SME News Scottish Enterprise 2024/ 8 Best Children’s Residential Care Home 2024 – Ayrshire All children deserve a nurturing environment, with individualised care that enables them to thrive and flourish as they grow up to lead fulfilling lives. Based in Dundonald, South Ayrshire, Orchard Cottage Care is a children and young people’s residential service providing therapeutic care via a holistic approach to support its children and young people in building a brighter future for themselves. As Orchard Cottage Care is named in the Scottish Enterprise Awards 2024, we speak with its Administrator, Adele McDade, to learn more. Orchard Cottage, located in a semi-rural area of the village of Dundonald, is a stunning and spacious family home offering space for five children and young people from the ages of 0-18, with an option to continue care up to 21 years of age. Boasting five bedrooms, each with a private bathroom, a large kitchen, separate dining area, and two lounges, with one doubling as a sensory room, Orchard Cottage offers a safe space for children and young people to recover from trauma and start to thrive. The cottage’s fantastic features extend beyond its interior; the building is surrounded by an expansive, wrap-around garden featuring swings, trampolines, climbing frames, and various other outdoor play equipment. Being positioned in Dundonald, Orchard Cottage provides its children and young people with a sense of rural life without the inconveniences of being cut-off from resources, instead encouraging the use of its vegetable patch and chicken coop to develop an understanding and appreciation of the great outdoors in a controlled environment. Since its inception, Orchard Cottage Care has operated in alignment with the core values identified by the Health and Social Care Standards to contribute to quality care practice across all residential settings, which are privacy, dignity, safety, choice, realising potential, and equality and diversity. The home demonstrates impeccably good practice in upholding these values at all times, whilst making efforts to ensure that a homely environment is maintained so that Orchard Cottage never develops an overtly institutional feel. With this in mind, Orchard Cottage Care allows each young person to maintain a sense of privacy throughout their time at the home and promotes sensitivity when handling personal and private matters. Staff are given an active awareness of each young person and child’s racial, cultural, religious, and dietary needs to ensure the celebration of difference for all. The home strives to provide a living environment and operational culture that places the needs of its young people as paramount, ensuring that the highest level of dignity is maintained for them at all times. To further this mission, each young person residing at Orchard Cottage Care has access to an independent advocacy service, as well as access to read and record in their own personal file. Residents’ meetings are held to encourage the young people to share and influence the day-today routines and practices within the house, within reason. Furthermore, young people are encouraged to exercise their own religious and cultural preferences, partake in a variety of leisure activities, and decorate their bedroom to their liking, further facilitating Orchard Cottage Care’s dedication to promoting choice. “Our core model of childcare offers a unique opportunity in our ability to completely personalise a package of care to meet the unique needs of each child being looked after at Orchard Cottage Care,” Adele tells us. “Where possible, we endeavour to prepare the young person for integration back to their family environment and the community. We aim to provide an optimal care setting for children in a group living environment and recognise that a key element of working with a diverse age range is to ensure robust safeguarding and meeting different developmental needs.” This service is ensured by delivering a thorough assessment of each child’s needs, ensuring that all care plans and placements are appropriate for the needs and environment through careful placement matching upon admission. To further facilitate this mission, Orchard Cottage Care ensures that all practitioners are aware of and able to respond appropriately to the diverse needs of the varying age groups and developmental stages of young people entering the home, with training being tailored specifically to the age and need ranges of those residing in the house at any time. Additionally, Orchard Cottage Care has developed an effective staffing structure with three to four staff on shift at any time, on a rotational basis, with two waking night staff to provide additional support throughout the night. The team is increased and trained wherever required to ensure that the home is continuously meeting the needs and demands of its group. Every aspect of home’s operations, from its décor to its employees, have been meticulously chosen to ensure a nurturing and supportive environment. “We try to make Orchard Cottage as homely as possible,” says Adele, “and we do this by ensuring that our home is clean, tidy, and well maintained. We have a cleaner in daily, with whom the children have built up great relationships, and our residential staff do all the cooking so that they can sit around the dinner table with the kids. Our walls are covered in school pictures and photographs of the children on holiday or out on fun activities with our team, reflecting how much care and love they receive just like a family home.” Orchard Cottage Care offers a diverse mixture of services and programmes designed to support its young people and ease their integration back into their home environment. The home believes that every child and young person needs attention, affection, and affirmation in order to grow into their best selves, alongside feeling valued, appreciated, and connected. Each individual offering combines into a holistic service that effectively addresses and meets these needs, providing support for its young people as they are prepared to champion a brighter future. To help the children feel more positive and build belief in themselves, Orchard Cottage Care trains its team members in Relax Kids. Relax Kids uses a unique seven-step system - consisting of Move, Play, Stretch, Feel, Breathe, Believe, and Relax – that leads children into a relaxed Oct24105
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