Fears over housing for young people leaving care in Gloucestershire
There are worries care home plans for young people in Gloucestershire will lead them to be becoming "institutionalised"
There are concerns that care home plans for young people in Gloucestershire will lead them to becoming "institutionalised".
Gloucestershire County Council recently lead an independent evaluation of the model it has rolled out at Trevone House in Gloucester.
Shire Hall chiefs say the innovative facility in Denmark Road is providing care services and accommodation for young people aged 16 to 25 who are either currently being looked after, are care leavers or have been treated at in-patient child and adolescent mental health units.
The plan is to roll out this model to create a similar provision at Southfield House on Park Road in Stroud.
This forms one element of the council's placement sufficiency strategy, the most recent part was approved by cabinet in January this year, Home@theHeart.
There are concerns care home plans for young people in Gloucesershire will lead to them becoming “institutionalised”.
Gloucestershire County Council (GCC) recently undertook an independent evaluation of the model it has roled out at Trevone House in Gloucester.
Shire Hall chiefs say the innovative facility in Denmark Road is providing care services and accommodation for young people aged 16 to 25 years who are either currently looked after, are care leavers or have been treated at in-patient child and adolescent mental health units.
The plan is to roll out this model to create a similar provision at Southfield House, Park Road in Stroud.
This forms one element of the council’s placement sufficiency strategy the most recent iteration of which was approved by cabinet in January 2023, Home@the Heart.
However, Park Road residents are worried that the size and scale of the proposal makes the model “institutional” in nature.
“We believe that the scale of Trevone House, 22 places, and the proposed Southfield development, 30 places, goes against the government advice for smaller, more caring family type accommodation as espoused by Josh MacAlister and Dame Rachel De Souza,” a spokesperson for Park Road Residents Group said.
“It also goes against all that was learnt from the 1980s and 1990s as to how institutional approaches fail those it is caring for.
Council chiefs say the authority has to go-ahead with the plans to “disrupt the market”.
They say they will take the learning from the Trevone House report and improve on their final plans for Southfield House.
Speaking at a recent children and families overview and scrutiny committee, Councillor Ben Evans (LD, Churchdown) said they were told the sufficiency strategy was based on Trevone House being a roaring success.
“I think that’s hard to read out of this report. The positive is it is not a disaster and it’s safe,” he said.
“I understand that it is a pilot and so to some extent it is testing a model. The outcomes reported in the report are at best lukewarm from my reading of it.
“Is basing a sufficiency strategy around htis model which has been looked into and is OK. Is that a wise way forward?
“To me it’s certainly different to basing it on a model that is absolutely fantastic which was the messages we were hearing.”
Children’s safeguarding and early years cabinet member Stephen Davies (C, Hardwicke and Severn) said the council has to do something and expand its own capacity and “enter and disrupt the market”.
He said: “There are bits of Trevone which are doing a good job and I think that is understood but the reason we issued the report, you are right, it’s not universal and we need to learn those lessons.
“This will shape our thinking as we go forward and does mean what we are not going to do is a cookie cutter copy of Trevone only, we will make modifications.
Cllr Davies said the final Southfield House proposals may not be put forward before cabinet again unless they change substantially from what was originally approved.