When 13-year-old Billy* arrived at one of Hillingdon council’s new residential homes, this one purpose-built to support a single child, he had been through eight different placements over a number of years. He arrived at a time of crisis with a handful of criminal convictions and on a deprivation of liberty order, meaning he had to be kept under restrictive supervision.
“If he’d been in any other placement, [his behaviour] would’ve meant he’d have been given notice almost immediately, but we managed to stabilise him in the first six weeks,” says Jenna Cowling, service manager for residential homes in Hillingdon. “We’ll be looking to step him down to fostering soon.”
She explains this success was the result of the determination and dedication of staff at the home. “They didn’t give up on Billy, regardless of how tough things were.
“This relationship-based approach and the commitment to our children are the elements that make a difference in the long term,” says Cowling.
Positive stories like this are the result of Hillingdon’s innovative and ambitious approach to completely transforming residential homes for young people in care. The borough has approximately 330 looked-after children, aged up to 18, as well as supporting many 18 to 25-year-old care-experienced young people, all living in a variety of settings.
Unlike many local authorities, Hillingdon has maintained control of its children’s home and now has funding from the Department for Education to rebuild and replace the existing building with new infrastructure and smaller, more fit for purpose provisions. When it had its original 13-bed care home, it was difficult to risk-match young people into it. Now, the council is replacing the big 13-bed home by opening six homes, with 12 beds in total. The largest will have enough rooms for three children. To test the approach, two single-bed placements are already open and allowing children like Billy to thrive.
Based on the analysis of local needs and changing trends for the looked-after population, the new homes are predominantly intended for local young people who have experienced different levels and forms of trauma in their life. “We believe that young people should be living in a family environment and that is where they can thrive and be the best version of themselves. However, we know that at crisis points, intensive support is needed. Most of our new provisions will be delivering short-term, intensive interventions for young people aged eight to 18,” says Cowling.
“We don’t want kids living in children’s homes for 10 years, we want them stepped down in foster care and back in a family home, even if it’s not theirs,” she adds. “For those who can go into their own family home, we are doing intensive work so they can be reunified.”
Design has been key. The homes are smarter, built to high specification, with safety features such as settings on the wifi to keep children safe. They aim to replicate a family environment rather than a large institutionalised building, for example, there is no kitchen full of industrial steel. On the same site, children who need it, will also have access to an educational building where educational and enrichment activities can take place and where the tutors will be able to support young people back into school.
Continuing with the relationship-based practice approach, the design and layout of the homes was created with the support of the children who have experience of being in care themselves. “They can see things we can’t. Whether that’s needing some more board games, more of a quiet area, or different things in bedrooms,” says Aisling Knight, who manages the children’s participation team. One 14-year-old says helping design them made him feel like his voice is heard, and his opinions matter and can make a difference.
The council describes the building of the homes as an exciting part of the transformation, adding that meaningful change is made by the people working in the properties. As well as investing in staff, it is creating a new model of care, underpinned by trauma-informed practice and the Pace model, which focuses on playfulness, acceptance, curiosity and empathy.
Implementing consistent approaches and theoretical models for all those who work with children is a priority for the council and enables people to return to a family environment, including the early matching with foster carers. “Everybody is speaking the same language,” says Cowling. “They’re using the Pace model to make sure that people know that they’re understood and that they’re heard, so that they can be stepped down very quickly [into foster placements]. It puts the children first and it gets better outcomes for those young people.”
The council has also thought carefully about reshaping how it works with its partners, including schools and the police, who can give their input to support and progress care plans. “We’re looking at the young person’s vulnerability and whether they are being influenced towards negative behaviours and need more safeguarding in place,” says Jane Graver, residential home manager.
Project manager Dunya Alnawab agrees, and says Hillingdon council is ambitious for the children and their futures, with everyone working together to support the child’s care plan and question whether it should remain static. “It’s end-to-end care in terms of the partnerships working between education, health and safeguarding. We’re creating a model of delivery that ensures a lot of training and development, as well as better outcomes for children,” she says.
When the borough used private providers, the distance was a major issue, along with the costs. By keeping Hillingdon children within their local environment and closer to their networks they can have contact with their families if it’s safe. “For some children it is right to be far away from their families, but some need to be closer to home where it’s easier for them to have contact,” says Alnawab. “As they get older they may want more contact and we need to make home safe, even if home is just for visits.”
Similarly, she says, they are working to help children build relationships with other family members, such as aunts or grandparents. If the children are living closer to home then that is a much easier process.
Hillingdon also looks carefully at reunification with birth parents and considers whether things have changed since the original care plan was put in place. “You can’t always keep the judgment that they [the birth parents] are unable to meet the child’s needs forever, especially as children get older,” says Alnawab.
To make these radical and much-needed changes, Hillingdon will be recruiting some 70 residential workers at all levels. They will join knowing that they will get a high level of support, their managers are very well trained and Hillingdon can deliver effective supervision to staff. “We’re in a position where we can provide that training to everyone,” says Cowling.
Ultimately, changes like this are enabling Hillingdon children to be safe and to learn and thrive in the borough. Will it make a difference to young people’s lives? Graver thinks so. “Yes, yes it will,” she says. “We were seeing the same young children toing and froing from private providers then back to Hillingdon. Now, we’ve got therapy on-site, more placements available in the borough and education centres we can use. That’s just so progressive.”
Cowling agrees that it’s an exciting time: “This is how we’re going to get better outcomes for our children.”
*Name has been changed
For a rewarding career in social care, consider working with children’s services at Hillingdon council
