Barriers and enablers to care-leavers engagement with multi-agency support: A scoping review.

• This scoping review explores the international literature between 2000 and 2022, to investigate the barriers and enablers to care-leavers engagement with multi-agency support services. • Thematic analysis informed the identification and analysis of documented enablers, barriers, and outcomes to engagement with care leavers. The results were used to populate a logic model to summarise the inputs, outputs and outcomes following care leaver engagement with multi-agency support. • Key themes identified around the barriers and enablers to engagement with care-leavers included Barriers: Identity, Trust in Services, Inadequate Support; Enablers: Turning points, Continuity of Support, A Good Worker, and Person-centred Approaches; and Outcomes: Improved Confidence, Awareness of Rights and Engagement. • We suggest that further qualitative research is needed with a variety of stakeholders including care-leavers to elicit the factors that contribute to their engagement with services, and to understand what engagement looks like. Many care-leavers experience poor individual and social outcomes. Care-leavers involvement with decision making and consistent supportive relationships with professionals can facilitate a more successful transition to independent living, including better well-being and social outcomes. Not all care-leavers engage with or participate in after-care services. There has been little systematic or structured modelling of what effective enablement through multi-agency support looks like, and the enablers and barriers to care-leaver engagement have not been identified. A scoping review of the international literature was conducted. Eighteen papers were identified, and a thematic synthesis used to derive themes associated with barriers and enablers to care-leavers engagement with services, and subsequent outcomes. The findings were used to populate a logic model illustrating the relationship between the mechanisms contributing to better outcomes for care-leavers: including inputs, activities, and outputs. Barriers to engagement included: identity, independence, trust in services and inadequate support. Enablers included persistent and consistent support, time and turning points, and having an authentic trusted professional within the service. The key findings focused on the need for flexible and accessible services, a gradual introduction to the after-care concept and a proactive approach by professionals, especially immediately after leaving care. This research co-produced with care-leavers contributes to a better understanding of the nature of enablers and barriers to engagement with multi- agency support services. The initial logic model derived from the literature will inform the development and measurement of a practice model and toolkit for professionals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]