Pathfinder Online
Youth Media are pioneering an interactive assessment tool, Pathfinder Online, which offers an immediate solution to the challenge practitioners now face in making sure a meaningful pathway plan is in place for young people aged 16 plus.
The Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000 placed a statutory duty on all local authorities to have in place a robust pathway plan for all Looked After Children who would leave their care after the age of 16. The first Pathway Plan has to be ready by the time the young person is 16 years and three months, and must be a comprehensive plan ensuring the young persons needs and wishes are taken into account.
Pathfinder Online was the solution Youth Media came up with in collaboration with Liverpool Halton, Cheshire Leaving Care Teams and young people who use the service. It is a web-based interactive assessment tool that offers an attractive, immersive experience for young people and allows them to rehearse assessment questions with a trusted Carer, with the help of an on-screen assistant, which they can personalise by choosing the hair, clothes, skin colour and features.
The program voices questions about a young persons placement and provides immediate responses and solutions through their interactive on-screen guide. It can collect and deliver essential information on health, education, care planning, ethnic services and family planning.
Steve Moutray is Policy and Service Development Officer (Children) at Liverpool, responsible for outcomes for care leavers and Looked After Children. He explains the benefits Pathfinder Online has brought:The hardest thing for a young person is when a new Personal Advisor takes over at 16. Leaving care services can be seen by the young person as the bogeymen, who are going to force you to living independently, and yet, as a Practitioner, you have a very tight timescale to get a comprehensive assessment. Pathfinder Online means the young person can go through the sorts of questions that will come up with a trusted carer by their side, so they have a chance to rehearse it beforehand. It takes some of the sting out of this new person walking in and asking a lot of personal questions. We thought that if we have a tool that gives us a better assessment and that relaxes the young person, we will end up with a better Pathway Plan.
Steve says Pathfinder Online was a genuine collaboration. We came up with the concept, Garys company (Youth Media) came up with the technological know-how and the young people told us the way we should ask the questions.
The program aims not only to collect information from the young person, but also to engage them fully in the decision process. It points them to useful websites and sources of help when it spots gaps in the young persons knowledge and has the advantage of vocalising the questions, if necessary in different languages, with subtitles for deaf children. Steve reports that it has been so successful in practice that the local authority may extend it to other forms of assessment in the looked after system. It might be that Pathfinder Online is just the start.
Pathfinder.tv Assessment Project is Online
