advice for teen leaving foster care

[datkins]

i am leaving care at some point this year and to say i'm shitting it is an understatement, i will be living in a youth hostel at first which is pretty much independent living & i'm wondering if you got any advice for living alone and the dos and don'ts as i'm walking into this pretty much blindfolded and i don't want to screw it up, i am 17 at the time of this message being sent, so any advice would be greatly appreciated, cheers.

You are making a good start as you are looking ahead and asking for advice. As you have managed to find your way here you have probably already googled "advice for teen foster care leavers" as I just have but just in case you haven't this is the first one that was listed but there are a number of others:-

www.reesfoundation.org/our-services/reesources/

One other thing, if you foster carers have been doing this for some time it might be worth asking if they know of someone who has moved on who would give you be a good person to offer advice.
All the best for the future.

nice one! will check it out now & best of luck to yourself as well.
everything will be sweet in the end.

Having worked with lots of young people living in hostels, I think my main advice would be to choose your friends very carefully in this environment. You will meet lots of really friendly young people some of whom have a lot of problems and issues that you can get very caught up in if you are not careful. So choose your friendships with care, only get close to people that you feel confident aren't going to mess your life up by their issues.
Also make good use of staff support and keep planning for your future, one step at a time. Staff can offer a lot of support with things like budgeting and managing bills etc.

sealsong - i'm aware of the problems in some of these hostels having visited mates who we're living there and the whole atmosphere just felt dark, my main priority is setting myself up for a decent career with good prospects everything becomes secondary at that point, thanks for the heads up though! :)

You sound like you've got a very sensible head on your shoulders . The next year or two might not be the easiest, but as you say it's all about steps towards a good future, which I am sure you will have with your positive attitude.
Do keep posting on here when you need to, it can be really helpful.