Our Vision
- Positive Approach
We instil a proactive approach with all our teams. We look to solutions in difficult times in children’s lives to establish long term stability.
- Multi-Agency
We believe in a multi-agency approach and will work with and have good links with a range of agencies to get the best support for children.
- Promote Life Skills
We guide children to choose activities that will empower them to live their lives successfully, embracing their culture, diversity, interests and their unique talents and goals.
- Boosting Self Esteem
We enable children to embrace and increase their physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and social wellbeing by helping them to repair earlier damage to self-esteem, encouraging new experiences and new friendships.
- Safe Environment
We believe that every child should be loved, happy, healthy and safe from harm. We will provide an environment in which the child can feel safe to develop, thrive and fulfil their potential whilst also exploring their emotions and personal interests.
- Enjoyable Experience
Our teams are well known for sustaining trusting and fun relationships with children, where they undertake activities together and celebrate each other. Alongside this, they share daily life, domestic and non-domestic routines, and establish boundaries of acceptable behaviour.
- Individualised Support
We recognise that each child has unique needs and circumstances and each deal with experiences in their own unique way.
- Family Links and Multi-Agency
We maintain family links to support children’s well-being and development, and where agreed, we offer support to the main carer within the family to enhance relationships.
- Advocacy and Child’s Voice
We ensure that children have access to high-quality advocacy and that their voices are heard in all decisions affecting them, including the level of service they receive and the decisions about their present and future.
- Ongoing Support into Adulthood
We provide support and resources to help those leaving care transition into independent living and achieve their goals.
What model of Care do we use?
+ProActive Approach
The +ProActive Approach is a relationship and emotion-based approach to supporting children who may have experienced developmental trauma. It focuses on the internal experiences of children and young people. The approach draws heavily on contemporary research, PBS (Positive Behaviour Support) principles and direct practice experience. It allows staff to understand and respond confidently to behaviours of concern, using a wide range of proactive strategies and techniques.
By empowering staff members with the essential knowledge, they become inquisitive about children’s responses (often referred to as challenging behaviour). +ProActive Approaches equips staff with the correct skills to analyse and identify potential causes, considering possibilities ranging from, trauma & attachment, sensory, communication difficulties, frustration, anxiety or environmental factors. This important analysis not only allows staff to correctly recognise and understand behaviours, but also subsequently develop an appropriate support plan which lessens the likelihood of behaviour reoccurring.
By implementing the house model of parenting within all the Homes and working alongside this with the young people, we can help our young people attune with the team that cares for them, to deliver a better and brighter future for them.
P is for Playfulness
We can help build a relationship with the young people through play. This is not just about providing toys and activities; relationship-building play is important to developing security.
Interactions that are playful, interactive and empathic can help the child to feel special and connected to you. Fun and play are protective. When we laugh, a different part of our brain is activated compared to when we feel anxious or low. Sharing positive experiences together helps the child to learn that they are fun and enjoyable to be around and helps you to feel ‘connected’ to the young person.
Even when ‘playfulness’ may not seem appropriate (when supporting a child in crisis), this can also refer to an open and approachable body language, tone of voice and facial expression which hints at being light and playful. This can help to diffuse situations while avoiding more obvious examples of playfulness.
Finally, play is fundamental to our social interactions. A young person who can be playful will find it easier to connect and bond to others (Golding, 2014).
“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” — George Bernard Shaw
L is for Liking
This may sound strange, but human beings strive for connection, so we pick up quickly if there is disconnection or if we get a sense that someone doesn’t like us or wants to spend time with us.
Linking closely with acceptance, this addition to the original model is crucial for demonstrating ongoing and unconditional acceptance of the child. If we start to struggle with this, it must be explored without delay to allow therapeutic thinking and work practice to get back on track. This should be done through debrief or supervision.
“To like many people spontaneously and without effort is perhaps the greatest of all sources of personal happiness.” — Bertrand Russell
A is for Acceptance
Perhaps the hardest part of using PLACE is being able to accept without evaluating and judging children’s inner experiences of thoughts and feelings. We need to be aware of the internal life of the child without judging it. When this experience is distressing or difficult for us (such as when a child is harming us) it is understandable that we can move into a place of judgement or evaluation.
Security comes, however, when an adult can accept the child’s inner experience without evaluation, accepting how the child feels about themselves, which can help them to experience a responsive relationship. We cannot provide empathy to a child without first understanding and accepting their inner world.
“Happiness can exist only in acceptance.” — George Orwell
C is for Curiosity
We can help build relationships with children by being curious and reflective about what they are thinking and feeling. We want to take a stance where we genuinely want to get to know them so that we can understand the individual better. If we are not curious, we are likely to make rapid judgments about the child, which in turn can lead to non-reflective actions and can shut down the relationship.
“I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.” — Albert Einstein
E is for Empathy
Curiosity is the search for knowing when we do not know, it leads to a different understanding and deeper acceptance of the child and their experiences. The young person experiences this increased understanding and acceptance through empathy.
The young person feels more secure when their inner experience is understood, accepted and empathised with (Golding, 2014).
“Empathy is seeing with the eyes of another, listening with the ears of another, and feeling with the heart of another.” — Alfred Adler
By following the principles of PLACE whilst working with young people, we do not tolerate or ignore challenging behaviour. We say we still like the child, but it is the behaviour we are seeing that we don’t like.