Regional Support to Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children

Flintshire County Council and the North Wales region are seeking to commission A ‘supported transition’ model of advice, guidance and support for the specific group of children and young people and will include: 1) A movement or change from one stage of a placement to another stage, or one type of placement to another type of placement, to deliver long term care and support planning achieving good outcomes for the child. The transition should be supported by the provider through the stages of initial care and support, planning, preparation, introductions, move, stabilising period post-move, reducing contact and positive endings. 2) The supported transition in this instance will always be for Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children and Young People (hereafter UASC) in Wales. These children and young people may have arrived in Wales either spontaneously or under the National Transfer Scheme (hereafter NTS) plus relevant legislation and guidance. 3) Transition may be onto a range of alternative arrangements but primarily onto living independently in the community. The provider must be able to offer the accommodation provision and support the transition arrangement for a defined period as agreed with the commissioning authority/authorities. 4) Transitions can be an especially unsettling time for children and young people who have experienced trauma, attachment difficulties and multiple moves. A skilled and resilient staff group working to a clear model of care will be required to effectively meet their wellbeing needs. A ‘model of care’ for the purposes of this specification is defined as: 1) A blueprint or framework to guide the practice of staff, with a particular focus on how to create and sustain change/impact. Ideally, these models deploy proven techniques that are based on either a theory of behaviour or why problems arise and/or evidence of ‘what works’. These models help to ensure that people with similar types of need are supported in similar and joined-up ways, i.e. practice is replicable and transferable. 2) Transitions for UASC are likely to have a range of complicating factors that are specific to their status. Providers should focus on mitigating risk attached to these factors and tailor transitional support packages and / or outreach arrangements to meet individual needs. 3) For the initial set up of this service in Flintshire the provider will be expected to offer 24hr support for a period of 4 weeks, with the view for this to reduce to floating support thereafter. It is expected within the 24hr support that a sleep in is provided. As part of this process, we would welcome expressions of interest from current providers and third sector providers of care and support services who believe they have the experience and can demonstrate innovative practice or believe they have creative ideas to new models of provision.