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, we called the police repeatedly,at least several times a day. We took numbers of cars and reported them , we photographed cars. The police couldn't be there every minute of the day and apparently every paedophile claimed to have got lost.The staff didn't care and the managers cared less.

One of the worst things about living next door, I can imagine, is being the normal family while the kids in care aren't. Times like Christmas day.

I too envision a boarding school set up, but within a farm setting. Work morning and evening with lessons in between. Having to care for animals is good for the soul. There's not much so comforting than sticking your nose in a horse's neck, warm and sweet smelling

Unfortunately, any children's home is only as good as those who run them. A lot have been dire.
There was the one for girls boarding school style where Jimmy Savile would arrive on Sunday afternoons to pick a couple of girls for a country drive in his Rolls Royce. With full permission of the Principal. Not children, the young women had gone off the rails, shoplifting and stuff.

Welll this is a very upsetting thread for those of us who lived in a residential home. Not wanted at home or by foster carers or the general community....nice

I guess it depends on the type of home but there’s a residential home for 5 young people that backs onto my garden.

We get non-verbal vocalisations (screaming, wailing, shreiking) at all hours of the day and night. Luckily I’m a heavy sleeper but having my windows open in the summer means I am regularly disturbed at 1am, 4am, take your pick, by residents making noise. It goes on during the day too so using the garden is never peaceful. You’d think they’d be too tired after being up all night but apparently they are like Duracell bunnies and don’t sleep.

My neighbour has air con fitted to his house so that he can keep his windows shut. I might have to do the same.

A residential house is too small, not fit for purpose, random staff will be coming and going and it will be really boring for the kids living there.

Do your kids find living on a residential street really boring? Would they be better in boarding school, with a really nice canteen and a games room? What a ridiculous thing to say. Children have the right to be raised in a homely setting as far as possible. In small homes with a a small number of kids, a small familiar staff group in communities not shut away like some shameful secret.

We lived opposite one for four years. It was in a large Victorian house on a street of much smaller houses. It was mostly very quiet. One time they had the music on too loud so I asked them to turn it down, which they did straight away. That was it. No gangs, drugs, prostitution, drama. Much like any other neighbours, really.

Thank you for trying. I'm sorry that I assumed that you didn't.

They do need to go somewhere, sadly there are so few good residentials. All run for profit, very rarely producing good outcomes for children. A mere holding pen until they become adults and someone else's problem.
My friend's DS, in 7 years has been through 2 group residentials, a stint back with her for 3 years with two 24/7 live in carers to guard her safety and now bespoke solo residential. And honestly he has just got worse and worse because there isn't the expertise or therapeutic interventions to help children with challenging behaviours that aren't caused by mental illness which can be treated. The local authority bill for his care over these past 7 years is over £8 million.
But back to OP's question, the 2 group residentials he was in never attracted any trouble. Nor the solo placement. The worst was when he lived with her because she lived in a narrow terraced street so his excessive noise travelled. And there was nothing that she or the carers could do about that without putting themselves at risk. Neighbours were on their knees with sleep deprivation.

Do your kids work morning and night?

Why would these kids need to work so much?

This thread is shockingly insulting to many of us who didn’t have “ normal “ families.

police couldn't be there every minute of the day and apparently every paedophile claimed to have got lost.The staff didn't care and the managers cared less.

Was this a while ago? Not only do the local cops know who these people are, there are national initiatives linking intelligence about traffickers who target residential homes, that’s been the case for quite some time now. Investigations into grooming and trafficking gangs are long term and complex - you can’t arrest someone for driving down a street, and the kids involved are traumatised, shamed and terrified which makes getting them to give evidence nearly impossible at least initially.

The police won’t tell you that, because it’s none of your business, but you’ll have added to their intelligence gathering.

The staff will have been busy trying to work with the young people being groomed by these individuals - which is also long, sensitive, complex work. They won’t have been too worried about an adult with the ability to protect herself and her children - they’re busy trying to stop the kids in their care being trafficked and raped.

And yet the poster I had replied to (not sure if that was you) seemed to imply they thought it was too much/over the top, incredibly expensive and therefore that they knew the costs were less than this.

Many if not most local councils have an outsourcing and tendering process and so are not allowed to supply and set up their own services

This comes about because the locals vote for that system and vote in councillors who want that system because, you know, public services are bloated and too top heavy, and need to be run like a business and dont make good financial decisions and need to be streamlined etc etc etc

How did you know the staff didn't care? Did you ask them? Or were they just trying to do their job under difficult circumstances? What power do you think they had against the predatory paedophiles?

What utter tripe. I know a young girl, aged 11 who has been in children's home since aged 6. She is not an offender, no gang ties. Yes, kids in homes do often have challenging behaviour, what do you expect, they've been let badly let down by adults, who should have loved them and cared for them unreservedly.

My parents were residential parents in a children’s home when I was small. Due to shift patterns I also stayed there a lot and made friends with a lot of the children.

Guess what? They were just…children.

Like the boy whose face was badly scarred as his dad poured boiling water over it to stop him crying when he was a toddler.

This “worst of the worst” used to beat me at Mouse Trap. What a wrongun, eh?

There's a children's home around the corner from me. I've lived here for 10 years and I didn't even know it was a children's home for many of those. We've had zero problems from them. Insurance isn't high, no one's had their house robbed by them. This is utter scare mongering.

I have worked in more than one LA and also for private sector in relation to public/private and I can assure you that what I say is exactly right, about the majority of transactions and personnel. It is well known and commented on.

One opened not too far from me. I am not impacted as I am far enough away but from what I hear the issues are
Parking
Noise
Police being called late at night
House prices falling
A few anti social incidents

Sorry but not everyone is saying this.

Lots of people foster, adopt and are happy living next to a residential children's home as said by some posters.

Mainly, I think it's people being worried about what that brings.

Don't agree with some of the wording but if people don't want to foster, adopt or live next to a residential home, that' not to say children aren't wanted.

Not the same thing but we lived right opposite a large women's refuge. There was always comings and goings and a lot happening during the day as they ran some outreach clinics . Occasionally there would be an angry husband or partner outside but police always showed up straight away. In fact it was one thing I loved about living there, there was constantly police driving by checking out the area and keeping an eye on things.

There’s a children’s home up the road from me. Outskirts of a quiet rural village. Never heard a peep or seen any comings and goings. I didn’t even know it was a children’s home, until my cleaner mentioned it because she sometimes works there. They are children who’ve been so severely traumatised by abuse that they can’t be fostered or attend normal schools, so they rarely leave the house. They’re no bother to any local residents.

I've worked in more than one place too and your words don't reflect my experience and that of others around me.

I can assure you, again, that what I said was right, and I am not asserting this to be rude, or to place blame on LAs, I am asserting this because it is a very, very significant problem. I suspect that you are not aware of the problem because you are not aware of what terms are being agreed to, and what would be considered industry standard. You have said you sit near the department, so this isn't your area? Even if you worked in this particular area, that is, you personally agreed partnering or commercial agreements with private contractors or developers, if you are are not aware of the problem then you are not operating on the same playing field as the private sector.

The issues have been exposed for decades, ever since PFI began to be mooted by Thatcher. It is very well known. This and other sectors.

I agree with you, but do you honestly think that this is what is actually happening for the vast majority of the children going into residential houses?

As a PS - have a look at the sort of profits the private companies are making - they are the darling of pension funds - this on its own should surely should be enough to make you suspect that there is something amiss?