News

Accolades 2009
Calcot Services for Children has been nominated for ‘Best Provider of Learning and Development’ with Skills for Care – Accolades 2009. We have been recognised for our outstanding achievement in this area and will be judged accordingly. All finalists will be invited to a gala presentation evening in London on 3rd December 2009. Let’s hope we make it to the next stage!

Donate for Red Nose Day
The young people within CSfC have explored lots of ideas in contributing towards Red Nose Day. They’ve decided to make healthy red nose cookies. These will be sold at Palmera Therapeutic Community’s Coffee Morning 13-03-09 between 12pm and 2pm. Please contact us should you want to learn more, visit us or donate at www.rednoseday.com/donate

We're outstanding again!
CSfC have achieved 100% outstanding again for 2007/2008. We have received invitations to celebrate our achievements in London on 31st March 2009. All four of the CSfC communities have been awarded with the outstanding ratings again and a representative from each community will attend the ceremony. We’re very proud of our continued efforts in relation to inspection.

Yew Tree Cottage thrives!
Yew Tree Cottage is now a thriving independence therapeutic community. Based on supported lodgings principles it caters for the needs of two independent young people. Yew Tree Cottage offers direct work, one to one work and independence work shops for young people hoping to make a positive transition into adulthood. If you would like to visit or hear more about Yew Tree Cottage, please contact us.

Awareness Project for 2009
In meeting current cultural and educational needs of young people, Calcot Cottage is hosting several awareness evenings for all of the young people across the organization. Feedback was sought from all of the CSfC young people about the issues they’d like to explore and the following awareness evenings will be hosted by various professionals over 2009. These include: bullying, drugs and alcohol, healthy living, sex education, diversity and equality, and independence. If you’d like to hear more contact us.

Education
The aim of our education support programme will be to provide an interim period of 6 to 12 months that allows young people to learn, improve existing skills and rebuild confidence so they are able to return to mainstream or equivalent as recommended in the Every Child Matters paperwork. We are working with Heroes (www.heroesberkshire.co.uk) for 3 days of the week and qualified teachers\LSA's at Yew Tree Cottage for the remaining 2 days. We intend to cover the core subjects of the national curriculum as well as arts and crafts, sports, drama, writing, dance, history, cooking and excursions.

The Excellence Award
CSfC proudly entered the Excellence Network Award with Community Care. Our application highlighted progressive practice that we believe has transformed lives and exceeded standards set within our sector.
Our application will be assessed by leading figures from the social care sector and the best will be honoured at a high profile lunchtime ceremony at Community Care Live on 14th May 2008. For more information about our work please contact us.

Gold Star Achievement
The 27th November 2007 saw Calcot Services for Children officially awarded with the Gold Star Standard Award for Positive Handling. Assessed and awarded by training provider Team Teach (www.team-teach.co.uk) we are incredibly proud to be the first group of children's homes to achieve this status.

The assessment process involved the Director of Team Teach, George Matthews, meeting with a range of staff and young people within the company to discuss their views and experiences of Positive Handling, and an in-depth look into our policies, practices, recording and monitoring systems. Following the assessment it was confirmed that we are working to the high standards expected by Team Teach and the Gold Star Status was awarded. This achievement is a fantastic accomplishment and we are pleased to be working to such high standards in this area.

Therapeutic Child Care Degrees
We’re always commended for our commitment to staff training and development. In continuing this mode of practice, we are proud to announce the introduction of the Therapeutic Child Care Degree. We have undertaken this project with SACCS and the University of Wales. The degree will provide staff with theoretical knowledge underpinning child development, and furthermore it will recognise the therapeutic approach we take to support the containment and growth of the children and young people in our care.