Young people’s needs evolve as they transition to adulthood, and we remain with them all the way, guiding and advising at this crucial time of life. There will be new legislation to get to grips with, benefits to understand, accommodation needs to plan and much more besides. It can seem complex, but our team is prepared to ease the transition.
It takes insight and expertise to create a tailored transition plan, but with a wealth of expertise in funding, placements, benefits and legislation, we’re well prepared for what’s ahead. After all, our priority is to smooth the transition and unlock an incredible future, whatever the individual’s personal situation.
Everything we do is built around the young person’s specific needs, and input from parents and carers is a valuable part of planning the transition process. There’s no hard and fast rule as to when planning should begin, but it could be from as early as 15 years old, so if it’s something you’d like to discuss, do please get in touch.
From discussions around future living arrangements to ongoing education plans – including a move from one of our schools into one of our colleges – there’s plenty to talk about. We’re here to help everything make sense.
Clinical Team
Our clinical team works alongside our care and education teams to develop a shared understanding of the skills, resources and practices in place, ensuring we deliver provision of the highest quality and maximise each person’s outcomes.
Our evidence-informed models are based National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) to ensure the effective provision of clinical services throughout the organisation.
Ultimately, we aim to improve the quality and efficiency of evidence-based care, allowing us to work towards maximising quality of life in a truly integrated manner. The frameworks ensure that we have a robust understanding of strengths and weaknesses, which are then transferred into meaningful educational and residential strategies to achieve the best possible outcomes for every individual in our care.
Safeguarding and Prevention of Child Exploitation
At Outcomes First Group, we’re always focused on reducing the risk of child sexual exploitation. By supporting initiatives such as ‘Stop Exploitation Week’, partnering with organisations including NWG Network, training our internal teams, we raise awareness of how to spot the signs and signals of exploitation of children.
By teaching colleagues and carers across the group how to observe and stop exploitation of children, as well as what to do in such circumstances, we make sure that everyone associated with us is informed to act effectively in safeguarding the vulnerable young people in our care. This commitment demonstrates how seriously we take this issue, and that we’re steadfastly committed to working together and tackling child sexual exploitation.
How we work to meet our Group Safeguarding Pledge
A team of quality advisors regularly audits and supports us to ensure every child, young person or adult in our care, education and residential services is receiving at least a ‘Good’ standard of provision.
Our Safeguarding and Quality Committee is independently chaired by Tim Loughton, the former Children’s Minister, and also includes British Professor of Nursing, Baroness Mary Watkins of Tavistock, as well as Jenny Whittle, former Deputy Cabinet Member for Children, Families and Education (Learning and Development) and Mike Blakey, our Group Director of Quality and Compliance.
A national safeguarding adviser also provides expert advice on safeguarding children and vulnerable adults to ensure we always remain collectively compliant and aligned with current national procedures.
Reducing the Use of Restraint
We’ve made a commitment to actively participate in reducing restraint, where possible, across all our services. This strengthens our stance as a leading care and education provider striving to set the highest standards.
Our desire to make a positive difference to the lives of thousands of people in our care led to us officially pledge to join the Restraint Reduction Network and support the cause as an organisation.
As a member of the Restraint Reduction Network, we have pledged to:
- Give a clear and transparent commitment to people who use and work in our services that all our leaders, managers and frontline staff will endeavour to work together to ensure that the use of coercive and restrictive practice is minimised and the misuse and abuse of restraint is prevented.
- Work together to create restraint-free services for each person we support as much as possible, built on continuous learning and improvement.
- Develop an annual ‘restraint reduction plan’ that will outline the different organisational approaches we’ll implement in order to help us achieve the Network’s vision, mission, values and principles, so that those people subject to restricted practices are fully protected.
In order to meet these pledges, we’ve created a network of restraint reduction champions throughout Outcomes First Group. This allows our champions to lead on the coordination of self-evaluation and the development of a plan to reduce the use of restraint in each of our services.
This means we’re now able to actively contribute towards developing quality standards to help avoid incidents where any vulnerable person in our care is exposed to any behaviour that may be deemed traumatising, particular within therapeutic settings, keeping them as safe and comfortable as possible.