impact of independent visitors in recent visits

Our Independent Visiting service had a busy summer and autumn of visits and activities! asphaleia delivers the Independent Visiting Service for East Sussex County Council and it's a service that provides a volunteer befriender to children and young people in care. The Independent Visitors are matched to their YP and they arrange monthly visits to take the young person out into the community to do something fun and spend time together.

The service enables the child to have an adult independent from social services who is simply there to support them as their friend, and be a listening ear.

supporting new experiences

One of our young people has had a difficult period and their IV knew they would benefit from a ‘special visit’ so they saved up and went to see a musical together. This was the young person's first experience at a musical and they thoroughly enjoyed it.

Another of our IV’s took their young person to see the roller derby in Eastbourne after they expressed an interest in roller blading.

One of our children has found a new interest in animals which is being supported by their IV, for their August and September visits they bought bird food and took it to a local park to do some bird watching.

managing the visit budget together

Each match has an activity budget for each visit and it's a great opportunity to teach finance skills to children and young people as they work together to reduce the cost of some visits to then save up for more expensive activities.

During the summer, many of our IV’s begun ‘saving’ for more expensive visits for the winter and many young people enjoyed the paired back activities such as picnics and walks in the park, which has allowed for connection to grow without an expectation of lots of expensive activities.

building a friendship with independent visitors

It can take some time to build trust and friendship in our IV matches.

One young person has struggled recently to open up to their IV and has favoured visits that are active to reduce the need to talk. However, during a visit in the summer, the young person took the opportunity whilst sat down with an ice cream to share more details about their life and relationships.

We are currently recruiting volunteers to be IV's in our service, if you're interested please take a look at our volunteer page.