ARU Final Report

38 Care leavers’ experiences of support during the Covid-19 pandemic 73.1% of respondents reported that they received some form of support from Leaving Care Services . Some had positive experiences of this support, claiming it was “on point”: “I don’t think they could have offered much more than they did. We had a group chat. Arranging to go for walks (2 metres) always talking on the group chat to make sure everyone’s okay. My PA calling me and other people contacting me and there was always someone you could contact. They’re also going through their lives and they’ve got to think about themselves…” (FG: Female, ND) In particular, across the questionnaire and focus groups, care leavers identified the importance of their personal advisors/social workers being in regular contact and facilitating practical support: “My social worker has been there for me. Even a lady to do with social services, she was amazing. I had loads of support.” (FG: Female, ND) “My PA definitely played a massive part, always able to ring her up, if I had a down day I was able to ring her and just say I’m feeling a bit shit… Having her to ring up when things weren’t great it definitely helped.” (FG: Male, 21) “My social worker was very good, she facetimed me everyweek, then down to every twoweeks but all I had to do was text her or call her and she got things sorted, like my bus pass which she sorted really quickly. My PA is not so good. I texted her last Thursday and she still hasn’t replied (it is Tuesday).” (FG: Female, 17) “My PA was in regular contact with me all throughout the pandemic.” (Q: Female, 20) “My PA gave me weekly check-ins by email which were really nice.” (Q: Male, 21) “Helpful to have someone to talk to.” (Q: Female, 22) “My key worker has always been amazing and continued to speak to me every week even when I wouldn’t answer or text back she would always message me and give me positive words to think about.” (Q: Female, 18) “Personal advisor and children’s social worker have supported me and helped me so much especially with my mental health.” (Q: Female, 24) “Me, my partner and our children had amazing support from [named people] from social services.” (Q: Female, 21) “Support from social workers was most helpful, they helped me with stuff almost instantly… Not sure what else they could have done. Services are all different, so they support youwith different stuff so you have to have different expectations.” (FG: Female, 17) This is similar to findings from Roberts et al. (2020) and Street Doctors et al. (2020) where young people spoke about the supports provided by individual adults including their carers, personal advisors and social workers, who answered their questions and put their mind at rest when anxieties prevailed.