residential children's home to open in our street

[steppemum]

Got home last night and there is a letter through our door from a neighbour.
Apparently there is a planning application in to change the use of a house to a residential childrens' home. The letter was asking for people to put in ojections to the planning application.

I walked past the house today.
We are a quiet road, dead end, the house in question is large with big garden and another house built at the end of the garden (they built it and sold it off) It is close to neighbours but detached. Has its own large drive for parking. The application is for both the main house and the house in the garden to together become a childrens home.

I can't see what the problem is! I am tempted to put in a comment to the planners to say this is a nice quiet, safe road for a kids home.
I am glad that there will be more facilities as our council has a great deal of trouble finding enough foster homes.
We are detached but very close to neighbours, and we never hear a thing.

Am I being naive?
Is there any reason why this house might cause problems?
Honestly I just think this is NIMBY ism. But is that me being naive?

Yes I would say you are being very naive.

Come back here in ten years to update us and I would lay a bet that your virtue signalling halo has tarnished somewhat…

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There was one on the outskirts of a nearby market town, the problems went on for years.
Kids breaking in to local homes etc, it was finally closed. I'm afraid they are not always kids as we know them.
There's PA in for one in a village. 5 bed house for a maximum of 2 children. I suppose along with carers, they need that space but it's an expensive business.

I think there are some people who won't be happy until we have brought back workhouses, orphanages and places were we can lock away disabled children and adults.

The economics of a lot of things are mind boggling when you look at it that way. Unfortunately some children aren't safe with their parents and they need to be kept safe somewhere.

How many of these same people horrified on here of the thought of a children's home in their area or how much it costs to run are the same ones who comment how something should have been done when yet another child is killed by a parents?

"In need of care, empathy and a lot of support and healing."

And definitely not in one of these designer developer run children's homes.

Just a very sad thread

My friend who adopted a very traumatised child {too difficult for foster carers, as child had been passed between them like a hot potato for years} - the birth parents ought never have been allowed to have had children, the damage done was phenomenal.

But anyone can have kids, there are no qualifications or suitability tests done- This frightful couple said things in front of social workers about their neglected children that just beggar belief.

An abusive man can go from woman to woman impregnating and abusing as he goes.

Good on you. I don't know how anyone could be so selfish to appeal a children's home. Where do they think we should put vulnerable children who already have a difficult life? Should we lock them up in institutions in the middle of nowhere or should we house them in a nice community and be good neighbours to them?

That’s LOADS cheaper than paying for a facility run by a profit making company.

Where do you think he went after that?

Sadly, quite a lot of that cost is the negotiated sum, negotiated by hard headed developers, not the actual cost. This is an example of public private partnership which is exploited by private companies because their negotiating counterpart in the LA do not have the skills or experience to negotiate building or development contracts.

And where you have one of these homes with teens running amok, you are looking at extremely badly managed houses, the teens not having their needs met on any level.

The whole thing is appalling.

So it isn't the economics here, it is the public private partnership concept failing to the tune of a blank cheque and a lot of failed children.

Did the house need gutting? Probably not. Would the refurb cost that, at cost, or even in a well negotiated contract negotiated by a commercial employer? I don't think so.

Exactly, I thought the same..Where could a child with that amount of ''challenging behaviours'' {as they are now called} then be placed?

Sounds like possibly life in an institution, which is very depressing.

I’ve worked in 6 different residential children homes. The only issues that was raised directly to us was parking.

4 of the homes never had any disturbances regarding neighbours.

The last home did have repeated police presence, and neighbours might have raised their eyebrows when the teen decided to drag the fridge into the front garden and empty it to ‘punish’ us for not baking a cake at midnight the previous night.

I wouldn’t have any issues if a house down my street was to be turned into a children’s home.

Most children's home have a a maximum of 4/5 kids, pros are that there are staff there 24 hours a day so for security that's a good thing?
Won't be any loud parties, noisy dogs etc
You're likely to not even notice that it's a residential home but worst case scenario, the police come out occasionally.

God, the kids in those here run wild.

You probably are being a bit naive tbh. We have a similar home in our street.
The residents themselves have caused relatively few problems - occasionally police & ambulances present but only 1 serious incident.

The biggest issue is that it has the comings & goings of a business rather than a family home so there are deliveries every day. Staff coming & going - often smoking & vaping & can be noisy at night - they are not allowed to smoke/vape outside the premises so they go up the road & smoke & chat on phones etc in the street.

Lots more visitors than for a family home.

With the planning permission ask about sufficient parking arrangements, ask that a smoking area be provided on the premises (this may not be legally possible) or at least away from family homes. ask if there are restrictions on deliveries etc.

We are accepting of it & understand they have the rights to a decent home in a decent area too & wouldn't have done anything to prevent it, but it has definitely changed the dynamics of the street. It would be similar to having a business premises on the street.

The child who managed that must have been phenomenally strong!
Fridges usually take a trolley and two experienced delivery men ( usually men) to move them!

Thats less than 4k a week per child, that is incredibly cheap for residential provision for a child in care. You clearly dont really understand about the costs of residential care.

One of my friends lives just round the corner from a children's home. They have teenagers in there.

I don't recall her having anything to say about the children in their or their behaviour.

I don't think it's an Ambulance/Police car hot spot either.

No, YANBU and thank you for being kind. It really upsets me when people assume that a children’s home on their street inevitably means the same as having 50 feral children running amok and causing crime. I am very familiar with homes. The children have curfews and rules which are tight because the state is responsible for them. Quite often, you’ll barely notice they are there.

This comment is disturbing!

You should be ashamed of yourself.

There’s one near my DD’s school. It’s chaos. Kids running in the road chucking stuff, multiple cars with smashed windows, police & ambulance always there.

I feel so sorry for children in them though, I often think about why they’re there & how awful it must be to not be living with any of their parents and being in a home away from their family. There’s one lad that stands outside smoking & he just looks so sad.

I have a young DD & wouldn’t feel comfortable if there was a children’s home out on my quiet cul-de-sac.

There are children in care being accommodated in travel lodge and other B & bs because there is a severe lack of suitable placements.

I've worked in children's homes in both rural and city environments. In both locations the children had little to no contact with the local community. In all cases the children were educated in the provision provided by the home. In both the children had full supervision. We took them to activities but they were usually 1:1 or 2:1 and always with staff.

One organisation I worked for had a policy of no police involvement because they sought to prevent the children acquiring a criminal record. We only had one child abscond, once. No drugs, no dope, no loud music or antisocial behaviour outside of the home. It was tough, the kids were severely traumatised from early childhood abuse but not one child was allowed to breakdown their placement. Their ethos was that they would never give up on a child. The team I worked with, I'd trust any of them with my own children.

In another home we had prolific self harmers. Ambulances arrived two at a time. Police involvement to catch a child who they couldn't restrain. She was basically beating up two police officers. Not that the neighbours would have known, because all of the homes I've worked in were very much closed communities and none of this was allowed to spill out. The home received an appalling ofsted before I had started there. So only very desperate LAs with extremely hard to place children sought a placement there. The staff were hopeless. I'd been offered a senior position because I'd had experience with prolific self harm and complex mental health issues with children. It became basically like a psych unit because the managers pet project was to take only self harm. But of course, this had no impact on the local community.

It's true, many of these troubled children breakdown one placement after another with violent and self harming behaviours. But only a very badly managed home would have this affect the local community.

Only a short stint in a boarding school. It was without doubt the very worst of places for these children. In an education setting the threshold for restraint is much lower, it was routine and normal to see kids dragged face down over the tarmac. The staff were itching for 'a fight' and old fashioned, punishingly strict routine with no therapeutic working. I lasted a week. It was inhumane. But it was in the middle of nowhere

These children need unconditional love and support, just like every child. They need stability, and to know that the adults can be trusted not to abandon them and give up on them. And this needs to be in small homes much like a family home with a tight knit small staff team and low staff turnover. The staff in the school had no time to build meaningful relationships, the kids could form no meaningful attachments. The behaviour was no less challenging and no hope of successful outcome.