Westfields Children’s Home was opened on 17th September 2018 and is designed to provide safe care provision through comprehensive individual assessments of needs, and emotional treatment programmes.
Westfields is available for younger children who have experienced breakdown in their own family, considerable disruptions to their lives, and whose needs have not been met in alternative care settings. It is specifically geared to children who require a structured and ordered home environment and need therapeutic support and practical guidance to move through childhood and into adolescence.
Westfields is located in a much sought-after area of Hove, close to several local parks and to local shopping centres in Hove, and within the catchments of several secondary mainstream schools.
The house presents as a welcoming detached building, with a large enclosed garden to the rear offering good security. It has six single bedrooms of varying sizes to suit the individual needs of the six children living at Westfields. There is also a playroom, laundry room, sleeping-in room for the adults, managers’ office, an adult’s work area, a main lounge with a conservatory, dining room also with conservatory, kitchen, modern bathroom, modern shower-room, storage areas, meetings room, and of course numerous toilets!
We believe Westfields offers children an exceptional quality of care and provides them with the type of experience every child deserves.
What we offer….
Therapeutic Residential Care
- A large and comfortable and welcoming ‘family-like’ home
- A positive and rewarding care experience where children can make real progress towards achieving their goals
- A stable home built on love
- Psychodynamic practice
- A therapeutic community approach
- A strong commitment to safeguarding and protecting the welfare and well-being of the child
- A commitment to providing each child with their own independent advocate
- Collaborative working partnership between the child, their placing authority, and The Lioncare Group, that ensures the child remains at the center of all we do.
- Regular permanency planning meetings to ensure the child’s care plan is realised
Commitment to Education, Training, Employment & Life Long Learning
- A positive and rewarding education, training and learning experience
- SEBD / SEMH provision
- Through The Lioncare School, a skills-based curriculum that defines the core skills we feel will best advantage our children when they move on from us. Curriculum 2020 has been designed to acknowledge the unique profiles of the children placed at the Lioncare School, characterised by;
- disrupted early learning experiences
- interrupted formal schooling
- disengagement from formal settings
- distrust of adult and professional input
- continuous high levels of anxiety and emotional arousal due to trauma
- the resultant cognitive, sensory and social impairment.
- Supported reintegration to a mainstream school or college where appropriate
- Supported transition to college and further education or training
- Collaborative working partnership between the child, their education authority, and The Lioncare School and/or the college placement that delivers progress and supports achievement.
- ASDAN courses at all levels.
- New Horizons and Transition Challenge are available in all key stages
- Short courses are offered as pre-GCSE programmes as appropriate in key stages 3 and 4.
- Functional Skills at entry level, level one and two are offered via NCFE, either as an alternative to GCSE or as stepping stones toward it.
- A GCSE curriculum is available in English and Mathematics with other subjects on offer where appropriate. The Lioncare School works with partner schools and with the Cambridge Examinations Board to facilitate this.
Preparation for Fostering or Interdependent Living
- Laying the foundations for sustainable foster placements where this is the permanency plan set out in the child’s care plan.
- Working closely with the child’s placing authority and social worker and other professionals through regular permanency planning meetings (scheduled for every 2 months) for the purpose of monitoring and promoting progress towards a positive transition from Westfields (to a family-based or foster placement or alternative placement).
- Assisting and supporting the child, their social worker, and their placing authority in determining the right foster carers able to meet the child’s needs, or the right semi-independence accommodation and provision that allows the child to continue to grow and flourish and achieve.
- Pathway planning
- Unique “Learning to Look After Me” practical training programme
- Further education guidance and support
- Laying the foundations for successful & effective interdependence
Outreach & After-Care Support Package
- Planned & effective support through transitions and beyond.
- Being and remaining a ‘secure base’ for the child long after they have left Westfields, for those times when they might be in need of a little support, advice, or simply need the comfort and reassurance of a familiar and friendly face.
Statement of Purpose: