Advice for young people
THROUGHCARE AND AFTERCARE
The Team: The Throughcare and Aftercare team is based in Livingston and provides a social work service to young people who are Looked After or supported under their Aftercare service in West Lothian or who have moved to another area in the UK.
Our Purpose: To offer support, advice and guidance to young people and are responsible for protecting and promoting their welfare, under the statutory Pathway service and in partnership with Looked After services. We undertake assessments reports for the Pathway process and offer Monday to Friday duty service, by appointment, drop in or telephone advice. There is no charge for using our service.
Our Commitment: We are committed to playing an active part in promoting a corporate parenting culture, meaning that the Local Authority will provide young people with on going support as any other responsible parent would, for young people to move into adulthood.
Service Standards: In addition to adhering to the Children & Families Service Standards, we will;
- Respond to all enquiries within 5 working days; or on the same day for duty service enquiries
- Allocate worker to young person aged under 19, where staffing levels permit, within 5 working days of accepting referral
- Offer to meet with young person and referrer at a convenient location within 5 working days of allocation
- As key service, record the views of young person using the Pathway process and offer them access to an advocacy service (someone to speak on young person's behalf)
- As key service, invite every young person to appropriate meetings concerning them
- Every young person using the Pathway process will be offered an Information Sharing Agreement
- Every young person who is no longer Looked After and transferring to us, have a Pathway Plan
- As key service, provide, review and discuss each young person's Pathway Plan and appropriate reports, every six months or more if required
- Offer an informal and formal appeals service, alongside the Council's and Care Commission's complaints process
- Every young person with a Throughcare Aftercare worker will be offered face to face contact on the following basis -
(a) When 'Not' receiving Local Authority benefits, at least every two months;
(b) When 'Receiving' Local Authority benefits, at least once a month; - Consult with young people about their experience of their Pathway service every six months
- Consult with young people before ending their Aftercare service at their 21st birthday
- Ask whether you consider these standards to be relevant to you and whether you believe we are meeting them with our annual customer survey - we will also ask about your satisfaction with our services. We aim to deliver at least 95% customer satisfaction overall.
Contact information
Throughcare and Aftercare Team
Lammermuir House
Owen Square
Livingston
EH54 6PW
Please see the 'Contact' panel at the right of this page for our telephone number.
