Identity and Specific Support needs
As part of Devon’s Local Offer to Care Leavers, we want you to be able to be whoever you want to be and live the life you choose. To do this, we will provide you with support around issues important to your identity, such as religion, sexuality, gender or culture, as well as providing support for things such as pregnancy, child care, and any disabilities that you might have.
Please read our What is the Local Offer? page before exploring the Local Offer below.
If you don’t know what some of the terms used on this page mean, please check out our handy list of definitions and explanations.
Welcome and Support Me guarantees
- We will help you to obtain and pay for initial documentary identification.
- We will support you to attend antenatal or parentcraft classes.
- We will help you with up to £300 for essential items if you are having a baby.
- We will provide you with £100 towards maternity clothing.
- If you are having your first child and live in Devon, you will be eligible for the Devon Hugs Programme which is an intensive Health Visitor service.
- If you are facing custody, we will support you to prepare, visit you in custody, provide you with some financial support and plan your release with you. We will help young engage in education, employment to training to help prevent a return to custody.
- As a Young Asylum Seeker, you will be able to access most of this offer. However, if you are 18 and are still awaiting an outcome on your asylum application, we will support you with your living costs until a decision is made.
- We will provide some support to you in an emergency so that you are not without food or power.
- We will provide you with a financial gift on your birthday and for one cultural festival a year.
- We will help financially you with your first 10 hours of driving lessons, your first driving test and your provisional licence
- We will help try to reconnect you with people who you have lost contact with through our Lifelong Links programme.
- We will welcome you to engage with Stand Up Speak Up (SUSU) events where you can link with other care experienced people from Devon.
Our full Welcome and Support Me offer
Identity Documentation
Your National Security Number is available to you from the age of 16. You will need this number to apply for work of any kind and often for other application forms. If you don’t know your number, speak to your social worker or PA.
Children’s Social Care will pay for the initial purchase of your passport, a copy of your full birth certificate and deed poll to change your name legally if required. If for any reason you can’t get a passport we will support you and fund you to apply for another form of photographic ID (e.g. a provisional or full driving licence.)
Relationships and Life story
As well as support from your social worker and PA, we may be able to offer you other practical and emotional support with relationships through the Lifelong Links team. This team can help you maintain or regain contact with people who were special to you or who cared for you in the past.
We can also arrange meetings with people who are important to you, like family members and friends to talk about how everyone can work together to support you in the best way. These meetings are called Family Group Conferences.
We can also help you to keep in touch with people who are important to you but who might live a bit further away so please speak with your PA about this.
We can also arrange meetings with people who are important to you, like family members and friends to talk about how everyone can work together to support you in the best way. These meetings are called Family Group Conferences.
We can also help you to keep in touch with people who are important to you but who might live a bit further away so please speak with your PA about this.
You have the right to understand your care history. Your social worker should have already completed Life story work with you so that you are not left with lots of questions about your early life in care. Your PA can continue with this if you still have questions.
You also have a right to see information that we keep about you, including your files and records written about you when you were in care. For more information on accessing your social care files please speak to your PA or read our guide to accessing records on our website.
Care leavers who are Parents
Having a child is special, but also can be an anxiety provoking time, particularly if you are parenting alone, or you do not have supportive people around you.
Your PA can support you to attend antenatal classes or parentcraft classes and will even go with you to some of these to help get you into the group if this would be helpful.
If you are worried about travel costs to get to these, or hospital appointments when you or your partner is pregnant then please talk to your PA as we will support you with this.
We will support you to purchase essential items (or one big item) up to the value of £300 to help you prepare for when your baby is born.
We will also support the cost of maternity clothes up to the value of £100.
If you are expecting your first baby, you will be eligible for the HUGS programme. This is a Devon-based intensive support programme led by health visitors from pregnancy through to the 2nd year of the child’s life and will help you with every aspect of pregnancy and parenting independently from Children’s social care. Ask your PA for more details.
If you are on benefits or a low income, you may be entitled to a Sure Start Maternity Grant of £500 to purchase what is needed for your baby. This can be accessed via your community midwife and claimed from 11 weeks before the birth, until the baby is 3 months old. It is not payable until after the baby is born, but your PA can arrange an advance if necessary. It will not affect your Universal Credit. For more information of this grant, visit the gov.uk website.
Your PA can support you to attend antenatal classes or parentcraft classes and will even go with you to some of these to help get you into the group if this would be helpful.
If you are worried about travel costs to get to these, or hospital appointments when you or your partner is pregnant then please talk to your PA as we will support you with this.
We will support you to purchase essential items (or one big item) up to the value of £300 to help you prepare for when your baby is born.
We will also support the cost of maternity clothes up to the value of £100.
If you are expecting your first baby, you will be eligible for the HUGS programme. This is a Devon-based intensive support programme led by health visitors from pregnancy through to the 2nd year of the child’s life and will help you with every aspect of pregnancy and parenting independently from Children’s social care. Ask your PA for more details.
If you are on benefits or a low income, you may be entitled to a Sure Start Maternity Grant of £500 to purchase what is needed for your baby. This can be accessed via your community midwife and claimed from 11 weeks before the birth, until the baby is 3 months old. It is not payable until after the baby is born, but your PA can arrange an advance if necessary. It will not affect your Universal Credit. For more information of this grant, visit the gov.uk website.
If you are 16/17 and pregnant, you will continue to receive your personal allowance until the baby is born. After the baby is born, you will be eligible for Child Benefit and Universal Credit
Care leavers in Custody
If you are expecting to enter custody, then your PA will help prepare you for this, working with you to ensure that you have everything that you are able to take with you, and ensuring that you have all the contact details of key people that you may need.
When you enter custody, you will receive an immediate initial allowance of £20 to help you with essential items and phone calls.
You will receive an allowance via your PA of £20/month from this point.
Within 2 weeks of entering custody, your PA will visit you.
Following this initial visit your PA will visit you at least every 8 weeks more if this is needed.
Your PA will link with the care leaver lead for the prison to ensure that your care leaver status is known, and that you are supported as a care leaver.
Where there are specific faith and cultural needs your PA will work with the prison to ensure that these are being met.
Our Education, Employment and Training PA will meet with you whilst you are in prison to plan for your release. We know that employment, education, and training are a strong way to help prevent a return to custody and we will work with you and the prison to plan helping your education or learning a trade, and what you could do when you leave custody.
You will receive an allowance via your PA of £20/month from this point.
Within 2 weeks of entering custody, your PA will visit you.
Following this initial visit your PA will visit you at least every 8 weeks more if this is needed.
Your PA will link with the care leaver lead for the prison to ensure that your care leaver status is known, and that you are supported as a care leaver.
Where there are specific faith and cultural needs your PA will work with the prison to ensure that these are being met.
Our Education, Employment and Training PA will meet with you whilst you are in prison to plan for your release. We know that employment, education, and training are a strong way to help prevent a return to custody and we will work with you and the prison to plan helping your education or learning a trade, and what you could do when you leave custody.
On or around 3 months prior to your release from custody, we will meet with you to talk about a transition plan to help you exit custody successfully. We will convene transition meetings to include relevant people who will support your planning to include as needed, housing colleagues, the Education, Training and Employment PA, your own PA, Probation, and the prison. This will help build a plan for when you leave custody using the pathway plan, and importantly will cover that first day when you leave custody so that you know where you are going, and who will be meeting you and supporting you.
On the day you leave custody, your PA will meet you at the prison and support you to get to any initial appointment that you need to attend and then ensure that you get to your accommodation.
We will support you with £60/week until you are paid if you are working, or for 5 weeks whilst awaiting any universal credit payment.
On the day you leave custody, your PA will meet you at the prison and support you to get to any initial appointment that you need to attend and then ensure that you get to your accommodation.
We will support you with £60/week until you are paid if you are working, or for 5 weeks whilst awaiting any universal credit payment.
Young Asylum Seekers
If you are a 16 or 17-year-old who is seeking asylum and living in supported accommodation, you will receive the same funding from the Corporate Parenting Service as all other care leavers.
From the age of eighteen, if you have been granted leave to remain in the UK, you can claim Universal Credit and have rights to apply for public housing. DCC will support you with your living costs if you are still waiting for your asylum decision.
If you do not have Refugee Status/Indefinite Leave to Remain, you are not eligible to claim an Education Bursary but may be able to make use of the ‘Care to Learn Fund’ www.gov.uk/care-to-learn
If you have limited leave to remain (usually Discretionary Leave), or are appealing an adverse decision, the Corporate Parenting Service will consider funding education courses that finish in the academic year prior to your status expiring.
In most situations, the rest of this offer is available to you.
If you do not have Refugee Status/Indefinite Leave to Remain, you are not eligible to claim an Education Bursary but may be able to make use of the ‘Care to Learn Fund’ www.gov.uk/care-to-learn
If you have limited leave to remain (usually Discretionary Leave), or are appealing an adverse decision, the Corporate Parenting Service will consider funding education courses that finish in the academic year prior to your status expiring.
In most situations, the rest of this offer is available to you.
For more detail about how we welcome young asylum seekers to Devon please see our Welcome Pack for Asylum Seekers.
Other Specific Support Needs
If you choose to be closed to the service at age 21 then you can return any time up to your 25th birthday to ask for support. You simply call the office number, and a PA will talk to you about what is happening for you and what support you might need - which could be advice, short term support or we can allocate a PA and complete a Pathway Plan. Over the age of 21, the service you get will be based on your specific needs.
Your PA will work with you if you find yourself in an emergency financial situation. In these situations, your PA can access up to £100 over the course of a year for you. This will be for real emergencies, and your PA will work with you to contact other agencies first.
If you keep finding yourself in difficult financial situations, then you PA will work with you on budgeting, and we will need you to work with us on this to prevent emergencies arising.
If you keep finding yourself in difficult financial situations, then you PA will work with you on budgeting, and we will need you to work with us on this to prevent emergencies arising.
We believe that every young person should be encouraged and supported to plan their future careers and achieve their potential through learning new skills and having a wide range of practical experiences. However, we recognise that when care leavers first enter the benefit system, the complexity of the system combined with their own complex needs can result in delays in their claim being completed.
So, Devon County Council has an agreement with Jobcentre Plus to work together to provide an enhanced service to support young people leaving care into education, employment and training. This ensures:
Co-ordinated support to engage young people into Education, Employment or Training
An early entry system and a smooth transition for those young people leaving care and needing to claim benefit.
Prompt and accurate payment of benefits where these are required.
Young people are empowered and enabled to gain sustainable paid employment through individual pathways.
You can read the full joint protocol here.
So, Devon County Council has an agreement with Jobcentre Plus to work together to provide an enhanced service to support young people leaving care into education, employment and training. This ensures:
You can read the full joint protocol here.
We may be able to help you with storage provision for a short period in an emergency. This can be up to 3 months. Please talk to your PA if this is an issue and we will try to help.
If you are over 18 or age 16-17 and living in supported accommodation, we want to ensure that you have essential items of clothing. If you are struggling, please talk to you PA who may be able to access up to £200 for essential items.
You will receive a birthday and a festival gift as per the table below. Christmas is an example of a festival, however if you celebrate other festivals that are cultural for you, we will of course recognise these and provide this payment for those celebrations instead.
This may be in the form of a present purchased by the Personal Adviser, or an allowance paid directly to you. If you celebrate more than one festival a year, the allowance may be split and allocated at different times.
| Age | Birthday | Festival |
| 16 & 17 (if living in the community and not in residential/ foster care) | £100 | £100 |
| 18 | £150 | £150 |
| 19 & 20 | £50 | £50 |
| 21 | £100 | £100 |
This may be in the form of a present purchased by the Personal Adviser, or an allowance paid directly to you. If you celebrate more than one festival a year, the allowance may be split and allocated at different times.
We will pay for your provisional driving licence and your theory test – speak to your PA about how to access this.
Devon County Council will then pay for 10 hours of driving lessons and one practical driving test.
Devon County Council will then pay for 10 hours of driving lessons and one practical driving test.
In some Devon districts, you can access Council leisure centres for free. See above in Healthy Me for details.
PureGym offer 50% membership discount to care leavers.
PureGym offer 50% membership discount to care leavers.
DCC employees are able to access a range of lifestyle savings and discounts through ‘Vivup.’ These are now accessible our Care leavers too and can be accessed on the Vivup website. Care leavers can also access the Kaarp Benefits deals and offers. Please talk to your PA about help with accessing these schemes.
Sometimes the experience of being in care or having to move to a new area can result in feelings of isolation or loneliness. Our Stand up Speak up team of participation workers (SUSU) can support you to connect with other care-experienced young people and to attend groups where you will find like-minded people. They offer groups and fun activities for 16–23-year-olds who are care-experienced.
If you are over 21 you can access similar groups provided by Avocados advocacy.
You can find out what is happening by contacting participation@devon.gov.uk, following the SUSU Instagram site @standupspeak or speaking with your PA.
If you are over 21 you can access similar groups provided by Avocados advocacy.
You can find out what is happening by contacting participation@devon.gov.uk, following the SUSU Instagram site @standupspeak or speaking with your PA.
We want to work with you to help you to be an active member of society. Your PA can help you to register to vote, share any information about voluntary work opportunities and give you information on groups or clubs you may wish to join in your area. Do speak with your PA about your interests so that they can help you to get involved in local opportunities.