Good Practice Forum for residential homes for children with complex needs
The Good Practice Forum is focused on the practical aspects of developing residential homes for children and young people with complex needs across Wales.
What is meant by children with complex needs?
‘Complex needs’ is defined as severe emotional, behavioural and mental health needs which may exist alongside high-end physical needs.
Children and young people with complex needs may not have a mental health diagnosis but find difficulty in successfully managing their emotions, which can translate in distressing, disruptive, antisocial and uncooperative behaviours, and high stress and anxiety.
This may include not exclusively children and young people with a learning disability, awaiting a mental health diagnosis or a neurodivergent diagnosis.
Definition of residential homes for children with complex needs
Differing from traditional children’s homes, this is a specialist step-up or step-down provision, often providing therapeutic support and usually for short-term stays.
The purpose is to aid behavioural regulation and to prevent escalation to and facilitate de-escalation from secure home or tier 4 mental health inpatient provision.
Finally it aims to keep children closer to home by filling gaps in local provision to avoid children having to be placed out of county or out of Wales.
Aims of the forum
The forum aims to bring together a group of practitioners to:
- Contribute to a good practice toolkit for the development of residential provision for children with complex needs.
- Promote productive discussion and encourage collaborative solutions in aspects that members find challenging, for example in how to reach a partnership agreement.
- Showcase achievements, share lessons learnt /pitfalls across projects and how to overcome common challenges.
- Understand the enablers that allow for good practice to flourish.
- Identify barriers that exist to adoption of innovative ways of working and support, including local service integration for example with education and health.
If you wished to be added to the circulation list please email ana.laing@gov.wales.
