ARU Final Report

36 Care leavers’ experiences of support during the Covid-19 pandemic 4.3.4 The importance of support bubbles Support bubbles were highlighted as crucial in being able to stay connected and feel supported for young people in our study, especially for those who lived on their own, were shielding, or were looking after small children. Indeed, many expressed how fortunate they felt in terms of staying connected with others for various reasons. For example, some young people were living with foster carers, some were still in work, and others had strong support bubbles they could turn to: “For me Zoom meetings with friends and family, but it’s not the same as being able to see people in person.” (FG: Female, 22) “I felt quite disconnected from my family, particularly right now because my sister and my little sister have both tested positive for Covid and my niece as well, so I can’t even join my bubble anymore. And I live alone so it’s quite lonely. But I work every day still from home though, so it’s at least that to connect to someone, rather than not talking to someone at all… I call my family quite a lot but it’s just that human connection that you’d rather have.” (FG: Female, 23) “I’ve been quite lucky because I’m with my previous foster carers so quite lucky being connected with my family. It hasn’t been much of a problem for me. Going into work helps quite a lot to be fair. You can’t see people outside the workplace but it’s a different four walls.” (FG: Male, 19) “Thankfully I had both my parents… my dad took me shopping every two weeks and then I saw my mum as much as possible, because we kind of formed – it wasn’t like a support bubble but it was a sort of mental health bubble – we have members of family who suffer mental health so if we needed to talk there was someone there. The beginning of lockdown, it was pretty hard because I did have to shield…. I did see a few friends now and then. It was just sort of trying to stay safe but actually still being able to see people because I live on my own so when I am on my own it’s quiet, it’s difficult. But when I’m out with my dad or my friends I’m a lot more happier.” (FG: Male, 22) Of the 51.1% of respondents who did not receive support to feel connected to friends and family , some said that they simply did not need this support, while others said that they did not have friends and family to connect with. Care leavers frequently expressed that they did not know how else they could connect with others other than Zoom calls, so advice on creative ways to promote connection would have been useful. Examples of best practice reported by care leavers included enabling access to the internet and technology to allow online interaction; facilitating WhatsApp groups and online meetups for care leavers so they could keep in touch with each other; and providing free bus passes/tickets so that care leavers could get around independently to see friends and family when this is allowed: “Just more check ins, more online fun activities.” (Q: Female, 26) “More calls and more meets ups so people can feel like they have support and so they don’t feel rubbish and alone.” (Q: Female, 20) “Some people don’t like doing video calls, maybe having another way to stay involved. Also instead of a email or a message that some people may not see having phone calls.” (Q: Female, 24) “More chats and more meet ups [from Leaving Care Team] would of been helpful for me.” (Q: Female, 20) “An allowance so I could travel and be more independent when I was allowed to see friends in summer.” (Q: Female, 17)