Other support we offer

Staying Close 

The Staying Close project supports Cared for Children and Care Leavers up to the age of 21, who live or have lived within a residential children’s home or semi-independent accommodation. The offer will provide support with developing your independence skills to help you live successfully as an adult. You will be offered practical, employment, emotional and social support (amongst others).   You will also be supported with accessing appropriate accommodation.

Why Staying Close is important

For those living and working in residential children’s homes the idea of a ‘cliff edge’ to care will be very familiar. Although young people who have been in care can access ongoing support from a personal adviser until they are 25 years old, most will leave their residential home by the time they are 18.

Many young people leaving residential care are far from ready to live independently at 18, resulting in very poor outcomes:

● Care leavers are more likely than their peers to report feeling lonely or isolated.

● Over half become homeless during the two years following leaving care.

● Four in ten care leavers aged 19-21 are not in education, employment or training (NEET).

● Care leavers experience higher rates of poor emotional health and well-being.

Staying Close has been developed and tested demonstrate that Staying Close reduces:

● Homelessness: by developing innovative approaches to meeting young people’s accommodation needs and developing improved accommodation options and pathways for care leavers. Staying Close provides secure accommodation and maintained tenancies, with fewer tenancy breakdowns.

● Isolation: by identifying a trusted adult to continue to provide support in addition to their personal adviser and enabling young people to stay connected to their former home where they choose to.

● Poor mental health and wellbeing: by working in partnership with health and social care and other public services to access expert or clinical support when required.

●Disengagement and NEET: by providing individual support to stay in school, to take part in volunteering and work experience, to apply to college or for employment and to complete courses and stay in work.

How Staying Close works

Staying Close extends the period of support for young people leaving residential care, giving them more time to prepare and to determine the right time for them to live independently in a similar way to Staying `put for young people in foster care.

Disability or additional needs

If you have a disability, learning difficulty or an additional need that means you require more support than what is in this offer, we will do our best to help you. We have good links with adult services, and we regularly support young people who also have an adult social worker. If you don’t have support from adult services and need it, we will make a referral for you. We will help you to find the support you need from other agencies and will advocate on your behalf if you want us to. 

We also have an adult ‘transitions panel’, where we work with the Children Looked After teams and adult services, to identify those people who might need an adult service, before they turn 18. It is our hope that if you do need additional support, this is identified before you turn 18. 

Qualifying care leavers 

If you are aged between 16 and 21 OR between 16 and 25 and still in full-time education, you were looked after by children’s services on, or after, their 16th birthday and no longer looked after, or spent less than 13 weeks in care since 14th birthday, you may be a ‘qualifying’ care leaver. 

Qualifying care leavers can access support from us to, but you won’t necessarily have access to the full support offered by our service. 

If you think you are a qualifying care leaver you should make contact with our duty team. We will complete a needs assessment with you and provide advice and assistance. Sometimes this will lead to a brief period of support from a Pathways Advisor, other times this might go on for a little longer. We work on a needs basis and will try and give you the support you request or find someone who can.  

Special Guardianship 

If you were in the care of the local authority before a Special Guardianship Order was made for you, you are automatically a ‘qualifying’ care leaver. If these are your circumstances, you are entitled to advice and assistance from our team. Call our duty number and have a conversation with one of our advisors to see if we can help.

Prevention for Care Leavers at Risk of Offending – Youth Justice Service (YJS)

Our ambition in Tameside is for all children who are care experienced and have been identified as at risk of or in contact with the criminal justice system to feel supported. We will ensure you have access to all relevant services to help prevent any risk escalation and make sure you are safe and well, particularly during your transition to adulthood which is recognised as a challenging time.

If you find yourself subject to a court order your Social Worker, Youth Justice Practitioner and other professionals involved will work closely with you to clarify their roles, share information and formulate a plan with you to avoid duplication and aim to reduce re-offending. All professionals will work together to ensure the required resources and services are available at the earliest opportunity for you. In order to support this Tameside YJS are committed to convening Complex Care Panels for all Cared for Children and Care Leavers who come into contact with the service to ensure that there is additional oversight of plans by a manager.

If you are identified as someone who is likely to transition to Probation Services the YJS Practitioner will inform your Social Worker at the earliest opportunity and invite them to a Transition Planning Meeting.

In Tameside, we promote the use of the ‘10 Point Checklist’, endorsed by the Crown Prosecution Service, whereby Police who deal with offences in care settings are required to receive information in relation to ten questions before any decision on charge will be made by reviewing lawyers. If you appear before the Court and the 10 Point Plan has not been followed, Tameside YJS will request this is completed and your case will be referred back to the Police for this to be undertaken.

Tameside YJS and Children’s Services have agreed to a shared set of principles and are committed to the following in respect of Cared for Children and Care Leavers:

• Where a Cared For Child/Care Leaver is arrested or prosecuted CSC can contact YJS Duty for advice and support, even if the child/young person is not already subject to YJS intervention.
• All Cared for Children and Care Leavers will be offered a service via Tameside YJS where they have been identified as ‘at risk’ of offending via the Tameside Prevention Offer.
• YJS Practitioners will attend all statutory meetings in respect of any Cared for Child/Care Leaver and where unavailable will provide a written progress report in advance of the meeting.
• Regardless of if the child is placed out of the borough and a crime is committed in another local authority or force area, Tameside YJS will make every effort to ensure the same principles are applied as if the crime was committed in Tameside. We follow the Youth Justice Board National Protocol on Case Responsibility to ensure the “Home Youth Offending Team” maintain case responsibility throughout for Cared for Children and Care Leavers.

Probation Service

The National Probation Service for England and Wales is a statutory Criminal Justice Service, mainly responsible for the supervision of offenders in the community and the provision of reports to the criminal courts to assist them in their sentencing duties. 

Probation trusts are responsible for overseeing offenders released from prison on licence and those on community sentences made by judges and magistrates in the courts. Probation prepares pre-sentence reports for judges and magistrates in the courts to enable them to choose the most appropriate sentence. Probation also works with victims of crimes where the offender has committed a sexual or violent offence and has been given a prison sentence of 12 months or longer.

If you are sentenced to under 12 months you are usually released after 6 months and the rest of your sentence is “on license”. Your licence will impose certain restrictions on what you can do. If your sentence is over 12 months you will still, most likely, serve only half of your sentence in prison with the balance on license under the supervision of the probation service. You may also be released on tag ( if your sentence is less than 4 years) and this involves an electronically monitored curfew for around 3 months, with the rest of your sentence under the watchful eye of the probation service.

Probation trusts manage approved premises (hostels) for offenders with a residence requirement on their sentences or licences. Probation staff also work in prisons, assessing offenders, preparing them for release and running offending behaviour programmes.

Office address and contact details

Ashton Probation Office

Roz Hamilton House

8 Lees Street

Ashton-Under-Lyne

OL6 8NU

Office phone number: 0161 933 6020

Office email address: GMPS.TamesidePDU@justice.gov.uk

Custody 

If for any reason you are in custody or serving time in prison, your support from us will not stop.  We will keep in touch, visit and complete pathway plan reviews with you up to 21. If requested, we can continue to do this up to 25. We will work the prison to plan for your release and when this happens, if you are under 25, and eligible, you will be able to access all the support in this local offer. 

Calderdale also offer financial support to you while in custody and your PA can give you details of this. See money section for details. 

Complaints and Compliments

Who can make a complaint, suggestion or compliment?

If you receive a service from Specialist Services and Safeguarding (Children’s Social Work), you can make a complaint, suggestion or compliment about that service.

What might you make a complaint, suggestion or compliment about?

You can make a complaint if you are unhappy with the way you are being treated and the services you are receiving. For example:

• if something has happened at your foster placement, or
• if you feel you do not get enough support from your Social Worker or Personal Advisor

If you think that something about the service you receive could be improved, you may want to make a suggestion. For example:

• you may want more information about your rights in care, or
• you may want to be more involved in the planning of your care.

Alternatively, you may want to make a compliment about a service you have received. For example, if you are happy about something your Social Worker or Personal Adviser has done for you, or if you feel happy with your foster care placement.

Who do you tell if you have a complaint, suggestion or compliment?

The Team Manager will be happy to meet with you and listen to any complaints, suggestions or compliments. You can contact them on 0161 342 4477.

You should contact your Social Worker or Personal Advisor; however, if for any reason you are not able to tell your Social Worker, then you can contact the Complaints Team.

• mail  - complaints@tameside.gov.uk

• Via the on-line form on the Councils website
• By telephone - 0161 342 3535
• By letter – TMBC Complaints, Level 4 (Information & Improvement), PO BOX 317, Ashton under Lyne, OL6 0GS
• In person at any Customer Services Centre  or Library