Witherslack Care & Education Initiatives is a specialist provider of 52 week care and education. We operate a number of small children’s homes. The minimum age on admission would normally be between nine and sixteen years of age, but younger children will be considered on an individual need basis.
The purpose of the homes is to provide a therapeutically managed facility to meet the nurturing, management, social, emotional and moral needs of young people who are unable to live in a family context.
The therapeutic rationale and practice in the homes is fundamentally based upon attachment principle combined with a variety of environmental and supportive therapies.
It is envisaged that young people will be in the house for at least two years. This length of placement is needed in order to undertake the therapeutic work to help the young person develop a sense of personal security and identity with consequent emotional and social development.
To enable this process, high numbers of staff are available, based on Bronfenbrenner’s eco-system model. The aim is to have available at all times a "personalised" environment for each young person.
Young people are encouraged to develop significant positive attachment relationships with staff and hopefully with each other in order to provide emotional building blocks for personal and social development.
A pre-requisite of placement is that the young person has at least one significant attachment relationship.
