'Turning 18 when you're in care is really scary'

Becoming an adult is scary enough. But for those who have spent time in care, trying to navigate children's services and different social workers, the challenges can be even greater. One council is trying to ease the transition.

Six months after turning 18, Chloe Morley has gone from living in supported accommodation to a hostel.

Things are about to change for her, as she has just been offered a flat. However, she believes she should never have found herself in this situation.

"No social worker will tell you how scary it is being 18," she says. "I wish I been warned, because it is very scary."

Miss Morley is now an apprentice at Cumberland Council and an ambassador for people who are care-experienced, helping the authority shape its services.

Despite the challenges, she says she has seen big changes in the way the authority works since children's services were transferred from Cumbria County Council following a local government restructure in April 2023.

Ofsted inspectors who spent three weeks looking at how the department was run at Cumberland Council agreed the service had improved, rating it "good" - up from "requires improvement" under the previous authority.

Miss Morley says her experiences were not "the greatest" under the now disbanded Cumbria County Council, "but I would say there has been a big improvement".

She says she started seeing differences about a year ago, shortly after Cumberland Council took over.

"I had had so many different social workers and so many different people coming in and out of my life, but now I just have that set person and I don't have to keep getting passed around," she says.

"I think it's good because I have strong relationships."

It meant a lot her to be able to rely on one point of contact, as those who are care-experienced "don't really trust people" due to traumatic events in their lives, she adds.

Care-experienced young people are given support in areas such as housing, money, education and mental health until they are 25.

Since turning 18, Miss Morley has had a personal adviser who is helping her transition into adulthood. But she thinks work is still needed to prepare young people.

"There's just a housing crisis for everyone, which I know is difficult," she says. But one improvement would be more support in finding housing options because people "shouldn't be in this situation six months after turning 18".

However, she says she is "100% confident" that children going into care today would be looked after properly, after recent changes to the system.

The positive changes she has witnessed have been recognised by Ofsted inspectors, who published their report on Tuesday.

Cumberland Council's children's services portfolio holder Emma Williamson says the authority has to overcome "systemic challenges" when taking over services from Cumbria County Council, with a high number of children in care and issues around staff retention and recruitment.

A new leadership team has been in place since March, and they have been able to consolidate the team and work on staff development, she says.

"One of the things that was really important was to review every single child," Williamson says.

"I'm not afraid to say that, in the first week, two children went home and I cried, because I think we had a fresh approach, and what we should always be doing is trying to keep children with their families.

The authority is also working on its early intervention programme to ensure people were not passed around several departments before getting the right support, she adds.

Although the service has been rated "good" overall, there are some areas that still require improvements, according to Ofsted.

Inspectors made four recommendations, around the council's private fostering arrangements, homelessness response for 16- and 17-year-olds, response to children experiencing long-term neglect, and response to children who go missing.

These were areas highlighted in previous Ofsted reports when the service was run by the former local authority.

"While they could see we had firm plans in place, we were literally just about to launch the new policies when Ofsted arrived, so what they couldn't see was the impact of those policies and the positive changes that will be seen going forward," says Philippa Holmes, the council's assistant director for children's services.

She is "incredibly proud" of what has been achieved in such a short space of time and is "very confident" the service would continue to improve, she says.

Director of children and family wellbeing Martin Birch says, while the problems highlighted by Ofsted are challenges the previous authority also faced, they are not as big an issue as they have been.

"Had Ofsted come in three or four months' time, that would have been a very different outcome," he says.

"We're really proud of our service, the staff have worked incredibly hard to deliver what we have achieved today and I'd like to thank them all."

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