Our Therapeutic Care
We have the power to change children’s lives
Our vision is to enable all staff members who are in a parenting role or working with children living within Park Blue Homes to be confident and knowledgeable and able to implement all the four Emotional Warmth Parenting components. This will mean that a young person’s parenting needs are understood and met, that their trauma is recognised and understood,
and that staff are able to support them on their journey of emotional growth.
Our vision is to enable and support a young person to develop self-management skills and to help them recognise and build on their strengths.
What does it mean to
be a therapeutic home?
Our Homes aim to provide a supportive and therapeutic environment for children that have experienced trauma, abuse or other challenging circumstances. We aim to provide a holistic support package that is intrinsically linked through every park of our working with the child, addressing emotional, psychological and behavioural needs of the children through a combination of strong relationships, structured activities, and a caring environment with adults who actively listen and communicate with our children.
The 8 pillars of parenting model and trauma informed care helps our focus to support the children’s journey.
Providing primary care & protection
(including kind, thoughtful parenting):
We aim to provide safety and security, allowing the child to feel cared for, reducing fears and gradually promoting self-efficacy and confidence. Engaging with education, achieving success combined with high aspirations for the futures would be expected outcomes. Our objective is not only to meet the basic care needs (food, drink, shelter, safety, etc.) but also the important higher-order, psychological needs (self-esteem, a sense of belonging, self-actualisation and personal growth).
Building warm relationships
(including emotional bonds with children):
Children who separate from their biological families will often have had the experience of being rejected, neglected or abused by family members. They may have had parents who have poor understanding of their own child’s needs and how these needs should be met. Such parents may have their unresolved issues (including resentment and anger) about how they were parented which impacts on how they parent, show affection and provide the quality of care that all children require.
Promoting positive self-worth
Helping young people to develop a more realistic perception of themselves: Appropriate high self-worth acts as a buffer against future put-downs or vindictive behaviour, as well as possibility of mental illness. It is, therefore, a key objective to change a child’s views of themselves to being someone who has importance in our lives, who is deemed to be successful, to have potential, to be likeable, liked and appreciated.
Ensuring a sense of belonging
Reducing feelings of loneliness and alienation: The need to belong is crucial to humans, as individuals survive by being part of society, groups, and families.
Enhancing Resilience
Ensuring that children can deal with both the opportunities and difficulties they ensure in life: Resilient people have three important characteristics: insight, empathy and achievement. To allow these characteristics to grow and develop, a child or young person requires: a secure base, education, relationships, talents and interests, positive values and social competencies.
Teaching Self Management Skills
Enabling children to control their impulses and weak spots: We need to give clear feedback and to support a child to develop appropriate strategies for managing all aspects of their life. It is important in developing these skills in a child to support the development and give them the skills to manage themselves in the here and now, but also to help them to develop a sense of purpose in life.
Acquiring emotional competency
Helping children in care to interact with people and to make and keep friends: We will need to teach the child to understand their feelings and teach them the language of emotion so that they have the tools to articulate how they feel.
Developing Personal and Social Responsibility
(enabling the child to be able to meet his own needs in ways which do not violate the needs of others):
To ensure that the child believes that their needs are important to us and from that develop an understanding of fairness, right and wrong,
solving problems rationally and peacefully
and valuing people.
What is Emotional
Warmth Parenting?
Emotional Warmth Parenting is based in applied psychology knowledge and practice and is designed to empower adults in a parenting role with the knowledge and skills relating to the often complex and challenging problems of young people in care. It supports our adults in their everyday encounters with these children whose behaviours are often challenging and unusual and enables them to find solutions. It is an individual and child-centred approach which is informed by theory and research relating to emotional trauma as well as enhancing competence, resilience, self-management, personal and social responsibility and feelings of security and future expectations.
Our collaborative approach
Environmental Assessments
The environment plays a crucial role in shaping a child’s behaviour, therefore it is important for Park Blue Homes to provide a positive, supportive, and stimulating environment for children to grow and thrive. The Homes and gardens are assessed every six months to ensure that they have the balance of being homely whilst also providing a safe environment for individual children’s changes in behaviours and psychological wellbeing. All of our Homes are assessed using the Colour Theory. This suggests that specific colours and their frequencies have a physiological and psychological impact on your feelings and behaviour.
Pop Assessments
Each child will have a baseline POP assessment completed by the Homes Manager, their key worker and other people around them that know them best. From this assessment the key pillar that needs to be supported can be identified and a bespoke plan can be developed for each individual child. It is primarily designed to check the progress of a child or young person living in our homes or provide an initial benchmark if they are new to the home. The report generated in created in consultation with the Park Blue Therapy Team and an applied Psychologist. The report highlights the priority areas, or pillars that need to be addressed, focusing on one or maybe two pillars at a time.
Our Therapeutic Service
- Trauma Informed Team including in house trauma informed practitioner, psychologists and external trauma consultants.
- Child Assessments every 4 months
- Environmental Assessments for all of our Homes
- Reflective Group Supervisions each month or when required
- Comprehensive Staff wellness program
- In depth trauma training including monthly bite sized training for all staff
- Home Disruption Meetings with a view to stabilise placements urgently when required
- Reflective Practice as standard
- Full therapeutic induction and training program for new starters
- External therapy for young people when required
- Therapeutic and nurturing paperwork
- Emotional Warmth Parenting embedded holistically across the company
- Monthly leadership meetings with mentoring and support
- 1:1 counselling for staff in difficult times
- Adventurous Activities as part of their placement with a dedicated in house adventure activities coordinator.
Equine Assisted therapy incorporates the therapeutic use of horses, along side counselling and psychotherapy. Children learn about themselves, feelings, patterns of behaviour and how to work within appropriate boundaries. They build in confidence and emotional resilience, develop their emotional intelligence, and improve on their verbal communication skills. Through working with the horses, they develop a self-discipline and appropriate assertiveness, whilst adapting problem solving and creative thinking. The children build leadership and relationship skills.
Outdoor activities encourage our children to embrace the mental health benefits of being outside whilst building trusted relationships with staff and each other. The activities support resilience, safe risks taking and the skills to evaluate situations within a safe and boundaries activity. The learning of new skills to support great physical health and a healthy mind. Encouraging our children to trust, adapt, problem solve and achieve beyond their dreams is at our centre of all activities, but above to play and have fun, simulating the wonderful dopamine and serotonin chemicals in your brain that will only support happiness and fulfilment in lives, whilst becoming more aware and Intune with the outside world and other people within it.
Our Activities and Engagement Coordinator works closely with our children and young people to promote activities which include learning new skills in both indoor and outdoor spaces. Their work supports the Motional and POP Assessments by working closely with the Psychological Consultant and discussing the children’s emotional development and how this can be incorporated into learning activities. The child’s emotional development can progress through emotional learning in the activities. Some ways in which these assessments are supported are by creating the safety of boundaries with an emotionally available adult setting the emotional tone. They are then able to work with the children and young people to be aware of their own emotional responses by actively listening, being interested and showing kindness and empathy.