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Southern Adolescent Care Services provides therapeutic placements for young people with challenging behaviour with the aim of helping them address and overcome the adverse circumstances of their past which brought them into care and the consequent development difficulties that this may have caused them. We have considerable experience of successful work with young offenders, survivors of abuse, sexual offenders, children who self-harm and other vulnerable young people and offer intensive preparations for independence programmes.  This is achieved not least through out high level of commitment to on-going staff training and development for which we have recently received the Investors in People award.

We employ a comprehensive and integrated therapeutic strategy comprising of humanistic, behavioural and psychodynamic approaches as amplified below.

The Humanistic Aspect

A humanistic framework underpins our overall care strategy, including day to day interaction with young people in our care. All care staff are trained in a humanistic approach to child care, including person-centred attitudes and counselling skills. Based on Maslow's “hierarch of needs” (1970), we recognise a young person's basic need for safety, security and a sound homely environment. These must be met as fully as possible in order to facilitate progress towards meeting the higher needs of personal development and self-actualisation. Considerable emphasis is placed on the importance of giving a young person a sense of belonging, acceptance and being cared for. Young people are actively encouraged to take an appropriate degree of control over their own life, to develop self-respect and a positive, functional sense of personal identity. It is essential when dealing with young people in our care that we promote the notion of ownership and responsibility for their future as well as providing suitable opportunities for achievement on an on-going basis since these constitute the primary route to the development of self-esteem.

The Behavioural Aspect

Behavioural interventions are employed as required to help young people break the cycle of negative patterns of behaviour. A set of rules for conduct is drawn up on an individual basis for each young person that also incorporates communally shared household rules. We consider consistent application of these rules and re-instatement of boundaries where necessary as playing a key role to these codes of psychological containment of the young person. Adherence to these codes of conduct is promoted through our “behaviour-points” system. This breaks the day to day down into five parts, awarding up to four points for positive behaviour for each and provides a consistent incentive. The points can be “cashed in” for the young person's favourite activity or required for a hobby or pastime. Whilst our emphasis is on incentives for the positive, a set of sanctions are employed where incentive alone is ineffective namely loss of a proportion of pocket money or short “groundings” for those allowed out unsupervised by staff for certain periods of time.

 A further aspect of our behavioural approach, again based on the importance of psychological containment for the young person and building and maintaining a sense of achievement, is careful structuring of a young person's day and week. Participation in education and vocational training are strongly encouraged and well supported in-house. Young people are also encouraged to identify and pursue fulfilling hobbies and pastimes. All young people follow SACS “Life Skills” programme to build the appropriate skills and knowledge for independent living.

The Psychodynamic Aspect

The majority of young people in our care regularly see a psychotherapist where the underlying causes of their development difficulties can be addressed. Our established network of psychotherapist in private practice enables young people to quickly gain access to this invaluable source of support and guidance, circumventing the delays or lack of provision caused by over-stretched public health service resources. Once we have met the young person and got to know them adequately (usually two or three weeks), SACS Personal Development Manager, herself a qualified psychotherapist, identifies a suitable psychotherapist for the young person and makes the referral. Sessions generally commence within tow weeks of making the referral. Where it is felt that more than one session a week is necessary, this is arranged (up to three times a week) dependent on funding availability from the young people's home authority (sessions cost £40 on average and are of one hour's duration). The psychotherapists whose services we use are highly experienced in working with young people who have incurred damage, fully qualified and belong to reputable professional associations (for example, Society of Analytical Psychology,  Association of Child Psychotherapists): many have experience of working for the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service. Frequent and regular liaison between the Care Manager, the Personal Development Manager and the young person's psychotherapist enables effective working styles and therapeutic responses and interventions to be identified and incorporated into the young person's care plan which is consistently delivered by the care staff in the home. All care staff are training in basic humanistic counselling skills and instructed in the individual therapeutic needs, issues and progress of each young person on a regular basis. We must add that we are not of the view that young people can be forced to engage in psychotherapy against their will but have been successful in encouraging many young people with an ambivalent attitude towards undertaking such work to do so with positive results.