Young people who have lived in a kinship arrangement through a Special Guardianship Order and were a child in care before this may be qualify as a care leaver.
This means that they can access support from the Leaving Care Local Offer as they prepare to become an independent adult.
Qualifying young people are:
- Aged at least 16 but under 21 and were a looked after young person prior to the making of a Special Guardianship Order, or if at any time after reaching the age of 16, were looked after for a period of less than 13 weeks and have not returned home, or;
- At age 16/17 were an eligible child but were living with a parent for more than six months before reaching the age of 18 (unless you were there under a care order)
Find out what support is available to qualifying people
Find out more about preparing for adulthood on the SEND Local Offer website
Access to Records
Sometimes kinship children reaching adulthood might want to make sense of their journey, what happened, why decisions were made, and who helped make them.
A request can be made to view the files we hold by making an Subject Access Request.
Find out how to submit a subject access request
Sometimes, it can take a long time for the files to arrive, and they might be bundled in an a few envelopes depending how much there is.
There can be a lot of information that might be difficult to understand. It may contain information that has been redacted because they relate to another person. Data protection prevents us from sharing that information.
We will provide a copy of all the information stored, and we will help the young person to understand what happened in their life, and why.
