How to prepare your young person for a successful transition to independence

Stepping into the life of Foster Carer Frances as she prepares her young person to move on to independence.

Seeing your young person grow and flourish is no-doubly rewarding but can come with its struggles when seeing them become more independent and wanting to move on. Feeling a mixture of proud and scared, our foster carers want them to achieve their full potential whilst getting them ready and prepared for the real world out there.

We spoke with foster carer Frances as she goes through this:

"So my young person has expressed a wish to live independently, however, hasn't decided just when yet.

As part of her preparation and in discussion with the local authority, we looked at ways to find out what areas she needed support in, to live independently. The LA gave her a booklet of questions and was quizzed, giving us a fairly good idea on which areas to concentrate on.

For my young person - it was budgeting, keeping tidy and making wise friendship groups. Whilst her Independent Worker worked with her on friendship, safety and risk-taking, I as her main carer, worked with the rest.

"We've really enjoyed this process!"

Obviously, it's not suitable to work with her and the budget for our home, so we decided that she'd be given a budget to buy ingredients and cook for the family. Our young person decided she'd like to do this 3x a week, so she was given a budget of £30, £10 per day, for food for the family for 3 days. She had to work out menus and ingredients, keeping in mind what was in the cupboards already.

Her first week went very well, she stayed within budget, allowing her to also buy deodorant and shampoos etc. Her meals have been well cooked and we've really enjoyed this process!"