Project Description

North Tyneside has two residential units for children and young people with Emotional and Behavioural difficulties. The typical route once a young person moves on from residential care, between the ages of 16-18, would be to move into in-house supported accommodation, which is located in a different part of the borough, or to semi-independent accommodation provided by the private or voluntary sectors. In both cases, the young person is left in a new and unfamiliar environment without the tailored and tested support that they value and are comfortable with.

Elm house is a multi-occupancy six bed Staying Close supported accommodation provision in a detached building directly opposite a residential children’s home. It aims to ensure that young people leaving residential care continue to receive high quality seamless support during the transition to independent living within the community that they are familiar with.

Staff and management from the home work across both homes and support is available 24 hours a day. This ensures that young people who are ready for their first step into supported living can do so in a safe and familiar environment with staff that they know and trust. Once the young person is ready to take the next step towards independent living, staff support them to secure accommodation in the local area if desired and regular contact and peer support is maintained until at least the age of 21.

As of March 2020 9 children have stayed in Elm House with 5 moving on to successful independent living.

Evaluation

DfE funded independent evaluation will be published in 2020.