Residential Care

We are privileged to provide residential care for our children and young people at Mary Hare. 

We are significant influencers in their lives, it is important that we never forget this. We influence, we engage, we role model and we empower. We provide a consistent, structured, routine-based home environment within the boarding houses where we support them to achieve their potential. Mary Hare provides a wider support structure around each boarding house, which includes health, wellbeing, activities, and recreation all of which are available and accessible to every child and young person and enables them to see themselves as part of the community they live in during term times and not separate from it.

We also are actively involved in the community external to Mary Hare and our local town of Newbury and the surrounding area is used for shopping trips, activities, and social events.

Our Model of Care

Our care model:

• Is child focused. Everything we do, places the child at the centre of what we do.
• Gives us a predictable way of being for our children and ourselves.
• Supports an integrated model of working within Mary Hare– we share what we know with colleagues’, so children don’t have to.
• Supports multi-disciplinary working and relationships.
• Supports safety, stabilisation, and quality of care for our children/young people.
• Provides exemplar examples of underpinning routines and structures.

 Every child/young person will have an individualised plan of care for their daily lives (ISP – Individual Support Plan) which includes key information, routines, boundaries and an Individual Risk assessment.

This will detail approaches that adults use with each individual child to support in every area of their care. Our children’s plans include their placement aims and objectives, supporting each child/young person in an individualised way to achieve positive outcomes. Our plans also include detailed risk assessments to understand and reduce risks for our children/young people. Our detailed support plans and risk assessments, will includes our children/young people’s voices, incorporates our approaches to support children/young people with boundaries and expectations, as well as ensuring adults can support any challenges in a consistent way that meets the needs of our children/young people in any given situation.

Being there for the Child/Young Person

Although the key worker for each child/young person may take a lead of certain responsibilities, being there day-to-day is every adult’s responsibility and privilege. These include ensuring plans for remembering birthdays and anniversaries and making them special are fulfilled. Equally, if an anniversary is not positive, for example a time where someone in their life died, adults will be there to provide support and stability and create more positive memories that can be referred to.

Help the child/young person to maintain positive links with their family, significant people in their lives and friends by planning for important dates that may have a relevance to the child/young person. Every child/young person will have their own diary which records any events, anniversaries, and birthdays of significant people in the child/young person’s life. The children/young people’s own key events will be recorded within the home’s diary and planned for in advance through discussion at team meetings.

Keep all the other adults informed and up-to-speed about what is happening in the child/young person’s life.

All children and young people are supported to be involved in the planning for every area of their care where possible. It is important we always advocate and support the children/young person’s own wishes and feelings in these areas, and it is every adult’s responsibility to keep children/young people informed about any changes that are happening in their lives, any changes that may be happening within the house, changes to their overall plans, and important support links with their social worker and with their family. You are responsible for the child/young person even when you are not there.