Innovation in residential care

Personalised learning without limits
Avocet House, Norfolk

Not many children’s homes take their parental responsibilities to young people as far as purchasing them a flat in which to live when they leave. Norfolk’s outstanding-rated Avocet House, run by Specialist Education Services, has done just that. It deploys what it calls a  “no-limits” approach for its young residents.

The eight-bed children’s home has a robust admissions process to ensure children who come benefit from its approach. “We don’t serve notice on kids or move them on if something goes wrong,” says the principal Neil Dawson. “We ask one key question: do you want to come to Avocet House? Then if things get difficult, we can look them in the eye and say, ‘you chose to be here and we will see you through’.”

The admission age band is eight to 14, and young people can stay until they are 19. Through personalised learning, Avocet House aims to make children see that anything is possible. The children, who tend to have complex issues and a history of multiple failed placements, each have a “portfolio of achievement and needs” to develop their strengths and give them opportunities to succeed.

Avocet House is registered as a children’s home and a specialist school, but learning is seen as a 24-hour process that can take place anywhere. Children’s interests, aspirations and ideas are used as the basis of their learning. “If a child says they want to go to the moon, then rather than say that’s ridiculous, we would look at the steps needed to achieve that – through knowledge of engineering or Nasa,” says Dawson.

Each young person has a learning mentor and personal tutor, and is supported to access work placements, trips abroad and the chance to attend local colleges. Recently, all the young men at the home took part in a project with schools from Greece, Finland, France and Portugal, and two have stayed with families in France. “The reports back were that they were delightful and could stay again in the future,” says Dawson.

To help recreate feelings of domesticity, staff avoid institutional language (such as “manager”) and call each other by their first names. There are no buzzers or locked doors, apart from into one office where meetings take place. The house itself is an old vicarage, chosen for its tranquillity.

Robbie Kilgallon, now aged 17, arrived at Avocet House when he was nearly 13, after 35 failed placements. He has set himself countless targets and challenges during his time at the home, which the team has supported him in achieving, including cycling from the most westerly point in Wales to Lowestoft in Suffolk in under five days. He has also done work experience and spent nine days walking in Tanzania.

Robbie currently works part-time at a gym to help support himself while he is at college. “I wouldn’t be half the man I am if I hadn’t gone to Avocet House,” he says. “The support is the best – it is very personalised and one-to-one. This is my home.”

In June, Robbie will move into his own flat, which Avocet House has bought for him to rent. It is the second flat the home has bought – another young man has been living in the first for three years.

Therapeutic care for younger children
Hillcrest Steps, Oxfordshire

Oxfordshire children’s home Hillcrest Steps has stepping stones in its garden inscribed with the names of every child who has lived there. Its huge, American-style fridge is covered with pictures of staff and children past and present. Such measures help children feel a sense of belonging.

Steps cares for children aged six to 13 – younger than those at many other residential care homes. “In the last four years, we have seen an increase in the number of six- and seven-year-olds needing residential care,” says registered manager Sadie Dangerfield.

The home uses a range of therapeutic approaches. “Younger children are closer to the trauma and less able to communicate as they don’t fully understand how they feel,” says Dangerfield. “What one might consider naughty behaviour is them trying to communicate the trauma playing out inside.” It is important to help children recognise and label the feelings and emotions they have.

The team uses a variety of therapeutic approaches – including play therapy, psychodynamic therapy and equine therapy – where children interact with horses to help them communicate more freely. Puppets and books are also used to help children make sense of their feelings, and they are encouraged to help look after the goats, sheep, pigs and chickens in the home’s small farm. Caring for creatures that depend on them for survival helps children develop empathy and compassion.

They are also encouraged to give something back by raising money for children less fortunate than themselves, for example in Haiti and Malawi. “It would be easy for the kids here to feel – quite justifiably – that life has dealt them a pretty poor hand,” says Dangerfield. “But we want to help them become functional members of society, who play a part in the wider community.”

Steps aims to ensure children in its care have as normal a childhood as possible, building memories through camping holidays, bike rides and picnics. There is a home corner, a pretend shop, a dressing up area and a sandpit. “A lot of the children have missed out on attending nurseries and pre-schools, and won’t have experienced imaginary play,” says Dangerfield. “We want to give them their childhood back.”

Staff work 7.30am to 10pm seven days a week, then have seven days off, in an effort to replicate family life. “If you get a little one up in the morning, you are also around to put them to bed,” says Dangerfield. “You can see things through, and there is good continuity of care”. Children feed back on everything from the recruitment of new staff to the dinner menu.

Hillcrest also runs three homes for adolescents in the area, allowing children to make the transition to a more appropriate environment if they are still in need of residential care when they turn 13. Ten children have so far made the move. They continue to attend the same school, keeping in touch with Steps’ staff and maintaining a sense of continuity.

Ofsted last year rated the home as outstanding. Inspectors stated that while many of the children have exhibited challenging behaviour that could not be managed in their previous foster placements, “children make exceptional progress in developing socially, educationally and in terms of the development of positive behaviour”.

An entry point for residential care
The Hub, Cambridgeshire

Cambridgeshire council has turned one of its three in-house children’s homes into a “hub”, or entry point, for young people who require residential care. Up and running for six months, the five-bed facility offers young people the time and security to become settled, and work on where they are best placed in the future, whether that is returning home, foster care, a long-term residential placement or semi-independent post-16 facilities.

Peter Jackson, residential services manager at Cambridgeshire County Council, explains: “The Hub acts as the point of entry where there has been an identified need for residential care – that includes emergency placements where nothing else is available and early, less than detailed, assessments of social workers that a child needs residential care.” The maximum stay is 12 months, but most stay for four or five months.

The Hub assesses young people’s needs, including the services they require, their strengths and areas that need development. “When the young person arrives, we bring in a variety of people who will work with them, identify their needs and prepare them for the next move,” says Jackson. Each young person gets a programme of activities to occupy their days and give them a focal point.

Continuity of care is key. Future foster carers get the chance to see the type of care received in the Hub, allowing them to develop this support when the young person is placed, while young people are given the chance to get to know future foster carers. “The principle is that the young person feels secure,” says Jackson.

To offer further support, managers and support workers have undertaken a minimum of six days training in social pedagogy through the charity Break. “This offers an opportunity for developing relationships and reflective practice,” says Jackson. “One young person kept going missing – we thought he was getting up to no good. But after a well-planned activity, he disclosed he was going home because he was frightened of the domestic violence occurring in his house and his mother’s position. He had been too frightened to talk about it until then.” Staff and young people also do yoga. Jackson says staff are given “the skills to help young people relax using some very safe techniques”.
 
“It had always struck me that yoga could be appropriate in a residential setting to give young people another way of calming down. Now we know it is possible and passes the risk assessment test.”

According to a four-month evaluation of the scheme, young people are now more likely to go back to family or to semi-independent living than to foster care or children’s homes. Five moved into semi-independence during this four-month period, compared with five for the entire 12 months of 2012 before the home was the Hub.

Jackson adds there are plans for a second council-run home to become a hub soon.