Having your say and your rights

We will help you understand your rights and advocate on your behalf, helping you access information about you and providing support if you need to make a complaint.

Helping you to understand your history

Children's services have to keep written case records of your cared for history. These records have to be kept for 75 years.

You can request your records any time after your 18th birthday.

You do not have to read through the information on your own as it can be upsetting or confusing. We want to help you understand what is in your file and why. Your personal adviser can support you with this process.

We have an approach to supporting young people access their files. This includes:

• requesting to see your records in writing
• children's services will respond to you in writing within 40 days giving you a timescale

The Care Leavers Association runs a range of projects to help improve your support, help you learn new skills and support young people to access their files.

Unavailable information

You may find that some of the information is not available for you to read. This is because some of the information in your records may identify other people known as third parties.

If there is information that may seriously harm your physical or mental health, it may not be given to you but we will explain why.

We always work with social workers and personal advisers to record information about you in your case file in a positive way.

Independent support

We want you to be involved in all decisions about your plans for moving towards adulthood and independence.

In addition to your personal adviser, you can be supported in doing this by an Independent Advocate. They can help you to find out about your rights and have your voice heard in meetings. Advocates are separate from children's services.

Accessing an advocate

Your personal adviser can help you to access an advocate.

In Cumberland, the National Youth Advocacy Service (NYAS) provides this support. They are a rights-based charity who provide advocacy and legal representation to children and vulnerable adults when important decisions are being made about them.

They can support a variety of issues including:

• education
• placement issues and moves
• complaints
• review meetings
• support if you are unhappy with a decision or plans

The advocate will aim to assist in the early resolution of potential difficulties and will help you to understand what is happening for you and why.

Referrals can be made with consent of children and young people securely via the National Youth Advocacy Service website or by calling their helpline on 0808 808 1001.

Comments, compliments and complaints

Every young person receiving advice or assistance under the Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000 and the Planning Transition to Adulthood (Care Leavers England) Regulations 2010, can make representations about the services they receive.

Representations can be a:

• comment – telling us what you think
• compliment – saying thank you or well done
• complaint – telling us when you think we’ve done something wrong

Comments

If you make a comment or a suggestion, we will write to you to say what we are going to do with it. We might ask:

• a manager or the participation officer to talk to you about it
• if you want to help us to plan changes

If we do not reply to your suggestions, you can make a complaint about this.

Compliments

Most of the time, if you want to say thank you or well done you can do this face to face.

Sometimes you might want other people to know that someone has done a good job.

If you contact us, we will pass on your good wishes. We will also contact you to let you know what we have done.

Complaints

We will try to sort out any problems as quickly as possible.

Your personal adviser will be able to deal with most things, but if they can’t do this, or if you want someone else to deal with it, you can contact the complaints officer.

The complaints officer can advise you on how to make a complaint and will keep you informed of what is happening with your complaint.

Any young person who wants to make a complaint also has the right to an advocate. They can support you to speak up for yourself or sometimes can speak for you. You can choose who you want to be your advocate. It could be someone you know and trust or you can ask for somebody independent.

If you want to make a complaint, see Complaints procedure for social care.