Therapeutic Consultation Provision for Keeping Children Living at Home

Kirklees council benefits from investing in a range of evidence-based services that seek to keep children living at home, and supporting them and their families and professionals around them to maintain security of placements, minimise criminal justice involvement and maximise education and vocational outcomes. It is well evidenced and documented that children in long-term care experience adverse life outcomes compared to children who live at "home". Out of home placements, and especially specialist placements for adolescents constitute a significant proportion of Kirklees Council children's services budgets. Kirklees Council Children's services have identified the need to create a service to facilitate the return "home" for young people in the care system where there is potential for a reunification, however significant support would be required to facilitate this. The purpose of developing such service is to improve the lives and outcomes for young people and their families, and to reduce the costs for care placements. To have confidence in achieving successful outcomes, the service needs to be developed from an existing evidence-based and needs to have been "tried and tested" in the UK context. The aim of this commission is to provide the delivery of consultation (to provide professional guidance to deliver a therapeutic model) with the Council staff, training and license for the service to achieve the required outcomes for the cohort of children identified.