Children with disabilities
in residential care in focus –
Forum
Providing high quality care for children with disabilities is specialist work. Our focus group brings together a ‘community of interest’ to reflect together on what makes for great care, together with opportunities to problem solve and hear about the latest issues and research impacting on this sector.
In response to requests from RIs and RMs we have set up a regular meeting to focus on leading children’s homes for young people with additional needs and disabilities.
Whether you’re running short breaks or providing a permanent home for young people with disabilities, and with recent publications it has been a challenging and at times scary year. We’ve been providing managers with lots of advice and support and agreed there needs to be a space where managers can receive focused information, CPD that relates to their young people and most importantly, have the opportunity to regularly talk to other managers in the same position.
The sessions are facilitated by Christine Freestone. Christine is an experienced RI, headteacher of a school for children with high level needs, inspector (twice! once as a lead inspector) with an original background in paediatric nursing. Her underpinning skills and knowledge really empower the group to respond to the issues that matter to these young people and seek to continually improve your services.
These meetings will take place for 3 hours, 3 times per year and will generally be online.
Next Meeting Dates :
18th March 2024 1-4pm
2nd July 2024 1-4pm
Participants pay £99 + VAT per annum to attend up to three forums a year. See below for details.
forum information and booking:
The event is open to registered managers, responsible individuals or nominated staff and is a great opportunity to share ideas, seek support and improve practice.
RIs/RMs or nominated staff can join the group for £99+vat per annum, which will entitle them to attend the 3 group meetings and work together on issues of common concern. Typically the sessions will include specific CPD input on an area of research, practice, guidance or issue of contemporary concern (another name for COVID implications!). Sometimes we will invite guests from commissioning, the regulator, or speakers.
dialogue will be responsible for invoicing. If you register we will securely store the information you give us. We will use this to keep you updated in line with your preferences. You can end your membership at any stage by contacting us and we will remove all your data. We will confirm all this by email.
Please contact us for details.
To join the Children with Disabilities in Residential Care in Focus Forum, please complete the form below:
Other communities of interest groups….
We also run other forums for specialist support in the residential community for participation leads, online safety leads, residential leadership group, exploitation leads and safer recruitment leads.
costs
The groups are run on an annual membership fee of £99+vat for each community of interest. We are keen to make the model accessible and supportive to residential homes, so additional memberships will access a £20 discount, meaning subsequent members from your home to the same group or to a different group will cost £79+vat each.
membership for homes
As we’ve grown these communities, we are now able to offer homes one representative at each of the six communities of interest memberships for just £399+vat for annual membership.
If you are a multi home organisation and would like to sign up several homes for this offer – please contact us to discuss the possibilities of further discounts directly on 01803 493030.
Further training opportunities to support children with disabilities
Young people with disabilities are almost four times as likely to be abused or neglected. In residential care, the risk rises further due to the number of people involved in their care. This course focuses in on the experience of children and young people, the factors behind the increased risks and how to address them.