Take a look at our leaving care offer below and find out about what entitlements and support are available to you. If you would like to speak to someone about your offer, then contact your personal advisor or get in touch!
West Sussex is a large county, made up of 7 District and Boroughs. We support young people in each of these areas and we see each young person as an individual with individual needs. We provide support with accessing a wide range of accommodation options across the county in response to this. We will work hard to find the right housing for you at the right time and we will make sure you always have an option of somewhere to live while you are open to our Service. The options available to you change when you reach 18 and we hope the following will help you understand what is available to you at each point of your journey. Understanding different types of housing and understanding what is and isn’t available to you can be very confusing – please remember, we are here to support you, just pick up the phone if you need support with anything!
When you are 16 and 17, you are a ‘Young Person We Care For’. This means your Social Worker will make sure you have somewhere to live. This is usually either in:
From 16, you and your Social Worker will start planning where you would like to live when you are 18. Your Personal Advisor (PA) from the Leaving Care Service will support with planning as they start working with you at 17. A very important part of this planning will be a Care Leaver Joint Housing Planning Meeting. This is a meeting with our District & Borough Housing Departments to discuss accommodation options open to you at and beyond 18.
The legal responsibility to provide housing for you changes at 18 and moves from West Sussex County Council to the Housing Departments in our District and Boroughs. It is important to know this as it means we are not able to help in the same way before you turned 18. We will, however, provide support and advice to you to find the accommodation that is right and will support you with this at least until your 21st Birthday. We have a specialist Housing Support Worker in our service who works hard to ensure the young people we support have somewhere safe and secure to live.
There are many different types of housing in West Sussex and what is available to you will depend on your circumstances, if you are subject to any immigration control, how ready you are to live more independently and what housing is available at the time that you turn 18. The Care Leavers Joint Housing Planning Meeting will help plan a clear pathway for you to move towards independent living and help you understand where you will be living from 18 onwards.
Many young people are not yet ready to live independently at 18, and we have different types of supported housing available to help build skills to become ‘tenancy ready’.
This is somewhere to live that has additional support from a keyworker. The keyworker will help you with any challenges you are facing and support you to develop the skills you need to live independently. Your keyworker will work closely with your PA and will support you to meet the goals set out in your Pathway Plan. In supported housing, you will need to pay a ‘service charge’, which is a weekly payment that covers bills such as electricity and heating for your home. You may also need to pay rent in supported housing, but this will depend on if you work and how much you earn.
Supported housing is available in areas across West Sussex and range from larger Foyer type projects, to much smaller semi-independent housing, which is like having your own place with a little extra support. Many young people will start off living in a Foyer type project and move to semi-independent housing once ready to live more independently. The final step from here is usually moving into your own independent private or social housing. Your keyworker and PA will support you to apply to move into and move on from supported housing.
If you and your Foster Carer agree, one option is for you to remain living with your Foster Carer after you turn 18. This ‘Staying Put’ agreement can continue until you are 21 years old or up to 25 if you are in education. This arrangement is only available if you are in Foster Care at 18 and is ideal if you are not yet ready to live independently. You will need to be enrolled at college or university before you reach 21 to be able to stay in Staying Put past this age. You will be expected to pay rent each week (£10) and reviews should take place at least every six months to make sure all is well in the Staying Put agreement. Your ‘Staying Put’’carers will work closely with your PA to help move you on into independent housing once you are ready. If you and your Carers wish you to remain living there after the Staying Put arrangement ends, you can enter a ‘private agreement’ where you are responsible for paying full rent.
Like Staying Put, it is possible to remain living in Supported Lodgings until you are 21 years old or up to 25 if you are still in education. You will need to be enrolled at college or university before you reach 21 to be able to stay in Supported Lodgings past this age. There will be regular reviews to ensure you are getting the support you need to develop your independent living skills and to make sure you feel this is the right place for you to live. Your PA will support you to move on from Supported Lodgings when the time is right.
‘Social housing’ is accommodation owned by Councils and Housing Associations. It is generally more secure (you have more rights and can usually live there longer) and is more affordable than ‘private rented’ housing. In West Sussex, access to social housing is managed by our District and Borough Councils and you will need to apply to one or more of these to join a ‘housing register’. This is a waiting list for accessing social housing. Each District and Borough set their own criteria on who can access their housing register and the process can be quite complicated. It can take a long time once registered to be successful in accessing a tenancy. We will try to get you on at least one housing register at 16 years old, to give you the best opportunity of moving when you are over 18 and ready to manage your own tenancy. Your Social Worker, keyworker or PA will support you with this process, so you don’t need to worry about what to do and who to speak to. We will encourage you to apply to the area where you want to live and where you will feel the most comfortable and most settled.
Private rented housing can be accessed directly via private landlords or through letting agents. This can either be a ‘self-contained’ flat where you have use of your own bathroom and kitchen or ‘shared’ accommodation where one or both are shared with others. There are lots of things to consider when looking to move into private rented housing but don’t worry – your PA will help you every step of the way.
If you are studying at Chichester College, you may have the opportunity to live on campus in their Halls of Residence. If you are going away to university, you will need to apply for Student Finance to pay rent for where you live during your studies. Your PA will help you with the application and through the process of applying for university. We will pay for your accommodation out of term time when you are at university. If you are going to university locally, we can keep your Staying Put placement open until you finish your studies. If you are going away, you can still return to your Staying Put accommodation out of term time.
For some young people leaving care, returning to live with a family member can be an option. If you are looking to live back with your family, we will support you to do this and ensure this will meet your needs.
For young people with more severe and enduring disabilities you may need more support than general needs housing can offer to live independently. For example, you may have overnight care needs. Options might include Shared Lives, Residential or funded Supported Housing. Your PA and adult Social Worker will talk to you about this as part of the assessment process and transition planning.
You will initially be placed in housing that will provide you with 24-hour support. The type of accommodation will be dependent on the assessment of your needs. As your independent living skills develop, your PA will assess your suitability to move on to more independent accommodation. We know this move can feel difficult for some people, but it is important all children and young people initially coming into our care have access to 24-hour support. When the time is right for you to move on to more independent accommodation, your PA will support you with this move. You will still be expected to engage with a Keyworker at more independent accommodation but this will be on an arranged basis by a visiting member of staff rather than one based at your accommodation.
The local authority does not own the properties we have available for asylum seekers; they are run by private organisations. All of these organisations have entered into a contract with West Sussex County Council (WSCC) to maintain their housing to an acceptable standard and will address any difficulties that may arise in a timely manner.
If the Home Office has granted you Leave to Remain by the age of 21, your PA will support you to access one of the accommodation options described earlier in this section. If you receive any other outcome from the Home Office before or after the age of 21, please refer to the Finance Section for more details on what is available to you.
If you are living outside of West Sussex, you will need to choose whether you wish to remain living in the area you currently live or whether you would like to move back to West Sussex. If you like where you live and want to remain in the area, we will work with your local housing department to support you move into either supported or independent private rented accommodation. We will also make attempts to apply to the local housing register, however meeting Local Connection criteria can be difficult to demonstrate if you have not lived there for long. Each Local Authority has an ‘Allocation Policy’ which sets out their rules on Local Connection. If you would like to return to West Sussex, we will arrange for you to have a housing assessment with the District or Borough where you would like to live. Your PA will work closely with the housing department to support you to move into either a form of supported housing or into private rented accommodation. We will also support you to apply to a housing register, so you have a possibility of accessing social housing once you are ready to live independently.
If you find yourself in a situation where you may be homeless, please contact your PA immediately. If you cannot get through, please contact the Leaving Care Helpline, there should be someone available 24 hours per day. We may approach the District or Borough housing departments for support with accommodation in an emergency. There is no guarantee that any accommodation offered in an emergency will be in your local area, however it will be a short-term solution to allow time to resolve any difficulties that may have led to your homelessness and begin the search for more secure and independent housing. We are here to help you and will do everything we can to make sure you are safe and have somewhere to stay.
These things are available to you as part of our offer and will be helpful for you when preparing to move and once you have moved:
