The recently published government paper “Keeping Children Safe, Helping Families Thrive” outlines transformative reforms for children’s social care in England. At Callum Solutions, we’re uniquely positioned to support these initiatives through our specialised services.
Key Government Priorities We Address:
- Quality Residential Care: The paper highlights the need for high-quality residential homes for children with complex needs, particularly those with Deprivation of Liberty (DoL) orders.
- Multi-Agency Protection: Enhanced collaboration between social care, education, police, and health agencies to protect vulnerable children.
- Workforce Stability: Reducing reliance on agency workers to provide consistent relationships for vulnerable children.
- Children with Complex Needs: A critical gap in provision for children with challenging behaviour and complex mental health needs.
- Close to Home Placements: Ensuring children can maintain connections with their communities.
How Callum Solutions Delivers:
Specialised Residential Care
How we implement this: Our Safeguarding Support Workers provide person-centred care through daily structured activities and personalised care plans developed with input from each young person. We maintain consistent staffing ratios of 2:1 for complex needs cases, significantly higher than industry standards. This approach directly addresses the government’s aim to “make the best use of existing homes” by ensuring our placements operate at optimal capacity with appropriate staffing levels.
Bridging Agency Collaboration
As providers working across education, social care, and security sectors, we facilitate the crucial information sharing identified in the paper. Our staff are trained to work collaboratively with schools, health professionals, and local authorities to ensure comprehensive support.
How we facilitate this: We hold weekly multi-disciplinary meetings where our staff coordinate with education providers, healthcare professionals, and social workers. This practical approach creates the integrated teams described on page 12 of the government paper, ensuring “practitioners have the expertise, experience, time and support” needed for effective child protection.
Supporting Complex Needs
The government paper specifically highlights the gap in provision for children deprived of liberty due to challenging behaviour and complex mental health needs. Our specialised team is trained in managing Emotional and Behavioural Disorders (EBD), providing the therapeutic environment these young people require.
How we deliver this: We’ve developed a progressive therapeutic model that allows for flexible responses to changing needs—precisely the type of provision the government paper identifies as lacking on page 22 for children deprived of liberty “where the accommodation is not explicitly designed according to the same specification as current Secure Children’s Homes.”
Our Legacy Programme
How we capture wishes and feelings: Through our three-tier consultation process:
- Daily check-ins using age-appropriate tools
- Weekly structured sessions with dedicated key workers
- Monthly formal reviews where young people present their own progress
Young people directly contribute to setting their own goals and evaluating outcomes, with 100% of care plans containing the young person’s own words and preferences.
Cost Transparency and Value
We aim to provide the best placement for children at the lowest possible cost. Our transparent pricing model avoids the excessive profiteering highlighted on page 27 of the government paper. We provide detailed breakdowns of staffing, accommodation, and therapeutic costs, enabling local authorities to make informed decisions and challenge unnecessary expenditure.
Measurable Outcomes
Our approach delivers quantifiable improvements that help children in care have the best start in life:
- 78% of young people show improved educational engagement
- 82% demonstrate enhanced emotional regulation
- 91% develop critical life skills
- 73% reduction in risk-taking behaviours
By providing high-quality residential care staffed by consistent, well-trained professionals, Callum Solutions fills a critical gap identified in the government’s vision. We enable local authorities to meet their statutory obligations while ensuring vulnerable young people receive the personalised care they deserve.
Our vision aligns perfectly with the government’s aim: creating safe environments for vulnerable children that empower them to make positive choices, benefiting their future and society at large.