Berry Street Web Docs Annual Report 2016 | Page 30

Foster & Kinship Care Alysa’s story E Growing up in a refugee camp for the ̬UVWIRXU\HDUVRIKHUOLIHZDVQRWWKHVRUWRI childhood any child should experience. Sadly, violence continued to be a big part of Alysa’s life and she was removed from her parents and went to live with her brother. When Alysa was referred to our White House leaving care program, she had left her brother’s house EHFDXVHRIKLVVXEVWDQFHXVHLVVXHVZDVFRXFKVXU̬QJ and struggling to continue her education. Twelve months on, Alysa’s remarkable resilience has enabled her to blossom. She is now working part-time to support KHUVHOIZKLOHVKHFRPSOHWHVDQXUVLQJTXDOL̬FDWLRQ TARGETED CARE PACKAGES :HKDYHWDNHQXSWKH̭H[LELOLW\ that individualised Targeted Care Packages provide to develop tailored responses for 24 children and young people. This means that we were able to: provide support to a young woman to prevent her six siblings being separated; wrap-around services, including accommodation, for a number of young people leaving care; and create special packages of support for foster carers to enable them to take on some particularly complex young people, who otherwise would have remained in residential care. 29 LEAVING CARE We all know how challenging it can be for most of us leaving home and becoming independent. For the young people with whom we work, it’s even more challenging as they usually don’t have families to fall back on, may not have ̬QLVKHGVFKRRODQGGRQʌWKDYHWKH FRPPXQLW\QHWZRUNVWR̬QGZRUN and help them in the tough times. We contin