What support is available for a bereaved teenager facing homelessness?

[BakingLady2323]

A friend of my son is about to find himself homeless, I think, and I am worried about what will happen.

His mum died about 1.5 years ago -he has no relationship with his dad and I think the dad is just not interested.

After his mum died he lived with his aunt and grandmother for just less then a year bit moved out, against their wishes and advice as they were too strict and controlling. He returned to the house he had lived in previously, with his late mums boyfriend. It wasn't a very long relationship, maybe they had lived together for 18months before? The house was a state and he turned upto school in dirty clothes and didn't eat properly. He seemed uncared-for. There was a lot of alcohol.

The partner has just died. The house belongs to HIS daughter. The child doesn't want to live with his dad (who probably would not want him anyway), and really won't want to live with his aunt and grandmother.

Does anyone know what will likely happen? This is England btw. Social services are visiting him tomorrow.

Agree. I wasn’t sure how/if social care were involved and was thinking the LAC nurses could help with that

All they would do would be to tell OP to refer to social services :/ it's not that hard to work out. It would be 800x harder to find a phone number for LAC nurses than to find the link to refer to social worker. Anyway, that's already been done, as OP said a social worker is visiting this week.

Yep, at the late partners house. He's there for now utndoubt he can stay there long. Social services are aware, so I guess school are? Do they get informed on bank holidays?

I can’t advice but based on your post above sounds like his gran and aunt were trying to be a good influence for him. He’ll be off the rails in social care. I would prioritise my own son’s well-being and stay out of it.

Not sure how much school will do in the holidays to be honest. If social care are involved already that is good - you could chase them up tomorrow and try and check they are seeing him this week if you are worried. They may not share specific info with you of course - but you can share your concerns.

As a child in care, there could be funding available for some bereavement counselling if there is no NHS support available- but priority is his living situation and plans for that.

The boy needs support. Can you get him to call Childline? They can help him go through his options and support him. Ideally he would get support from his school and social services, and they would work together to get him a stable place to live. They should also help him access benefits. It’s not simple as he is under 18 but ideally he would have some control and some agency. Having someone on his side to talk through things and give the support he needs and deserves would be helpful and they will give him that.

The council I work for has supported accommodation for homeless teens, from memory they can stay from 16 - 25. They get support with work, bills, life skills etc…

Info about authorities obligations - www.gov.uk/government/publications/good-decisions-supporting-children-aged-16-and-17-who-need-help-when-they-are-homeless/supporting-children-aged-16-and-17-who-need-help-when-they-are-homeless

I wonder whether Winston's Wish would be a useful source of support and advice, OP.

https://winstonswish.org/about-us/

If he is 17 generally he is able to provide consent for himself under s20 for accommodation by the Local Authority - this might be foster placement or more likely a supported living / semi-independent type arrangement I would suggest.

DePaul U.K. is a charity dealing with youth homelessness. They also mediate between the young person and the caregiver to try and prevent homelessness. Please contact them .

This sounds horribly similar to my friend’s situation with a teen boy, I’ll call him Jack. My friend’s teen son was a good friend to Jack when he was living here in Ireland. Jack is a nice lad and my friend wanted to invite him to stay with them but she’s a single parent and really struggling financially as it is.

Jack was originally living in the UK with his mum but she died suddenly when he was about 14 and so he tried living with his grandparent who didn’t really want him. His dad was remarried and living in Ireland so he came over here for a year but due to the vastly different curriculum, he didn’t take any exams at Junior Cert (roughly equivalent to GCSE’s). I think the school should have done more to support him as he’s clearly a bright switched on lad.

Jack decided to join the army in the UK and moved back at 16yrs and was living in a hostel but as he had zero qualifications, they said he had to study English and Maths GCSE at college. He’s apparently begun smoking and drinking and my friend’s son still chats to him on messaging but it sounds like Jack’s given up and lost all hope. 😢

Thanks for this, it's really helpful.

so it's looking like:

• Social services assess as to whether he is a child in need. They might say no as he has a father, who has parental responsibility/ gran+aunt who would help but child wants neither. Or maybe someone else friends and family. But rarely financial support.

-If assessed as child in need, it is either Section 17 or 20
17= more hands off and less support incl financial. 20= In care and much more support.
Ss likely to push 17 over 20 but child can opt for 20.

-Child should have access to independent advocate but rarely offered

• Support might range from B&b (shouldn't happen, but does) to fostering (unlikely for 17yo) to supported living set up, incl foyers mentioned above.

That sounds really awful. It's already tough enough for young men to find their feet, but young men whose mothers die and their father fails them?

MY mil said 'oh, he should just sign up'. Erm... nope. Not really a solution, although of course the forces are surely full of rootless young people.

That's pretty much it. Except that social services should not 'push' section 17 over section 20. Individual social workers don't think about budgets, they think about what's best for the young person. Senior managers do think about budgets but they also think about ofsted inspections and serious case reviews and don't tend to be keen to push young people into less safe arrangements to save money for those reasons, leaving aside welfare concerns which senior managers do also think about.