Young people who reside in Supported Accomodation settings have very often experienced significant childhood adversity and trauma.
These experiences can have a significant long-term impact on a young person’s psychological well-being and development across a range of areas.
As these young people move towards independence, it is paramount that they have a safe, nurturing environment and access to individualised, tailored psychological support that helps them build resilience and develop healthy coping skills and empowers them to achieve positive outcomes.
What is Positive Psychological Support?
Positive, strengths-based psychological support refers to strategies, interventions and practices which aim to enhance an individual’s wellbeing and personal growth.
It highlights the importance of focusing on promoting strengths and building upon an individual’s unique talents instead of solely focusing on challenges.
Strengths-based, positive psychological support encourages young people to leverage their strengths in challenging situations and acknowledges and rewards progress and accomplishments to boost their self-esteem.
How to provide positive psychological support for young people in supported accommodation
Individual, tailored psychological support is of key importance when supporting young people living in supported accommodation.
In 2023, the Supported Accomodation Regulations and Accompanying Quality Standards were set out to ensure that all providers of Supported Accomodation are providing high-quality care for young people.
This highlights the importance of providing individual and tailored support to meet each young person’s unique needs.
By collaborating with specialist psychologically informed support services, providers of supported accommodation can ensure that every young person receives the tailored psychological support they need to thrive.
Psychological support should focus on a young person’s strengths
Focusing on strengths is essential for fostering resilience and self-esteem and to effectively support young people to work towards independence.
Recognising strengths and setting appropriate, personalised goals collaboratively with young people helps to increase their motivation to achieve them.
Progress should be acknowledged and celebrated, to reinforce their capabilities and unique talents, resources, skills, knowledge and abilities they can harness in order to effectively overcome challenges and difficulties.
Psychological support should support the development of safe and trusting child-carer relationships
Many young people living in supported accommodation will have experienced a lack of trust and stability in their early lives.
Understanding the impact of trauma is key to providing safety for a child or young person.
Meadows Psychology Service specialises in helping carers and young people develop secure attachments that foster a sense of safety, predictability and trust. This is paramount for effectively supporting young people to heal from their early traumatic experiences.
Psychological support should encourage positive connections.
If a young person is given the opportunity to experience trusting, nurturing attachments with the adults around them, they are more likely to go on to experience positive healthy relationships with others.
Whilst young people in supported accommodation settings are working towards living independently as adults, it is crucial that we recognise what they have likely lacked in early childhood and the importance of us as carers plugging these gaps in order for them to thrive.
What are the Benefits?
Positive, strengths-based and individually tailored psychological support has a number of benefits for young people living in supported accommodation. For example:
- It helps young people to feel safe. This increases engagement with support, reduces challenging behaviours in young people, and has a positive effect on service outcomes.
- It helps to build young people’s self-esteem. This can positively impact a range of long-term outcomes, such as education/ work, social relationships, and mental and physical health.
- It helps young people to develop emotional regulation skills which can lead to improved psychological health, increased well-being, better social functioning, and improved coping when experiencing stressful life events.
- It supports independence by helping young people to feel empowered and in control. This helps young people to engage in activities that promote positive wellbeing, and help them to connect with others and achieve their goals.
Receive The Support You Need With Meadows
At Meadows Psychology Service, we understand the crucial role that supported accommodation providers play in bridging the gap between care and independent living for young people.
Our mission is to ensure that every young person in supported accommodation receives the positive, tailored psychological support they need to thrive. To learn more about how Meadows Psychology Service can support you and your young people, contact us today.
