Key Principles

These principles were developed with care-experienced young people. They are written in the first person from the perspective of a young person and promote young people’s rights and entitlements and reflect what they say is important to them. Providers should ensure that all supported accommodation is delivered in a way that reflects the principles below:

1. I feel safe and secure where I live and in my wider environment;
2. My voice is respected, heard and advocated for, so I can influence the support I receive;
3. I have confidence that the adults who support me understand me, are skilled and work effectively together to best meet my needs;
4. I have my own space that I feel proud of and live in a comfortable, well-maintained, and stable accommodation;
5. I receive high-quality, tailored support that sustains my health and wellbeing;
6. I have strong, trusting, and meaningful relationships within my support system and can rely on the adults around me;
7. I feel supported to learn and apply skills for independent adult living;
8. I feel positive about my future and opportunities as a result of the support I receive.

The Statement of Purpose, which is kept under review, sets out the ethos and objectives of our supported accommodation.

The Service follows key principles that ensure care provided is a positive choice for young people and meets their individual needs.

Young People living in our Service:

• Should feel happy, healthy, safe from harm and able to develop, thrive and fulfil their potential;
• Should be valued and nurtured as an individual with talents, strengths and capabilities that can develop over time;
• Should be supported to foster positive relationships, encouraging strong bonds between young people and staff on the basis of jointly undertaken activities, shared daily life, domestic and non-domestic routines and established boundaries of acceptable behaviour;
• Should be ambitious, nurturing learning and their ambitions and aspirations for their future;
• Should support emotional, mental and physical health needs, including repairing earlier damage to self-esteem and encouraging friendships;
• Should be outward facing, working with the wider system of professionals for each young person, and with the young person’s family if appropriate and communities of origin to sustain links and understand past problems;
• Should have high expectations of staff as committed members of a team, as decision makers and as activity leaders. In support of this, the Service should ensure all staff and managers are engaged in on-going learning about their role and the young people and families they work with;
• Should enjoy a safe and stimulating environment in high-quality buildings, with spaces that support nurture and allow privacy as well as common spaces and spaces to be active. The physical environment should be safe and secure and protect children from harm or the risk of harm. Risk assessments must be regularly reviewed and updated and comply with statutory requirements.

The Service is committed to:

• Using research-informed practice to deliver high quality, stable support for young people;
• Providing support to enable the young person to learn independence skills;
• A culture characterised by high expectations and aspirations for all young people;
• Delivering and maintaining services that enable staff to recognise and build on the strengths of young people from all cultures, religions, gender identity, age, sexual orientation, ability and backgrounds, in ways that meet their needs and help them to achieve their full potential;
• High-quality support in an environment where the focus is on the specific needs of the individual young person, to deliver sustained improvement to their lives;
• Delivering a holistic and integrated team approach, inclusive of social work, education, health and support professionals;
• Providing individualised support and a range of positive experiences for young people to enable them to progress, including meeting the needs of young people who live outside their home authority;
• Promoting young people to make progress in relation to their health, education, and emotional, social and psychological well-being;
• Respecting and taking account of what the young person’s views, wishes and feelings are; ensuring that the young person's views are understood and taken into account and that their rights and entitlements are met;
• Working to enhance each young person's life chances by enhancing the quality of their experiences on a day-to-day basis, providing them with a range of positive experiences, preparing them for their futures and managing transitions effectively;
• Making sure that young people are helped and protected, and that effective and ongoing planning is in place to identify and minimise risks and safeguard them;
• Actively promoting tolerance, equality and diversity;
• Achieving stability for the young people through building relationships with trusted adults that minimise disruption and afford protection from abuse and neglect;
• Building strong, positive and purposeful relationships between professionals, young people, parents if appropriate and other agencies to ensure the best possible all-round support is available to the young person. Actively challenging when the responses from other services are not effective;
• Developing a workforce of managers and staff who are appropriately qualified, trained and registered with their regulatory bodies, and supported in continuous professional development;
• Providing a supportive environment for staff through effective supervision and appraisal and high-quality induction and training programmes, tailored to the specific needs of the children;
• Monitoring and reviewing performance, identifying any weaknesses and taking decisive and effective action to remedy them.

To achieve these key principles, practice in the Service should be shaped around the following:

The best interests of the young person: Support, safety and the young person’s needs will be at the centre of the support provided.

Avoiding delay: All decisions in relation to the provision of services will be made promptly and within agreed time-scales, having regard to the needs of the young person. The achievement of these timescales will be monitored and reviewed.

Young person's views: Young people’s views and capacity will inform how the Service is provided. Young people will be provided with information about how to contact the Children’s Commissioner, their social worker and Independent Reviewing Officer and should be offered access to an Independent Advocate.

Keeping young people informed: Young people should be provided with information about the Service and other services available locally. They should also be helped to understand the types of personal information which is kept in their case records, what it is used for, who it will be shared with and how long it will be kept for. Their right to access their case record should also be explained to them.

Promoting family time/contact: Contact with family members, friends and other significant persons will be promoted (unless particular circumstances indicate that such contact would not be in the young person's best interests and the young person has made a decision not to see their family).

Promoting diversity: Staff will take every step to make sure that young people are not subject to discrimination, marginalisation or bullying from their peers by virtue of their sex, gender identity, religion, ethnicity, cultural and linguistic background, sexuality, mental ill health, disability or for any other reason. Young people and families will be treated with respect and dignity, and receive services which respect their ethnicity, culture, language, disability, sexuality and religion.

Admissions and reception of young people and reviews: Wherever possible, young people should be placed in a planned and sensitive manner and services provided on the basis of initial and continual assessment, planning, monitoring and review. Each young person will have a Placement Plan that underpins their Care Plan and other significant plans and which accurately reflects the way in which identified needs will be met. Young people will receive regular and frequent visits from their social workers for the purposes of monitoring and reviewing the suitability of their placement arrangements.

Promoting independence: Young people will be encouraged to be as independent as possible and will be supported to develop daily living skills. Young people will be provided with information, advice and practical assistance to help prepare them for adult life.

Promoting educational achievement: Staff will promote and support the educational achievement of young people and support with their education needs whether this is with an apprenticeship, college course or other learning opportunities.

Health care: To promote young people’s health, the Service will ensure there is a continuity of treatment and that young people’s physical, emotional and psychological health needs are properly assessed and accounted for. A young person should be provided with advice and support on sexual health and healthy relationships (including consent, criminal exploitation, sexual exploitation and domestic abuse where appropriate), smoking, alcohol and substance misuse.

Promoting positive behaviour and relationships: Staff will be trained to build and maintain positive relationships and resolve conflicts positively. Young people will be encouraged to take responsibility for their behaviour.

Protecting young people: All staff will have training in how to recognise, and respond to, concerns of abuse and neglect. Any allegations against staff members will be dealt with promptly in accordance with the Multi-Agency Safeguarding Children Procedures.

Physical contact and relationships: Staff will develop caring and nurturing relationships with young people, based on clear boundaries, which demonstrate affection, acceptance and reassurance. Staff are encouraged to use appropriate physical contact, positively and safely in keeping with the young person’s past experiences, needs and wishes. Where staff spend time alone with young people, this will be underpinned by effective procedures, evidence-based risk assessments and training which safeguard the interests of both young people and staff.

Complaints and representations: All young people will be provided with information on how to make a complaint or comment about their care. In addition the Service will carry out on-going consultation with young people and staff.

Safe practices, health and safety: The Service will have a written Health and Safety Policy clarifying responsibilities under The Health and Safety at Work Act and related legislative guidance. The Service will identify a senior manager responsible for health and safety and designated health and safety representatives. The Service should complete comprehensive Health and Safety Risk Assessments; these should be regularly reviewed and monitored.

The Supported Accommodation (England) Regulations 2023 set out standards ('the Quality Standards') that must be met by supported accommodation. The Quality Standards describe outcomes that each young person must be supported to achieve while living in supported accommodation. Each standard contains an overarching, aspirational, outcome statement with young people at its heart, followed by a set of underpinning, measurable requirements that providers and settings must achieve in meeting each standard.

The Regulations prescribe four Quality Standards which must be met by supported accommodation:

• The Leadership and Management Standard (see Regulation 4);
• The Protection Standard (see Regulation 5);
• The Accommodation Standard (see Regulation 6);
• The Support Standard (see Regulation 7).

Collectively these four standards are the Quality Standards.

There are core themes that feature across the four standards, which constitute important features of the standards in practice. Some of these themes include: the views, wishes and feelings of young people; working together; and building strong and meaningful relationships.