Children Services

Preventative services

for children in entering

Residential & Foster Care

Children Services Preventative services for children

in entering Residential & Foster Care

S&A Care specializes in working with complex and challengingChildren & Young People, we are committed to developing anddelivering preventative services that allow children and youngpeople to live safely within their own home. Our crisis interventionservices, aimed at helping families with children at risk in enteringthe care system, have been judged a successful way to improveoutcomes for children and young people, reducing admissionsinto care and building on families’ strengths and copingtechniques.

Some of our services include: 1. Up to 24 hour in-reach support in the family home

2. Supervised Family Contact

3. 24 hour Transportation Service for Children & Young Peopleto and from Placements, Secure Units, Courts, Schools &Health Care Appointments.

4. 24 hour Appropriate Adults Service

5. Planned and Emergency Short Breaks – Offering Children &Young People pre-planned short-term placements of aparticular child with the same carer. The length and timing ofthe arrangements can vary according to the specific needs ofthe child and their family.

Successful ways to improveoutcomes for children andyoung people...

“we are committed todeveloping and deliveringpreventative services thatallow children and youngpeople to live safely withintheir own home”

S&A Children crisis intervention services workspecifically with the most vulnerable children, youngpeople and families, providing them with urgent andintensive support at a time of crisis. This may be wherethere is a risk of children coming into the care systemas a result of family breakdown or severe difficulties.

Crisis intervention can also be used to support childrenleaving care and returning home to live with their families, or toprevent the breakdown of a foster placement. The servicebuilds on a family’s strengths and coping strategies, andincorporates a strong degree of challenge.

The crisis intervention model usually involves time-limited butintensive 24-hour/seven day- a-week availability. On average,families are referred to the service for six to 12 weeks and atthe end of the period the family is linked into existing localservices.

Crisis intervention involves defusing the immediate andprecipitating crisis within the home that leads to the servicereferral, with support workers engaging the family, childrenand/or young people, liaising with other agencies, assessingthe problems, developing specific, measurable goals andhelping everyone in the family to acquire the skills to achievethem.

Research suggests that crisis intervention models are mostsuccessful with families where problems are acute rather thanchronic, and that their effectiveness depends to a significantdegree on the extent to which they are linked into other localservices, to provide children, young people and families withcontinuing support after the crisis is over.

These approaches have been shown to be effective across allethnic groups. While this S&A Children’s crisis interventionservices for children at risk of admission into care, we alsoprovide services tailored to support children and youngpeople at risk of school exclusion, and intensive familysupport to families at risk of eviction.

S&A for Children currently runs crisis intervention services thatsupport families where children are at risk of entering the caresystem. Our services are delivered in partnership with thelocal authority, designed and tailored to meet local need.These services have achieved high levels of success.

In-Reach Support –Supporting the Family Home

Supervised Contact ServicesWhat We Do

• Ensure the safety of children during contact visits.

• Provide safe, accessible and stimulating environmentswhere parents and children (including non-residentparents and other members of their families) areencouraged to re-establish, develop and enjoy theirrelationships.

• Seek to enhance parenting skills and the quality of familyrelationships.

1. We encourage and support parents, when it is appropriateand safe to do so, to take responsibility for their own future family contact arrangements.

2. Access family support services to further assist familiesreferred for supervised contact.

3. Provide high quality and timely reports for courts as required.

4. Provide comprehensive child and family assessments.

5. Tailor our services to meet more complex needs, including theprovision of life-story/identity work, domestic abuse servicesand mediation services.

6. We are experienced and skilled at working in partnership,particularly with local authorities and CAFCASS (Children andFamilies Courts Advisory and Support Service), courts andservice users and believe that this maximises the benefit thatour services bring to families.

“we are experienced andskilled at working inpartnership, particularlywith local authorities...”

S&A Care are specialists in the movement andcare of vulnerable individuals with challengingbehaviour and have a dedicated service for thecare and movement of young people with social,emotional and behaviour issues within themedical, mental health and secure sectors.

We recognise the need to provide a service thatis sensitive to the needs of the young person,offering them the respect and dignity that theydeserve during what can be an extremelydaunting and emotional experience.

Our service provides a safe and secureenvironment for the transportation of children,young people and adolescents in a caringenvironment, using experienced and fully trainedindividuals.

We offer a range of services tailored to theindividual needs of the young person and thecare authority.

Our services include:-

• Escort to and from Child & Adolescent Units,Clinics & Hospitals

• Safe transportation to and from ResidentialCare Homes and foster placements

• Escort of young people to and from secureunits

• Escort of young people to and from court

• Escort to and from Hospital and DentalAppointments, Weddings & Funerals

• Bed and cell watches

• Transport to and from Pupil Referral Units

We employ a mix of male and female staff,escorts and nurses, enabling us to meet theflexible needs of our service users, and moreimportantly the needs of the young person. Ourstaff are experienced and qualified in a range ofexpertise including special needs and learningdifficulties.

All of our staff is subject to an enhanced CRBclearance and verification is obtained for allrelevant educational, professional and vocationalqualifications declared in their application. Twoprofessional references are also obtained forevery perspective employee and our staffs areregularly monitored to ensure that the higheststandards of care are maintained at all times.

When challenging behaviour does present a risk,de-escalation is priority for every event andapproved restraint techniques will only be usedas a last resort to prevent harm to both theyoung person and the accompanying escorts.

A report on any incidents that have occurredduring the transfer will be submitted to thereceiving authorities.

Collecting Absconders & Return 24 Hours PerDay

Transportation Service forChildren & Young People

S&A Care provides twenty-four hours a day, seven days aweek. We cover London, Essex, Kent & Surrey, and are ableto provide a service in any area with a short lead in time. Weare the fastest growing independent provider of AppropriateAdult Services. We offer services to YOT's, IndependentRSU's, independent fostering agencies & care homes, SeriousCrime Groups, Adult Services Teams, Police Stations,Learning Disability Teams, Substance Misuse Teams andSolicitors firms.

By providing an effective appropriate adult service, S&A Careensures that unnecessary delays caused whilst in custody areconsiderably reduced. These delays often lead the intervieweeto become unnecessarily stressed, and could in someinstances influence the accused into making a prematureconfession.

By making specialist, trained appropriate adults readilyavailable The Appropriate Adult Service can ensure that allrequirements of PACE are fulfilled. Presently, without thisprofessional service, the potential for abuse, exploitation andunreliable testimony exists and inevitably, vulnerable peopleare suffering.

S&A is able to provide a fully completed referral form to thesocial services within twenty four hours of our attendance. Weare happy to complete a referral form designated by the localauthority, develop a new one with the authority of use one ofour own referral forms. A small report is made on these formsfollowing every job, to ensure that all records are kept entirelyup to date.

Appropriate Adult Serviceat any Police Station

Short Breaks

Short Breaks is a form of short-termsubstitute care provided by someoneother than the parents or usualcarers for a child or young person.

‘Short Breaks’ is a key support to families and isorganised to suit the needs of the particular child/ young person and family. It can take place in ahospital, residential setting or in the child's ownhome. It gives parents free time to give them arest, to spend time with their other children or inan e Children and young people with learningdisabilities may have a range of complex needs,a short break may just do the trick in offering theyoung person a break and giving that precioustime for parents and family members to rechargethere batteries.

Some children can be referred to S&A Care willhave gone through change in their lives by beingwithdrawn from their own family, if only for ashort time. They may have been emotionallychallenging and upset due to the events of acrisis.

The way in which children react and respond tochanges whilst being introduced into analternative home will be different. Some can beaggressive and un-easy; others may at first beover polite and willing to please. Others willwithdraw into themselves, or act as if theyhaven't a care in the world.

In some circumstances children can come fromvery deprived homes and on other occasions,they may have been neglected and not providedwith the same level of care that you would beable to offer.

What short breaks do, is provide the family andthe child with the opportunity of a break while atthe same time enabling S&A Care to gain moreunderstanding of both the child and the family'sneeds.

S&A Care do work very closely with families tohelp parents overcome the problems theyexperience.

www.spencerandarlington.co.uk