Chapter contents
Knowledge and Skills for Adult Life
ISP Life Skills Development Booklets
Promoting Independence
As young people approach adulthood, they need support to develop the knowledge and skills they will need as they become more independent. As a foster parent, you will be central to this task, working with the young person’s social worker or personal advisor to implement their pathway plan. We will offer you support and training in this task.
The transition to adulthood is a gradual one in which young people learn practical skills, become responsible and make decisions. It should start as early as possible, and be part of the ongoing care plan. We will help you to build children’s life skills gradually, from the very start of placement.
Emotional health and wellbeing is so important for successful adult life. You will help young people to become more confident and proud of their achievements. Involve them in making decisions at home, which will help them to later make decisions about their future. Help them to have choices and control over their lives. We will give you the support you need to do this.
For more information, read our Transition to Adulthood and Leaving Care policy
Book on our training: Leaving care
Knowledge and Skills for Adult Life
Children and young people need to develop a range of life skills, throughout childhood and their teenage years:
Health and hygiene
- From an early age, children learn about their bodies and how to stay healthy. We encourage young children to brush their own teeth and bathe regularly, and over time they develop a routine around self-care so that they no longer need to be reminded all the time.
- Routines are great for physical exercise and sport. Get children involved in sports that they love and they will often continue them into adulthood.
- We need to offer teenagers information and advice about alcohol, smoking, drugs and sexual health, and be there for them if they are worried. Their annual health assessments are a good time for them to talk to a health professional about these issues.
- Young people with ongoing health problems will need to learn how to manage these as they get older so that they are able to take control of their medication and appointments as young adults.
Social interaction
- A secure base at home teaches children to trust, share, communicate and co-operate in relationships. In the safety of home, children can learn about their feelings and find comfort and support when they need it. This helps them to find healthy relationships elsewhere.
- We help young children to make friends and encourage them to play together. We help them to solve problems between friends and over time they learn to do this for themselves. Older children need advice about managing peer pressure.
- Conversation at home helps children to talk to others, respect other people’s views, and is a great way to manage feelings. Children who learn these skills at home will be able to use them at school, work and in other relationships. Teach them how to communicate by letter and email too.
- Encourage young people to join in with social activities and events in the local area. This helps them to practise social behaviour and brings new opportunities. You might have to go with them in the beginning, until they are comfortable without you.
- Young people need advice about online safety. Use CEOP Education’s website to help them spot risks and deal with them effectively. Be available to them if things go wrong.
- Young people will need to learn how to catch a bus or train so that they can get to school, college or work independently. The timing of this will vary according to the young person’s individual circumstances. Some young people might also need cycle training.
Managing money and shopping
- Pocket money helps children to begin to learn money skills. They first learn how to count money, and how to find a bargain.
- Young people often like to earn money by helping you or your neighbours with tasks such as washing the car or picking weeds. Giving them these opportunities helps them to learn the value of money. Finding a part-time job at 16 is also a great way of preparing for adulthood.
- We encourage children and young people to save some money, but they are often reluctant to do so. Saving for expensive items is a good way of learning the value of items.
- As young people prepare to leave care, they will need experiences of budgeting larger amounts of money and you might give them a weekly or fortnightly allowance and make them responsible for buying certain items. They will also need to learn how to use a bank account, how to pay bills and how to claim benefits that they might be eligible for.
Decision making
- Most young people like to make their own choices, while others are so unconfident that they depend entirely on adults to do it for them. Let children make daily choices, e.g. what to wear, what they’d like to eat and involve them in family decisions about holidays etc.
- Children and young people need to learn how to solve problems, but they tend to need help thinking it through. Try not to solve problems for them – but with them.
- Young people will need to make some quite significant decisions at school. They will decide what subjects they want to take for GCSE and at 16 will need to think about their future job options. This can be a difficult time for many, and they will need your encouragement and advice.
- Care leavers have many difficult decisions to make, often within a short space of time. This includes where to live. Their pathway plan will focus on these decisions, and should include contingency plans to manage problems and any change of mind.
Household tasks
- Children can be actively involved around the house with simple tasks such as tidying up toys, laying the table and putting the groceries away. It often works well for everyone in the home to have their ‘jobs’ and this helps teach co-operation too.
- Change ‘jobs’ regularly – this prevents boredom setting in and helps children to feel capable and grown up as they achieve new challenges.
- Get children involved in the kitchen at all ages. Teach new skills regularly and let children make choices and decisions about what to cook. Older teenagers could make a family meal every now and again.
- Young people preparing to leave care will need to learn how to do the laundry, basic DIY and decorating, in readiness for having their own homes. They will also need to learn about home safety and security.
Time management
- We teach young children to tell the time, and we often need to do this with fostered children who might not have mastered this skill. Children often rely on digital clocks and some lose the ability to read a traditional clock face. Put clocks around the house and help children to tell the time regularly as part of everyday activities.
- Encourage children to use watches, calendars and diaries. These can be on mobile devices for older young people.
- Young people need to learn to get up on time, meet deadlines and be on time for school or social events. Work on this from an early age to develop good habit and routines.
As you can see, many of these skills can develop over time by taking part in everyday family activities. This is our recommended action plan, and our life skills development booklets will help you to do this.
ISP Life Skills Development Booklets
The development of life skills should begin as soon as a child comes to live with you. Your supervising social worker will provide you with a skills development booklet for each child you are looking after so that you can record their progress in developing age-appropriate life skills. You can receive the booklet in either paper or electronic format, whichever you prefer, and the young person’s progress will be reviewed regularly when you have supervision. You can also provide progress updates to the local authority social worker, and at the child’s care plan reviews. There are four levels to work through over the years, to prepare young people for adult life.
You will find information and challenge tasks to support you and your young people in developing life skills, and associated knowledge, at in our Life Skills section of I-SPACE.
Care Leavers’ Entitlements
Young people will leave foster care at 18 years of age. At this time, they might remain living with their former foster carers under a ‘Staying Put’ arrangement, they might move to a supported living placement with other care leavers, or they might live independently. There are a lot of decisions to make, and a lot of planning to do and they will need a lot of support.
Care leavers have legal entitlements under the Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000. These apply from the age of 16 up to 25 years.
Care leavers’ entitlements include:
- An assessment of their needs as a young adult. This will include health, education, money, housing, support and practical life skills.
- A Pathway Plan to target their needs and set out ways in which the local authority will help them achieve independence and their personal goals.
- A Personal advisor to co-ordinate the pathway plan and support them throughout the process.
- Housing support.
- Financial support including help to access state benefits if needed, and help towards the costs of continuing education.
You can read more about care leavers’ entitlements at the Children’s Commissioner’s website.
Also take a look at the ‘leaving care’ section of I-SPACE.
Book on our training: Life Skills Development
Pathway Plan
The law says that the pathway plan should be in place within 3 months of the young person’s 16th birthday. This is intended to give plenty of time for life skills development before they leave care at 18.
The pathway plan, which contains the same core elements as a care plan, will include:
- The young person’s support needs and who will provide support
- Plans for education or training.
- Plans in relation to employment.
- Housing/accommodation plans
- Support for relationships with family and friends.
- Practical skills needed and a programme to develop them.
- Financial needs and arrangements.
- Health needs and how they will be met.
- Arrangements to meet needs in relation to identity.
- Contingency plans if things do not work out as planned.
Each young person should be actively involved in drawing up their plan, identifying their personal goals and what help they will need to achieve them.
The pathway plan should be regularly reviewed and updated. This should happen at least every six months and until the young person’s 18th birthday this will be done when they have their six-monthly case review. The personal advisor will continue to review the pathway plan with the young person from 18 to 21 years. From 21-25 years, the young person can request continued support from the local authority if they still need it.
Personal Advisors
The law expects that care leavers will receive support from their local authority as they move from care to independence, just as their peers would receive support from family. The Personal Advisor role is designed to meet this need. The personal advisor will advocate for the young person, making sure that their wishes are reflected in the pathway plan.
Some local authorities employ people for the specific role of Personal Advisor, but others give the task to the leaving care social worker. The personal advisor is the main point of contact for the young person after they leave care. They are responsible for making sure that actions in the Pathway Plan are fulfilled and that the young person is supported. This support can continue up to 25 years if the young person needs it.
Staying Put
What is a Staying Put arrangement?
The Staying Put scheme was introduced to help young people to remain living with their former foster parents after the age of 18. Many of our young people have close relationships with their foster family and welcome this continued support.
The pathway plan should consider whether Staying Put is the best option to meet the young person’s needs. Staying Put can be particularly helpful if the young person is still in full-time education or has additional needs.
Effect on the usual fostering limit
When a young person reaches 18 they are no longer looked after and their placement is therefore no longer a foster placement. As a result, the young person is not included in the number of children who can be fostered.
This means that you can have a young adult live with you under a Staying Put arrangement, and continue to foster up to the limit of your fostering approval, subject to available bedrooms. The young person who is Staying Put is regarded as another adult in the household and will need to have a DBS check.
Financial arrangements for Staying Put
Every local authority has its own Staying Put policy and funding arrangements. Some arrangements are made through ISP and we are then able to continue to support you and be involved in the young person’s care. ISP will discuss and negotiate the arrangement with the local authority, and keep you informed throughout.
Alternatively, an arrangement can be made directly between you and the local authority. In these cases, we will help you to negotiate with the local authority so that you get the funding and support you need, but we would no longer be involved in the young person’s care once the staying put arrangement begins.
For more information, read our Staying Put policy
Read the Government’s guidance on Staying Put schemes
Book on our training: Staying Put
