It is not always possible for children and young people to live with their parents, siblings or family. There’s lots of reasons for this. There could be difficult relationships or breakups in the family, illnesses, or there might be reasons why your parents or carers find it hard to care for you.
If this happens, you may be cared for by North Somerset Children’s Services. We are here to make sure you are looked after, safe and happy.
Where you will live
Everyone has different reasons for needing care, so there are different types of care to make sure everyone gets the support they need.
- foster care - where you live with another family in their home. Those who look after you are called your foster carers
- kinship care - where a member of your family like a grandparent looks after you and lets you live with them
- residential care - when a group of young people live together in the same house looked after by a team of staff
- leaving care - when you get older and leave care you will have other housing opportunities. You can find out more about these in our local offer for care leavers section
You can still see your family
You have a right to see your family if it is safe.
Your social worker can help you keep in touch with your family through face-to-face meetings, letters and phone conversations. This is called contact. You can share with your social worker what kind of contact you would like.
Contact should be regular and should help you feel safe, happy and supported. If contact becomes challenging or difficult, your social worker can help sort this out.
Meetings and groups
We will try our hardest to get you home with your family, but we need to be certain that it is right and safe for you. To make sure we know what is right for you, there will be meetings where we discuss a plan for you.
Placement planning meeting
This is a meeting where we talk about your placement. It is run by your social worker’s manager. This will happen just before or within the first week of your new placement. You will be invited to this meeting along with your parents and carers. You will be asked about your opinions, thoughts and feelings. Your views will be listened to and we will explain the reasons for any decisions we make.
Review meeting
Review meetings happen to make sure the plans that are made for you are on track and to think about whether we need to make changes to these plans. Your first review meeting should happen within four weeks of you moving to your placement. Then another review happens three months later, and then every six months.
Before your review, your social worker will speak to you about your thoughts and feelings. You can tell us who you’d like to come and what you want to talk about.
Your independent reviewing officer, carer, social worker and the people who look after you will attend your review meeting.