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Initially this worked well but it became evident we could only have limited success with this short-term model because as children began to settle down well with us (which would take around three months) and begin to feel it was their home, unfortunately it would be time for them to move on.
The Directors and staff at J&R Care were further frustrated because many of the children who passed through our doors went on to live in multiple placements and were not able to settle down.
In 2004 we employed a new Registered Manager for the home. He came to us after working for many years in a therapeutic community undertaking long-term work, and he wanted to work with emergency placements. Not long into his role he became as frustrated as we were about the children who passed through our doors only for them to be sent on to other emergency homes and repeat assessments.
What was needed was a long term commitment from us to working with such children. It was decided that, given the most important need of the children referred to us was stability, we should change our remit and plan to work with all referrals for longer periods. This allowed staff to develop stronger attachments with the children and provide the children with the much needed stability they longed for in a placement.
In November 2006, the Directors and The Registered Manager of the home decided that something drastic had to change for us to really make a difference to the children we looked after. We changed our home from an emergency home to a medium / long term home and put in place a full school day in our Independent School.
We now work in a therapeutic way with children who need to feel cared about and who if required can stay with us for as long as is necessary to either help them move on into a foster placement or home with family, or help them learn the skills required to live independently.
We decided it was time to think more creatively about the education of the children we were caring for.
It became evident to us in the early years of J&R Care that many of the children who came to live with us were not receiving an education, and so we employed a tutor who would come in for two hours each morning to teach the children. Realising that this was not enough, and only after several failed attempts at supporting the children in external EBD schools only for them to still be excluded due to their destructive behaviours, we decided it was time to think more creatively about the education of the children we were caring for.
Subsequently, we moved the home to a better location which had larger grounds and much more scope for development. We renovated an old garage block into a school room and an activity room and employed a teacher to come in for three hours a day and teach the children. We registered as an Independent Special School and concentrated on ASDAN awards as the children seemed to enjoy the practical element of this way of learning.
The school now offers a full time curriculum for all children as well as a more practical based learning program and we are a registered exam centre for Edexcel, AQA and CCEA which means that children who find exams too daunting to even comprehend can take their GCSE’s with us, in the very room that they are used to and feel comfortable in.
We believe however it can be strongly and successfully improved upon. We are therefore working on a solution to enhance our provision of holistic child care and education.
A cornerstone of our home’s stability is centred around the capability of staff to work, for long periods, with violent and vulnerable children. The key to enabling staff to do this is centred around helping staff to learn about the underlying unconscious processes at work within both themselves and the child.
In doing this we are able to sustain our commitment to very challenging children for much longer periods of time and through the relationships formed with them able to progress and settle children to the point where they are able to have successes in other areas such as education and in some cases with progression into foster care or rehabilitation back into their family homes. We also undertake family work as part of this process to enable a smooth transition, and we see this as an important part of the work we do.
The Registered Manager and his staff and the teachers work closely with the Directors of J&R Care to ensure we continue improving our services to the children we look after and to the placing authorities who trust us with this, at times, incredibly difficult task. Working as a team is therefore essential to our operation.
