Support with accessing your social care records

Later life letter

As you approach 18, your social worker should write you a ‘later life letter’.

This contains brief details about why you came into care, and some information about your care journey. We'll work with your social worker to make sure this is available. We can help you ask for a copy of your letter if you haven't seen it yet.

Access to your social care records

To get copies of your records, speak to your personal adviser. If you no longer have a PA, you can phone us.

Before you request your records you should think about:

• is this the right time for you?
• do you have support in place to help you?
• are there bits of the record that you want to see, such as why certain decisions were made?
• have you talked about this with your PA or another adult you trust?

We will support you to access your records when you're ready. Reading through your records can be a difficult experience. You may disagree with some of the decisions that were made about you or some of the information recorded.

Where possible, we'd like you read through your records with a worker who can help you understand them and support you through any difficulties.

We can arrange to support you to read your records at home, or you can come to visit us at the TLC Hub. We can book a private space to look through the records together.

If you're struggling, your PA or social worker can help you to access emotional health support. Your PA can also help you put together a plan for how you will work through your emotions.

We urge you to make use of the support that we offer to help you process your feelings about your records.