SCIE/NICE recommendations on looked after children: Promoting the quality of life of looked-after children and young people
Personal quality of life
Evidence indicates that developing a positive personal identity and a sense of personal history is associated with high self-esteem and emotional wellbeing. Life-story work, as an ongoing activity, can help children and young people understand their family history and life outside of care. Children and young people also have needs and preferences for contact with valued people and participation in the wider community as ways to build their self-esteem and assertiveness.
Recommendation 24 Meet the individual needs and preferences of looked-after children and young people
Who should take action?
- Social workers and social work managers.
- Independent reviewing officers.
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What action should they take? Open
- Promote continued contact with former carers, siblings or family members personally valued by the child or young person where this is felt to be in their best interests. Where this is not possible, acknowledge the significance of losing former attachment figures and relationships.
- Promote ongoing contact with valued friends, professionals or advocates where this enhances and promotes emotional wellbeing and self-esteem.
- Ensure access to creative arts, physical activities, and other hobbies and interests to support and encourage overall wellbeing and self-esteem.
- Offer assertiveness training (appropriate to age) to all children and young people to promote self-esteem and safety, combat bullying and enhance wellbeing (see also recommendations 26–34).
- Ensure looked-after children and young people participate in policy decisions that affect their life (see also recommendations 1 and 2).
- Allow contact with close family members to diminish when it is clearly not in the best interests of the child or young person and contrary to their wishes (see also recommendation 15).
Recommendation 25 Explore personal identity and support ongoing life-story activities
Who should take action?
- Social workers and social work managers
- Independent reviewing officers.
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What action should they take? Open
- Ensure that policies and activities are in place to allow each child or young person to explore their personal identity, including their life story.
- For information gathering when a child or young person first becomes looked after, consider using forms such as those provided by the British Association of Fostering and Adoption, which collect data on early infant health and parents’ general health.
- Ensure life-story activities are planned and supported using a sensitive approach that focuses on the needs of a child or young person and that information is delivered by a trusted individual known to them in a respectful, sensitive and supportive manner. To carry out life-story activities:
- give careful consideration to the timing and person who delivers life-story information and the extent of information given at any one time, according to the developmental stage and emotional needs of the child or young person
- approach life-story work as an ongoing process rather than a ‘one-off’, ensuring it is reviewed and revisited as appropriate for each child or young person
- inform, authorise and support carers to answer questions about the personal history of the child or young person, including helping with sensitive or distressing information
- ensure the inclusion of written information, including:
- ‘later in life’ letters (usually written by a social worker who knows the child or young person well, setting out his or her early history and sensitive explanations about becoming looked after)
- photographs, letters and personal information from birth parents where contact has ceased
- letters from former carers
- life-story books
- visual records of celebrations, achievements and foster or residential family events (such as birthdays, religious and cultural events, and family and residential holidays).
- Ensure that in life-story work looked-after children and young people have access to as much personal information (including family history) as possible by promoting ongoing conversations between children, young people and their carers and social workers that include discussion about their:
- personal journey before and through care
- immediate and extended family and friends
- step-family members, if identified by the child or young person as significant
- personal health history
- family health history culture and faith
- sexual identity and orientation.
- Extend existing good practice and policy on life-story work with children and young people during and after the adoption process to all children and young people who are looked after, including those leaving care.