Owlswick Independent School and Children’s Home

Statement of Purpose

April 2017

Date reviewed 20/4/17

Review Date 20/4/18

Owlswick School and Children’s Home

Statement of Purpose

  1. Introduction to Owlswick – Who are we?

Our Aims and Ethos

Owlswick’s primary aim is to support, care for and educate young people in a nurturing and stimulating environment. We provide care and education to young people who for a number of different reasons are not able to live with their families or within a family setting at this time. We want young people, who have experienced adversity and difficult personal situations, to feel safe, recognise their potential, learn personal resilience and be enabled to leave Owlswick as independent and confident young adults. We pride ourselves on our commitment to ensuring Owlswick provides the most positive experience for a young person whilst they live with us.

Owlswick is an Independent Registered School and Home established in 1981, recognised and approved by the Department of Education, that provides both residential and day placements for male and female young people aged between 10 -19 with emotional, social and behavioural difficulties and moderate learning difficulties. We offer a 24 hour, 52 week per year service and provide placements for young people country wide, with the majority coming from London and the South East. Young people referred to Owlswick always have a Statement of Special Educational Needs or EHCP (Education, Health and Care Plan) which relates to their educational, care, health, emotional and behavioural needs. All young people receive their education from our on-site school provided by our experienced education team.

Owlswick seeks to provide a well-developed and supportive school and home, which operates as a large family style unit where young people are encouraged to reach their full potential. For some young people this residential provision is their first experience of a consistent, caring and stable environment and we aim to provide high levels of personal support and individually tailored education and care in a friendly and relaxed atmosphere.

Our ethos is to enable young people, who have often experienced considerable trauma and disruption to their lives, to feel valued, secure and successful. We have created a home in which every individual can feel safe and be supported to confront and deal with specific issues which may be impacting on their health, wellbeing and personal development. By creating an environment of mutual respect, providing an empathetic and nurturing approach and setting clear professional and personal boundaries, we are able to demonstrate that the young people who live at Owlswick learn, thrive and develop resilience. We aspire for each individual to feel that they are significantly achieving in both their educational and personal experiences. It is very important that young people tell us that their experiences at Owlswick are positive, stimulating and that they feel cared for.

Our aim is to achieve very definite outcomes for all the young people in our education and care and we do this through the development of careful and well thought out education and care plans, a focus on achieving through learning and developing skills for life and enabling independence whilst considering personal safety and risk.

A core element of the Owlswick ethos is preparing young people for the next stage of their lives by introducing them to the world of work, further education, money management and independent living. We encourage young people to build the necessary skills to manage themselves confidently in social situations and the work place in order to have the best possible life chances when they leave Owlswick.

  1. Children’s Homes Regulatory Requirements and Quality Standards

It is the responsibility and requirement of Owlswick to ensure we are meeting all legal requirements set out in The Children’s Homes (England) Regulations 2015. There is also a requirement that we are meeting (and where possible surpassing) the Department of Education Quality Standards 2015. Owlswick evaluates its services against the quality standards in order to demonstrate where individual standards are being met and where there is a need to make further developments and improvements.

  1. Our location and facilities

Owlswick is a large country house set in 3 acres of grounds on the outskirts of the village of Kingston, 1 ½ miles from the vibrant town of Lewes and 6 miles from the South East coast and from the city of Brighton.

The home is set up to provide a homely environment with comfortable recreational facilities in a welcoming and homely environment set in well maintained surroundings.

The school is housed in a separate, purpose-built building, which offers, amongst other facilities, a computer suite, science area, design technology facilities, a multi-purpose hall and large, bright class rooms.

The main part of the house has 10 bedrooms for children with staff sleep-in rooms. Four of the individual bedrooms form part of 2 independent flats for the senior young people, which also have their own lounge area and separate bathroom.

There are two well-furnished lounges, a large dining room, kitchen and laundry area as well as a games and cinema room. There is also a young person’s computer room, a staff office and meeting room and a well-equipped space for first aid and medication.

The accommodation has been developed over the life of the home and is continually improved and upgraded in order to meet the needs of the young people who live there.

4 . What do we provide and how can a young person access our services?

We provide high quality care and education services to young people. Owlswick has the advantage of being able to offer young people the opportunity to access care support, therapy and education on one site. Our school and home are close together but in two separate buildings as we know it is very important for young people to make a clear distinction between home and school time.

Young people can be placed for any time between 38 – 52 weeks. We aim to be as flexible as possible in the placements offered in order to meet the requirements of young people, parents/carers and referring agencies. We are also able to offer day placements to young people who may need to access their education from our school and then return to their home or another home environment e.g foster carers in the evening and at weekends. We are not able to take emergency admissions.

Young people come to Owlswick following a referral made by a local authority’s childrens’ or education services. Parents/carers can, and do, make enquires directly to Owlswick and we would refer them to their Local Authority in order to move forward their request for a child to be placed at Owlswick. Owlswick can offer advice and support about this as needed. We are also part of the East and West Sussex Local Offer Scheme.

Most young people will have a number of personal challenging issues and/or special educational needs and are always subjects of a care order and/or educational statement or an EHCP. Placements are made following a rigorous assessment process; planned visits and consultations made with the referring agency, the young person concerned and, where possible, significant family members. Staff visit young people at home or wherever they are living and there are opportunities to visit Owlswick and meet staff and other young people.

A medical history is required prior to a placement being agreed. This includes any documentation of the young person’s physiological and psychiatric history and assessment. A complete health review will follow once the placement has begun and any special medical needs will be overseen by a named GP from the local surgery and other health professionals as required. Health and wellbeing is an important factor of any placement and we ensure that the mental, physical and sexual health of each young person is included as part of the individual care and education planning process.

Individual cultural and religious needs are supported and understood by the staff team in order to ensure that the young person is receiving culturally sensitive and appropriate education and care. This would be reflected in individual lesson planning, care plans, dietary requirements, opportunities for religious worship, personal items hygiene and social arrangements for example.

It is important for all young people at Owlswick to be able to take part in social activities both internally and externally in order to develop social networks, skills and peer groups. Young people choose activities that they would like to undertake and are encouraged to take part in lots of different clubs, groups and social situations. Any activity, whether in school or in the home, is risk assessed. Staff ensure they get to know the friends and families of any external person who is in contact with the young people and their contact details. Addresses are visited where and when necessary and meetings arranged with families and friends to create positive relationships.

Statutory reviews are held every six months in care and three times a year in education. Such review meetings always include the young person and any other relevant parties. An assessment of the progress of the placement takes place to ensure it is meeting the requirements of parents and carers and the referring agency, as well as ensuring they are benefiting the young person. Frequent reviews are also held with the young person and with staff from the education and care teams in order to assess progress, address any concerns or anxieties and ensure that individual, personal development and education needs are being met and addressed.

An important part of developing independence is our independence programme which prepares young people for independent living. This programme operates by using the AQA independence programme setting out a comprehensive series of modules that young people follow in order to build a set of skills that rise in complexity. These can range from making a bed, cleaning a room and handling personal laundry, to money management, purchasing and preparing meals, looking after health and well-being and developing relationships outside Owlswick. The programme is adjusted for each young person according to their level of ability.

When a young person enters into a placement, the nature, frequency and particular circumstances of contacts with family members, foster carers and friends are established; where appropriate, contact is agreed. Young people are encouraged to re-establish and/or develop relationships, and visits are agreed and arranged at suitable times. The facilitation of family contact can be arranged and supported by Owlswick care staff. Staff are experienced in managing contacts in order to ensure that these are the best possible experiences for all concerned and are carried out in a safe environment with set parameters agreed in advance.

Where family relationships have been, and continue to be, a difficult issue for an individual child and it is not possible to carry on with these for any period of time, Owlswick may identify a caring adult, befriender or independent visitor who will take an interest and maintain an appropriate contact with an individual young person. All visitors are subject to rigorous statutory checks and agreement from a placing authority in order to ensure their suitability before any contact is made.

Parents, family members and carers are encouraged to visit us and spend time with their young person in the home. It is important to us that young people feel that they can bring their family and friends into their home and know that they have a right to do so.

We are also committed to ensuring that young people develop positive relationships with the significant people in their lives as well as with our staff members and external contacts they will have during their placement. These contacts need to be appropriate and safe with the aim of benefitting the young person.

  1. Our Care Service

What can young people, parents and carers expect from us

Our care service is provided from our main house by our experienced team of care practitioners.

Each young person can expect:

  • To be treated with dignity and respect by everyone at Owlswick
  • A safe and secure home where staff listen and take time to understand who they are, their interests, personal histories and current state of wellbeing.
  • Support from all of the care team on a daily basis and the opportunity to talk about anything that they are concerned about or an issue that may be affecting the way they are feeling or are behaving.
  • Staff to build and maintain individual positive relationships
  • A baseline assessment in order to understand the starting point for an individual which will subsequently track progress through their placement
  • A learning support (LSP) plan linked and related to any plans that have been put in place by their local authority.
  • An individual key-worker.
  • Access to social and recreational opportunities both internally and externally.
  • Access to therapeutic support and external individual therapeutic interventions as agreed by their placing authority.
  • Individual risk assessments.
  • Opportunities to take part in daily and monthly meetings to talk about their school and home day and give opinions and views on Owlswick.
  • Individual choice about their bedroom space and how they want this to look and feel.
  • A say on what they want to see happen Owlswick i.e. the food they want to eat, how the house is decorated, activities they want to take part in.

Each parent and carer can expect:

  • A named key-worker and tutor for their young person with whom they can talk and liaise.
  • Regular access to the management team to talk to and express any concerns, comments, requests for information or progress updates
  • A learning support plan (LSP) for their young person.
  • Regular updates and reports on their young person.
  • Opportunities to talk about difficult issues in their relationships with their young person and support to resolve and develop these in a positive manner
  • Their individual young person to receive high quality care provided by staff who strive to know and understand them.
  • The care staff to share and work with the teaching staff in order to create a ‘Team around the Child’ approach to their young person.
  • The young person to receive a high quality education programme tailored to individual learning needsreflecting targets set through SEN’s/EHCP’s.

Key-workers take overall responsibility for individual progress, care and wellbeing as well as developing a supportive relationship through regular key working meetings. Key-workers aim to work closely with the young person to agree individual, realistic and achievable goals and set these as part of their learning support plan; goals are regularly reviewed in order to ensure that these are relevant and meaningful. Progress is charted in order for each young person to recognise and acknowledge the changes they are making. Building a young person’s self-confidence and positive self-image and supporting them to understand reactions and emotions through a good rapport and positive connections are the most important objectives of the key-working time/relationships.

All young people are encouraged to work through any difficult issues or feelings in order for them to get the most from their time at Owlswick. There are always opportunities during the day for the young people to talk to the staff, managers and/or proprietors on a one to one and/or group basis. There is formal meeting between the Registered Manager, Proprietors and young people every month which enables the young people to talk about Owlswick. This allows for an emphasis on discussing and making choices about the home (including meals, decoration, activities, decisions made, outings and events) as well as feeding back on both the care and education services and how these are operating with suggested changes being implemented where it is possible to do so.

The involvement of parents/carers is a critical part of the positive placement experience for the young person. We aim, wherever possible, to work in partnership with the young person’s family members/carers and to involve them in all aspects of a placement.

We are in the process of introducing a system called an ‘Outcomes Framework’ which will be applied to all individual young people. This is a system that will enable us to measure the progress of individuals throughout the life of their placements. This will provide us with a detailed analysis of areas in which young people are meeting their placement objectives and the areas where there is an ongoing need to develop their skills, experiences, emotional resilience and independent living skills. This system will be rolled out over 2017.