About
COMMITMENT TO CULTURAL DIVERSITY AND PERSONALIZED CARE
Sweethope House will provide an environment giving all the young people the opportunity to access culturally specific care and support in line with the Children’s Home Regulations 2015, which meets their cultural, religious, race, gender and linguistic needs. The young people will be fully supported to explore their identity and we recognise the importance religion and culture play in some young people’s lives.
Sweethope House will ensure that the necessary arrangements are in place to meet a young person’s cultural and religious need if there are any, for example facilitating attendance at religious festivals, accessing prayers and adjustments to the menus. The staff team will be recruited to support the young people’s cultures and religions and backgrounds to overcome barriers and will provide ongoing diversity training to the staff team to promote and maintain multi-culturalism.
Positive relationships
At Sweethope House, the Management team recognise that it is important for the young people it cares for that they maintain positive relationships with the key people in their lives, such as parents, grandparents and extended family. However we also recognise that sometimes this might not be possible, depending on the Care Plan for their own safety. If there is a risk to them and the young person does not have any contact with family or friends, in liaison with the LA we will attempt to ensure that the young person has an independent visitor, with all appropriate checks.
We will encourage the young people to keep in touch with their families in guidance from the LA and in conjunction with their contact plans. The staff team at the home will encourage the young people to make contact by phone or letter, and any face-to-face contact will be facilitated, in accordance with the contact plan. The direct contact can be supervised by the staff team if this is in line with the guidelines placed on the terms of the contact arrangements. The Social Worker will receive a contact report for direct contacts. The Management team also recognise the importance of the staff team building positive relationships with the young people.
Sometimes the young people find it difficult being away from their families, and it is important that they feel they have staff at the home that they can talk to, and it is equally important that the team build positive links with family members when appropriate to do so.
Safeguarding
Staff recruited will go through the Safer Recruitment checks to ensure that they are suitable to work with our young people, all references will be sourced, and DBS checks verified. Staff will be given a robust induction where line managers will go through the homes policies and procedures with them and also show them where to access these policies.
The home will work in partnership with the Local Authority, Social Workers and the Police concerning Child Protection/Safeguarding Procedures. These procedures are written and used jointly with the local authority and the organisation, and they will be accessible and familiar to all the care team. The home will work closely with the local authorities to formulate personalised plans to protect each child.
At the centre of Safeguarding within the home is the idea that if children and young people feel comfortable around the home and have positive relationships with the team, they are more likely to listen to staff when they are trying to encourage them to stay safe. The positive relationship with the team means that the young person may open up to the staff member about any worries or concerns that they may have.
The home will have extensive and robust safeguarding policies to manage and protect the young person, staff and visitors. Some of the systems and the protocols that staff will adhere to include ‘Missing from home Policy’, ‘Health and Safety Policy’, ‘Safeguarding Policy’, ‘Fire Policy’, ‘Physical Intervention Policy’. All young persons within the home will have an individual risk assessment to state the amount of monitoring and support that each young person requires within the home and the community.
Get In Touch
We would love to hear from you! Whether you have a question, feedback, feel free to reach out to us through the contact form provided below. We will do our best to respond to your inquiry as soon as possible.
admin@thesweethope.co.uk
Ethos Of Our Home
We are committed to working towards a therapeutic and caring environment that supports young people to achieve their maximum potential. The management team acknowledges that by incorporating knowledge gained through workshops, training, evidence-based research, adapting a child-centred practice and making the welfare of the child paramount, will ensure that the child in our care is empowered to be in control of their life.
This is accomplished by encouraging positive routines and structure to the day by supporting attendance in education, developing life skills, and encouraging emotional growth. We recognise that by instilling routines and boundaries, this will allow the young person to flourish and enable them to achieve better outcomes. We aim to ensure that the young people feel safe and cared for and to enable them to grow into young adults.