South Ayrshire

Care leavers receive priority for social housing

Priority is offered up to the age of: 25

We are unable to confirm the banding priority

Additional information / how to qualify:
South Ayrshire Council have an established Youth Housing Support Group which will assess when a Young Care Leaver is ready to live in permanent housing. Once a Young Care Leaver submits their housing application, they are awarded Young Care Leaver priority housing status. The application will be placed at the top of the waiting list, ready to be allocated a suitable permanent tenancy. The priority application with the earliest date of application will appear at the top of the list. Where an applicant refuses one reasonable offer of housing their application will revert to a general application for selection under normal rotation.
Where a Young Care Leaver has supported accommodation provided by the Young Person’s Support and Transition Team and this breaks down, and the person then presents as homeless they will still be considered for priority rehousing.

Care leavers do not get to practice independent living with taster flats

South Ayrshire will not in principle assist as a guarantor for care leavers in private rented property

South Ayrshire will not in principle assist with providing a deposit for care leavers in private rented property

Care leavers are provided with a setting up allowance

Allowance amount: ££2500

South Ayrshire in principle will assist with support to pay at least the first year TV licence for care leavers

South Ayrshire in principle will assist with support to pay at least the first year home contents insurance for care leavers

South Ayrshire in principle will assist with support to pay for redecoration costs of a care leavers first flat

South Ayrshire will not in principle assist with support with broadband costs for care leavers

South Ayrshire in principle will assist with support with mobile phone costs for care leavers

South Ayrshire will pay towards cooking equipment for care leavers

South Ayrshire offers work experience within the council for care leavers

Number of places per year: 30 internal placements but this number is reduced from previous years due to the impacts of COVID. In normal circumstances over 70% of work placements are provided by South Ayrshire Council and Health and Social Care Partnership

South Ayrshire will pay for work/interview clothes

South Ayrshire will pay towards travel to work or training

There are ringfenced apprenticeship vacancies for care leavers at South Ayrshire

r apprenticeship vacancies are ringfenced a year

Care leavers are working as apprenticeships within South Ayrshire

Number per year: 6

Additional information about work and training:
We have a flexible approach to this to ensure care experienced young people can access apprenticeships. We offer a care experienced guarantee where competency for young people who are care experienced is not judged on how they perform in Assessment Centre/interview but on how they perform in placement and through feedback from their supervisor and Employability & Skills worker

We offer the Work Out! Programme that is aimed at young people in senior phase, 100 work experience placements are offered across South Ayrshire schools and priority is given to care experienced young people. South Ayrshire Council currently offers 30 internal placements but this number is reduced from previous years due to the impacts of COVID e.g. admin, property maintenance, health & social care services. In normal circumstances over 70% of work placements are provided by SAC
We also offer a number of employability programmes where when a young person is ready for placement they will be supported to progress into an opportunity. The number of placements South Ayrshire Council offers varies depending on what occupational areas young people are interested in.

We also provide external placements for young people out with the local authority and job broker on behalf of our care leavers to provide long term sustainable opportunities for them and we can offer employers enhanced wage incentives to recruit young people registered on our programme.

In 2019 we recruited a team to specifically support care experienced young people as employability outcomes for young people in South Ayrshire were particularly low. The team work closely with education and meet every care experienced young person from S4 – S6 to start early transition planning in partnership with Skills Development Scotland to ensure that young people leave school and progress into a positive destination.

We are committed to tracking care experienced young people once they progress into a positive destination and have regular tracking meetings with Ayrshire College and Skills Development Scotland to ensure that young people are fully supported to sustain their destination and when they complete college have a positive destination to go to.

We have embedded the service within our Health & Social Care Partnership and are based within the Young People Support & Transition Team and work closely with other local Social Work Area offices to ensure employability support is accessible to care experienced young people. We also have workers allocated to the Children’s Houses to provide flexible employability support as well as providing additional qualifications for care experienced young people no longer engaging in education but still on school rolls.

We offer driving theory support to care experienced young people and have a budget when young people are ready to progress to lessons to help with their employability journey.

South Ayrshire will ensure each young person has ID documents when they leave care

Passport: Yes

Provisional Driving Licence: Yes

Birth Certificate: Yes

South Ayrshire in principle will assist with driving lessons

South Ayrshire in principle will assist with driving theory tests

South Ayrshire in principle will assist with driving tests

South Ayrshire will not in principle assist with CBT tests

Partners local to South Ayrshire do not offer support with free travel for care leavers

Care leavers have the opportunity to meet with their corporate parents (councillors)

Care leavers do not have the opportunity for mentoring with any of the senior leadership team

Additional details:
Many of our care leaver spend time with senior managers both in decision making groups and one to one meetings but we haven’t identified this formally as mentoring

South Ayrshire has a children in care and care leavers council

Details of council:
In South Ayrshire we have Champions for change , South Ayrshire Champions Boards provide a platform for young people with care experience to have their voices heard and talk directly to local councillors and service provider’s, planners and commissioners, heads of services and front-line staff to ensure they have a bigger say in the decisions that affect their lives. Through Champions Boards, looked after young people can draw on their lived experience to influence improvements in services, policies and practices and make positive changes across South Ayrshire. Putting young people in the driving seat in this way is a powerful example of a co-production approach which places relationships at the very heart of delivering services. In South Ayrshire we employ 7 people with lived experience of care to drive our Champions Board forward. We have a participation network which links in with 45 young people with care experience over the period of one month. The young people involved are aged 8-26 this includes young people who have left care, including young parents. Champion’s board reps have a seat on key decision making groups like children’s service planning groups and corporate parenting groups and have contributed to our Parenting Promise (previously known as our corporate parenting plan) and have contributed to local policy and practice changes across south Ayrshire including access to leisure for all care experienced young people. Champion’s board runs 3 groups per week for young people with acre experience and organise events with corporate parent’s awareness raising training and regular briefings with elected members and senior managers.

Children in care and care leavers council does not have its own bank account

Children in care and care leavers council does not have its own constitution

Details:
Young people in the champion’s board are currently working on a manifesto which will be published on our website and promoted via social media

We do have external funding and young people across our groups have control over elements of budget spend. Young people also set priorities for the work of the champion’s board going forward

South Ayrshire has peer mentors (other care leavers)

South Ayrshire does not have other mentoring schemes

Details:
on an ad hoc basis through our Champions Board we would like to develop this approach

Young people do not have to go through the complaints dept to access their care files

Young people who access their care files get emotional support before, during and after disclosure

Details:
A worker from our young person’s support and transitions team will be task to support the young if there is not already a worker allocated.