Member Article

Wokingham children’s home receives prestigious national accreditation

Calcot Services for Children (CSfC), a provider of homes for young people with emotional, learning, social and behavioural difficulties, is celebrating after one of its Wokingham-based children’s homes, The Dingles, was awarded the prestigious Investing in Children Membership Award.

Investing in Children (IiC) is a UK initiative that promotes the human rights of children and young people. In the last 21 years, IiC has developed a range of different ways in which children and young people are supported to say what they want to say, and help to improve services used by them, by discussing their ideas with the adults who run the services.

The Investing in Children Membership Award™ Scheme recognises and celebrates examples of imaginative and inclusive practice with children and young people.

Organisations applying for the award have to demonstrate dialogue with young people which leads to change. However, children and young people have to provide the evidence for the organisation and endorse the membership report because it is a children’s and young people’s award.

To qualify for the award, the team from IiC spoke to one of the young people living at The Dingles about their experiences and how they are involved in decision making while at the home, and took additional comments from a young person who had just left and one who had just moved in.

Comments from the young person in the evaluation included: “My key worker is great and I can talk about anything and feel supported with everything”, “They got chickens because one of the young people liked them”, and “I raised with them about sometimes how other young people would shout, which I did not like, and they spoke to this young person and made things better”.

The report stated: Staff take time to find out what young people want to do and positively respond to these ideas and make daily changes to accommodate many ideas that are generated by young people.

Rachel Redgwell, managing director at CSfC, said: “We are incredibly proud of the staff and young people at The Dingles for all their hard work, and for receiving this well-deserved national accolade.

“At CSfC, our young people are at the heart of everything we do, and we aim to make life as enjoyable as possible for them, taking into account their individual interests, needs, hopes and dreams.

“We were delighted to read the comments from the young person, as they were so positive and demonstrated exactly the atmosphere and environment we aim to create. We won’t rest on our laurels though and will continue to make all our homes positive and welcoming for all our young people.”

The Dingles is a three-bedroom children’s home and is rated outstanding by Ofsted.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by News Gathering .