Healthy relationships - support for care experienced young people

There are lots of different types of relationships that can break down into three categories - family, friends and romantic.

For more information on how we can support care experienced young people have healthy romantic relationships please also see our sexual health and sexuality pages.

What does a healthy relationship with your family look like?

There are lots of different types of families. As a care experienced young person you may have a foster family, a birth family and possibly even be thinking about starting your own family. Other care experienced young people may feel like their friends are more their family. Families are important because they can act as a constant source of comfort, guidance, and strength that you can draw on whenever you need them.

For more information, see HENRY Healthy Families on YouTube.

Healthy family relationships tend to have six main qualities that help family members feel supported and loved.

These are:

  • Appreciation and/or affection. Family members should feel like their contributions are appreciated. You should feel comfortable to give and receive different types of affection like a hug or a pat on the back.
  • Trust. Family members should feel able to trust each other and feel trusted.
  • Communication. Family members should feel able to both talk to and listen to each other. Communication should also be encouraging and supportive.
  • Enjoying each other’s company. As a care experienced young person, you may be feeling like you want to be more independent, which is completely ok, but it is important to still want to enjoy your family’s company. Independence can be hard and spending time with your family can help you through the hard times.
  • Resilience. Speaking of hard times, challenges and crises happen to everyone. Healthy families take these challenges on together and help each other through crises. Sometimes these hard times can bring families even closer together!
  • Respect. Even if family members don’t always agree, there should always be a feeling of respect of others’ opinions within a family unit.

If you or someone in your family is not feeling or seeing any of these qualities, you can reach out to the following organisations:

What does a healthy relationships with your friends look like?

As you move on to becoming a care experienced young person, you’ll find that your friendships may change. Some people who had lots of friends through school may only have a few friends now, and others may find that they are gaining more and more friends as they go on through adulthood.

Your friends may feel like a family to you, so all the qualities listed in the family section should be things you feel and experience. However, unlike families, friendships can come and go far more easily.

It’s important you keep hold of the really good friends and cut any friendships that could be seen as harmful to you or toxic. See this video explaining four differences between good friends and toxic friends.

Good friends  

  • protect you when you’re vulnerable and will support you through hard times    
  • are trustworthy and accept you for who you are  
  • are mature and responsible  
  • are compassionate with you and others, will celebrate your achievements with you and be understanding if you are sad or healing    

Toxic friends

  • put you down all the time, only take and are only out for themselves. They can guilt trip you when they do help you because they’re always looking for what they can gain from you.
  • are often two-faced, will talk behind your back and won’t keep your secrets safe
  • won’t take responsibility for their actions and they won’t help you be responsible either. They will often encourage negative thoughts or feelings within you.
  • will often rush you to recover, won’t have time for you if you are upset, will accuse you of being ‘braggy’ when you have achievements, or will be horrible to other people for being different to themselves

If you have any questions or concerns, you can always talk to your Pathway Advisor (PA) or any of us at the Positive Futures Team.

You can also reach out to:

Getting in touch

For more information or advice, please contact the Positive Futures Team on 01793 466715 or email pfduty@swindon.gov.uk.

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