PLANS have been submitted for a new children’s home in Warrington, to help support youngsters with complex mental health needs.
The proposed construction involves a four-bed children’s home with two staff bedrooms and a bungalow structure containing two, one-bed apartments with staff accommodation above.
The site is on vacant land owned by Warrington Borough Council on Helsby Street, Fairfield And Howley, Warrington.
Previous uses of the site mainly consist of a space for lockable garage structures as well as a previous location for a Scout Group H.Q around 1981.
The proposed use of the new structures will be for the Child Services sector of Warrington Council.
One of the buildings will be used as a Children’s home, with 4 separate bedrooms for young persons using the Child services, one being used as an accessible bedroom, along with shared living space and sensory room as well as a staff office space and 2 bedrooms being used for staff accommodation space.
The second proposed building will have 2 no. 1 bed apartments, with two separate apartments on the ground floor level to allow for two separate accommodations, with a
third apartment on the first-floor level to allow for Staff accommodation.
There will also be three separate garden spaces created to the rear of the site, as well as new landscaping and hard-standing space to the front of the site including eight new parking spaces.
With Children’s Social Care seeing an unprecedented increase year on year, particularly post-Covid it is becoming increasingly more difficult to place some children due to their support needs.
Plans have been developed to introduce a new service – a Complex Needs Hub for Mental Health. Children and Young People’s emotional health and well-being can be more closely monitored and improved if they are able to stay in their own communities rather than being placed in out-of-borough placements.
The purpose of this provision is to support more young people to remain living and learning locally and to significantly reduce the need for out-of-borough placements.
There will also be space on site for a smaller property to be used for as supported accommodation to help prepare young people for independent living and provide a steady transition from care.
The provision of this home would boost the service’s capacity to support more young people in their own community, and amongst family, friends and familiar surroundings. In addition, it will offer an opportunity to “stay close” and learn how to be independent in a safe and secure way when it’s time to move on from the children’s home. Much of the home would be set up similarly to a family home, with 2 staff bedrooms and office space. The Supported Accommodation property
would have a homely living space, garden, and separate entrance and it will be fenced off separately from the home so there is privacy yet it’s close enough if the young person requires support.
This kind of setup helps young care leavers to become good tenants and citizens as they move on from the children’s home and/or a supported living set-up to their own homes out in the wider community in the future and has been proven a success In other LA’s that have piloted it.
Allowing children the opportunity to stay in their known communities with this project will support their development much more than an out-of-borough placement could and having a home within their own community will hopefully offer stability, consistency, love and support until they are ready to leave care.
The site is currently empty and would provide eight car parking spaces.
It will offer 10 bedroom spaces in total including bedrooms for young persons and staff. Three residential support workers will be on site 24/7 and a manager and deputy would be on-site on a regular basis.
Two additional residential workers would be on-site daily during a one-hour handover. There would be one monthly staff meeting during office hours.
A decision will be made by Warrington Borough Council planners under delegated powers
