
As a follow up, we wanted to share some really useful contacts and resources for young people who have either left care already or are preparing to do so:
Financial advice and support for care leavers - Financial Entitlement for Care Leavers Fact Sheet by Become Charity and advice and information from The Money Charity
Apply for care leaver grants - The Care Leavers Foundation and Capstone Care Leavers Trust
Practical support for care leavers - Dad, How Do I? YouTube channel
If you are a young person nearing care leaver age, please do try to share your worries and concerns but also what you’re excited about with your support worker, social worker and foster carer’s - they can all help you to feel more confident in the move to independence and answer your questions (no question is too silly!)
You might be very ready to leave your foster home and can’t wait to have your own space and make all your decisions and that’s great but there’s lots to learn and being able to do things like look after your mental health and budget well are super important. The adults around you have all made the jump themselves, so are a great source of information and help!