Your own Pathway Plan

A PA is there to help you with the things you need support with, or just to give you a helping hand. You might want to work on a particular issue for a short time or maybe you would prefer us to work together for longer. The choice is yours.

• Just before you turn 18, your social worker will introduce you to your PA. Your PA will replace social worker, but because you are now an adult, more emphasis will be placed on building your independence and on supporting you to develop personal responsibility for your wellbeing. Your PA is there to help and to guide but you can always ask other people to help you too. Remember that everyone is different, so you may still be working with a social worker after your 18th birthday. 
• Your PA will keep in touch with you and provide practical support (like help filling out a job application), discuss your needs, tell you about different options for living, studying and working. They will help you make choices that are right for you and you can ask your PA to come along to meetings and appointments if you don’t feel confident going by yourself. Often your PA will refer you to someone else who will be able to give you the exact support you need.
• Your Pathway Plan is a legal document, which sets out a clear plan for your future and will set out the agreed level of contact between you and your PA. Your PA will meet with you in person at least every eight weeks until you turn 21 (this will sometimes be at your home). If at any time, you need more support or advice, you can contact your PA and they will meet with you. After 21, your contact with your PA will be agreed between the two of you and will be based on your needs. 
• We will always try to keep you working with the same PA, although this will not always be possible. If you request a change, we will consider this. 
• Everyone is different and your relationship with your PA will change as you get older. When you turn 21 you may decide you no longer need support from a PA, but if you do, you can reconnect with your PA at any time before you turn 25.
• If you have been out of touch with the Leaving Care Service but are still under 25 and want help or advice, please get in touch. We will meet with you to complete a new Pathway Plan and work with you to agree what support you need. 

A Pathway Plan is a legal document, which sets out a clear plan for your future. It is a written document that sets out your needs, views, and future ambitions and states exactly what support you will receive from others to achieve them. This is a joint document and sets out what you will do in order to achieve your own goals – along with timescales to complete this work.

• Your social worker will work with you to prepare your Pathway Plan before you turn 18, ahead of you leaving care. Once you have become a care leaver at age 18, your Personal Advisor will support you with your Pathway Plan. 
  
• We will review your Pathway Plan with you at least every six months so that it is kept up to date.
• This is an important document in which we set out your future goals and aspirations and plan how we can work together to meet them. It will set out what support you’ll need and how it will be provided and will also discuss what you will do to make this plan happen.
• It is an agreement that you make with the Leaving Care Service but also with yourself. This is why it is important that you and your PA always have your own copies of your Pathway Plan and that you take the time to read through and sign your plan. 

The Leaving Care Service will consider with you what extra support you may need and where it will come from.  For example, you might need extra support because you are:

• starting work or a new training course
• moving into your own flat
• worried about your finances 
• feeling lonely or isolated
• a young person with special educational needs or a disability
• an Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Child (UASC)
• unclear about your immigration status 
• in or leaving custody or you have had contact with the criminal justice system
• a young parent 
• going through a difficult time in your personal life

If any of these circumstances come up, just let us know and we can help. Remember to let your PA know when things change in your life like your job, living situation or health and we will make sure you are getting the best help we can give.