Parent/carer

Helping you meet a young person's social care worker

Thinking about how and where you can meet a young person’s social care worker.

Contents
Introduction
1. What choices do you have?
2. Which ways of meeting make you feel...
3. What support might you need?
4. How will you support the young person’s choices?
5. Understanding your way of life
6. Children with disabilities

Introduction

Today we can meet in many different ways both in-person and using digital technology. We’re all different – what’s right for one person wouldn’t be right for another, so we’ve created a How to Meet Tool that helps young people and their social care worker make those decisions.

As a parent/carer you will meet with social care workers and other professionals, so it’s important for you to think about the choices you have and what works well for you and for the reason you are meeting. You might also need to support the young person in the ways they choose to meet their worker, like when they’re meeting online, so we’ve created the pathway below to help you think things through.

Young person's section

How to Meet Tool Accessible Version

What choices do you have?

Ask the young person’s social care worker what choices you have for how and where you can meet. There may be some choices that are not available for every meeting. If this is the case, the social care worker can explain why. You can also talk about the options for meeting which are a good fit for the reason you are meeting. Your choices are important, but it might not always be possible to have your first choice. You can change the way you meet over time.

Which ways of meeting make you feel most comfortable? Which ways make you feel uncomfortable? Do any make you feel unsafe?

What support might you need?

Talk to the young person’s worker about the support you might need for when you are meeting them. You might need extra support to understand what’s being said for example.

How will you support the young person’s choices?

Talk to the young person about the choices they’ve made about how they’d like to meet with their social care worker, and how you can support them.

Understanding your way of life

We all have different ways of doing things and different ways of being in life. This can be connected to our culture, religion, gender, sexuality and class. Talk to your child’s social care worker about your way of being and your way of doing things, and how they might affect where and how you can meet.

Children with disabilities

As a parent or carer of a young person/s with a disability you may need to play a bigger role in helping the young person decide how they would like to meet their social care worker. We have developed a more accessible version of our How to Meet Tool where you can all work together to make those decisions. In some cases it may be necessary for you and the young person’s social care worker to make those decisions for the young person. The young person’s voice should always be the most important, however this is expressed. You may need greater levels of support to put some choices in place – make sure you talk these through with the young person’s social care worker.

Young person's section

How to Meet Tool Accessible Version

This website was developed by Research in Practice in collaboration with young people, parents, social care workers and managers, from the London Region and the North-West Region and with the support of LIIA, ALDCS and NWADCS.

Our collaboration with Professor Harry Ferguson, Dr Laura Kelly (both University of Birmingham) and Professor Sarah Pink (Monash University) on their ESRC-funded Child protection and social distancing research over 2021-22 informed and contributed to this resource.