9.3.4 Personal Appearance: Clothing, Requisites and Pocket Money |
Contents
1. Personal Appearance
- Clothing
- Requisites
- Pocket Money
2. Context
The Children Act 1989 and the National Minimum Standards for Children's Homes, 2011, both stress the importance of young people being well clothed and their personal requisite needs must be met. The legislation also includes the provision of pocket money to young people that is clearly recorded and signed for.
The legislation also makes provision for the purchase of clothing that is significant to a child's religious, cultural and racial background.
This chapter should be read in conjunction with Sanctions and Physical Interventions in Units Caring for Young People.
3. Scope
It is important to remember that young people who are placed in residential care need to be afforded the same individuality in relation to their clothing and personal requisite needs as any other young person. The legislation therefore guards against previous institutionalised practice of bulk buying, a practice which is now deemed not only inappropriate but also abusive.
Personal requisite needs include such things as toiletries and hair care products but this is not an exhaustive list because, by their very nature, they are open to interpretation and personal choice. As such, each home, within the budget allowance, has the flexibility to discuss and negotiate with young people that their personal requisite needs are.
4. Procedure
| 1.0 | All young people should have clean, good quality clothing available to them and their agreed personal requisite needs should be met. At the same time, young people need to be able to make individual choices about the particular fashion trends they want to follow (for some this may involve wearing torn clothing as a fashion statement). It is also important to be aware that for some young people, they may have self-image issues that influence their state of dress and this may lead them to dress in an unkempt manner. Staff should, however, be attempting to help young people develop a more positive self-image, and thus influencing the state of dress over time. The particular ways in which a young person is been helped should be clearly recorded within their Placement Plan and this would include a recording of their present approach to clothing and personal appearance. All young people attending school, irrespective of fashion choices, should have school uniforms that are clean and well maintained. |
| 1.1 | Particular attention should be paid to supporting and meeting any cultural, ethnicity or religious needs that young people may have, with respect to their clothing and personal requisites. |
| 1.2 | Young people should be supported, encouraged and guided to choose their own clothes. Young people should be enabled and given the choice to go shopping without staff. Where there are issues within a young person’s life that mitigate against them taking responsibility for their own clothing and personal requisite money, this should be clearly recorded within the Placement Plan. The recording should include the reasons why such a decision has been taken, for instance, an issue with drug use that has led to a misuse of clothing and personal requisite money or items. Furthermore, the recording should also include the ways in which the young person is been helped to address the issue. |
| 1.3 | Suitable and acceptable clothing and personal requisites should be purchased for any young person who is unable or unwilling to choose and purchase for his or herself. |
| 1.4 | Young people should have their own clothes and personal requisites for their own exclusive use. In situations in which it has been assessed that young people cannot safely use toiletries dispensed by aerosol; such decisions and actions should be recorded as in 1.2 above. |
| 1.5 | Young women should have their own supply of sanitary protection and should not have to request it from a central stock. |
| 1.6 | Young people should receive, when appropriate, non-judgemental guidance and advice from staff about choice and care of clothing, use of cosmetics, toiletries and sanitary protection. |
| 1.7 | All young people should receive pocket money. The amount should be related to age and consistent throughout the whole residential childcare sector. Amounts of which, are set each year. |
| 1.8 | Pocket money should be kept safe and recorded separately on the Pocket Money Recording Sheet for each young person and this is kept within his or her Daily Living File. Each young person should also sign for his or her pocket money. If, however, they refuse to sign, this should be recorded and two staff members should witness that the young person has indeed received their pocket money. If a young person consistently refuses to sign, this issue will need to be addressed as part of the daily living arrangements and actions and approaches recorded within the young person’s Placement Plan. If a young person is unable, albeit temporarily due to illness or accident, arrangements need to be agreed with the young person about how to record that he or she has received their pocket money. Such arrangements may involve two staff signing to witness a young person’s receipt. |
| 1.9 | Young people should be encouraged and supported to take responsibility for looking after their own money, making use of their lockable cabinets within their lockable bedrooms. Further, whenever possible, young people should be encouraged and helped to learn about the value of saving money. This will also help young people to learn about the different ways in which banks operate and provide a choice of safe keeping and accessing their money. |
| 1.10 | If it is agreed, that the way for a young person to make amends for a misuse of money (for example, using money given for bus-fares on something else) is by re-payment from their pocket money, no more than two-thirds of the total pocket money amount should be deducted. (See Sanctions and Physical Interventions in Units Caring for Young People). |
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