Planned Long Term Placements

Serendipity have developed facilities at Koru House to accommodate long term placements for young parents and parents with learning Difficulties who require a more substantial period of monitoring, assessment ,intervention and support.

Extended Assessment Placements

A Long Term placement may be appropriate in circumstances where a parent(s) progress, within the residential parenting assessment, provides optimism regarding their ability to provide long term care, but where a further period of monitoring, support and guidance is considered necessary in order to consolidate parenting skills and achieve this long term aim.

Holding Placements

Where parents have completed a residential assessment and the outcome is disputed and parties are waiting for the outcome of a court hearing, Serendipity are able to offer a holding placement to provide continuity of care and environment for the children. This is to help reduce the impact of another move for the child and also aims to reduce the pressures on Local Authorities due to current Court time scales.

Long Term Placements for Young Parents

Young parents can be placed from the age of fifteen and 9 months old. Often the parent may still be a Looked After Child and Serendipity will work with placing Local Authorities to facilitate all statuary reviews.

Serendipity Young Parent accommodation at Koru House has been developed for Care Leavers and other Young People They could present with complex issues; be deemed as high risk, vulnerable, difficult to engage, had multiple placement breakdowns, experienced significant childhood traumas and have identified risks to themselves as well as their existing and/or unborn child(ren).

As per our residential assessments, young people will need to agree to high levels of monitoring and restrictions, particularly in the initial stages of placement. When first placed, support and monitoring will be at a high level with direct observations of all childcare tasks, also using CCTV and audio monitoring of the families unit to monitor the quality of the care given to the baby/child. Information gathered during these observations of the family will be used in order to effectively target support to the family, which is offered in a range of ways, including group and individual sessions, modelling, etc etc.

It is a requirement that the young parent will participate in Choices & Changes, an individual, flexible intervention package addressing a wide range of issues, including: emotional health, independent life skills, keep safe/reducing risks (including Internet safety), healthy relationships, structure and routines and comprehensive parenting support.

Young parents will benefit from effective in-house support and guidance to strengthen self-esteem to begin positive integration of the family to enable them to move back into the community on a more independent basis. They will receive both practical and emotional support in order to assist the young parent(s) to adapt from child/adolescent behaviour and attitudes to that of a more responsible adult/parent.

As placement progresses we would expect to reduce levels of support and monitoring as the parent develops their knowledge and skills, settle into placement and becomes more established in their parenting role. (Costings will be adjusted in accordance with required levels of monitoring and observation).

Where concerns remain high in spite of the support offered to their parent, the comprehensive evidence from monitoring and observations as well as the parent(s) responsiveness to learning parenting skills will be available to the Local Authority to use to assist decision making in the long term interest of the child.

Where parents are able to demonstrate positive progress and the quality of their parenting is judged to be good, Serendipity would begin working with the parent(s) and Local Authority toward finding suitable independent accommodation where a transitional community support package would be agreed by all parties to continue to gradual shift toward full independence in the community with very occasional informal spot checks.

Better support for teenage parents

A comprehensive menu of support options for young parents.

This is clearly a longer-term aim, and this strategy proposes some incremental step to achieving this co-ordinated approach. It is agreed that sustainable change is only achievable by tackling the root causes (social exclusion, disadvantage in childhood, low expectation) rather than the symptoms. By offering comprehensive support to young parents, it is expected that parents can be given opportunities to better support their family and that cycle of disadvantage can be broken.

Long Term Placements for Parents with Learning Disabilities

In line with Good Practice for parents with a learning difficulty, long term placements can support parents to provide consistent care for their children, affording them the time needed to learn how to parent safely and assimilate and retain information.

There are existing facilities at Serendipity which have been developed for long term placements for parents with Learning Disabilities. Evidence from research highlights that sustainable changes are more likely to be achieved for parents with Learning Difficulties where longer term and more intensive support and intervention is available.

Long term placements are likely to be suitable for families who have already undergone a 12 week Residential Assessment which has provided optimism regarding their ability to provide effective long term care, but where support is required for a further period in order to achieve this long term aim.

Where a long term placement follows a 12 week residential assessment, levels of support, monitoring and restrictions for families will be informed by previous assessment. There is the expectation that parents will continue to participate in planned sessions, continuing to consolidate their learning and develop their parenting skills throughout the course of their placement. Parents will continue to benefit from in-house support which will serve to increase their confidence in responding to the needs of their child(ren) to begin positive integration of the family into a community setting.

Previous learning will be consolidated, with greater focus upon responding to children's changing and future needs and an emphasis on promoting a parents ability to care effectively for their child(ren) on a long term basis.

Information gathered during placement will continue to be used in order to effectively target support and intervention to the family.

As placement progresses we would expect to increasingly reduce levels of support and monitoring as the parent(s) develop their knowledge and skills and become more established in their parenting role. Costings will be adjusted in accordance with required levels of monitoring and observation.

Where concerns persist or arise in spite of the support offered to parent(s), the comprehensive evidence from monitoring and observations as well as the parent(s) responsiveness to learning parenting skills will be available to the Local Authority to assist decision making in the long term interests of the child.

Where parents are able to demonstrate positive progress and the quality of their parenting is judged to be consistently good, Serendipity would begin working with the parent(s) toward finding suitable independent accommodation where a transitional community support package would be agreed by all parties to continue to gradual shift toward full independence in the community with very occasional informal spot checks.