Young person – accessible version

Helping you meet your social care worker

There are some things you and your social care worker need to think about before agreeing how to meet.

Contents
Introduction
1. How and where you can meet?
2. How I like to meet
3. Why might you be meeting?
4. Making your relationship stronger
5. Keeping safe
6. Meeting your needs
7. Parents and carers
8. Understanding your way of life
9. What happens next?

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 the pathway below to help you and your social care worker make the best decisions for you. Your parent or carer might be helping you too.

The young person’s voice should always be the most important, and their choices put in place as far as possible. Although sometimes the parent/carer and social care worker might have to make choices for the young person.

We suggest having a session where you look at the pathway together and then have some thinking time before making your choices.

Workers should make sure they’re ready to use the pathway by visiting the Role of the Practitioner and Digital Toolkit sections beforehand. Although developed with social care workers, this tool is useful for anyone working with young people.

Role of the Practitioner Digital Toolkit

Parents and carers can find more information in our Parent/Carer area.

Parent/Carer area

How and where you can meet

Notes for social care workers

Which options are and are not available to this young person, and why is that? Have you checked your organisation’s guidance around appropriateness for age and stage? Have you been clear about what information will you need to gather and share?

How I like to meet

Why might you be meeting?

Notes for social care workers

Explain the different reasons you may be meeting with the young person and think together about the support they might need in these different situations. Which ways of meeting work best so that the young person will feel supported and able to express themselves best?

In important meetings I like to.....

Making your relationship stronger

Your relationship

Notes for social care workers

You might know each other really well, or maybe you’ve just met. How and where you meet should help make your relationship stronger. Talk this through with the young person and choose the options you think will do this.

I like to talk about my feelings when....

Keeping safe

I feel safe

I don't feel safe

Notes for social care workers

Where and how you meet needs to be safe. Talk to the young person about keeping them safe – in-person and online – and if some ways of meeting are safer than others. Do you all agree, do you need to have an open discussion around safety? How will you make decisions when you don’t agree?

Meeting your needs

Notes for social care workers

What do you need to put in place to help support the ways the young person would like to meet? Which options might work best for the young person’s needs? What more can you do?

Parents and carers

Parents and carers

Positive relationships involve everyone being heard, including parent and carers. How can you help support the young person when they’re meeting their social care worker digitally and in-person?

Visit our Parent/Carer Area to help you think through the choices you have when meeting the young person’s social care worker.

Parent / Carer Area

Notes for social care workers

How will you support the participation of parents and carers? What do you need to explore and consider around their preferences for meeting?

Understanding your way of life

Notes for social care workers

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. What do you need to understand about the young person’s life and how it might affect where and how you meet?

Notes for workers

How will you support the participation of parents and carers? What do you need to explore and consider around their preferences for meeting?

What happens next?

Notes for social care workers

How will you record the young person’s choices? How will you review their choices if they change, or if they want to try different ways of meeting? Have you agreed how you will check-in before any big meetings to make sure you’re both still happy with your choices?

Notes for workers

How will you record the young person’s choices? How will you review their choices if they change, or if they want to try different ways of meeting? Have you agreed how you will check-in before any big meetings to make sure you’re both still happy with your choices?

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.