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The SACCS Approach
Overview
Founded in 1987, SACCS is the leading provider of treatment services for children and young people who have suffered early life trauma. We provide a comprehensive and integrated recovery programme, ready to respond to children's needs nationwide. We offer a real measurable difference in treatment of traumatised children, which is built on understanding and putting the child first.
Children for whom SACCS provides recovery
Children are normally referred to SACCS by Local Authority Children's Service Departments from all over the UK. On referral, children may be as young as 4 years of age and as old as 12 years. On admission they will be accommodated in homes with children of similar ages, each house being occupied by between 3-5 children. A full pre-admission assessment is carried out to ensure that we are able to meet each child's individual needs within an existing group.
Treatment Recovery Programme
At SACCS we believe that children traumatised because of abuse have suffered harm to their personhood, bodies, innocence, childhood, emotional health, spiritual wellbeing and their right to grow up in their own families. This harm is often so profound; affecting both external and internal worlds, that we developed a Recovery Assessment and Individual Recovery Programme based on 24 outcomes.
SACCS outcomes are based on a series of developmental achievements, grouped together under the following headings:
- Learning
- Physical development
- Emotional development
- Attachment
- Identity
- Social and community development
These outcomes can be identified in 'Every Child Matters'.
The recovery programme for each child is achieved through a truly integrated service involving therapeutic parenting, therapy and life story work. Each of these services is explained in detail within this portfolio.
Professionals delivering each component of the service are all members of SACCS. Between them they hold and provide containment for different aspects of the child, their inner and outer worlds, their past, their present and most importantly their future. These people comprise the Recovery Team whose purpose is to plan, deliver, review and measure the recovery process. Each person working with the child plays a vital role in supporting recovery.
Therapeutic Parenting
At SACCS children are cared for in houses which model family homes. Between three and five children live in each house, and every child has their own bedroom. The houses are designed to ensure that each child feels comfortable and safe in their environment, and great care is taken to avoid any feeling of institutionalisation. We attempt to replicate family life in the houses, offering a high level of nurture.
Every child is assigned a key-carer who plays a pivotal role in the recovery process, particularly in developing each child's ability to attach.
It is an expectation that all practitioners within SACCS will be signed up to the SACCS foundation training degree course accredited by NEWI (North East Wales Institute). This will ensure that they have the self-awareness, skills and knowledge required to offer safety and containment, and be able to provide attachment opportunities for each child.
Comprehensive pre-admission assessments are conducted prior to a placement offer for all children. During the first 12 weeks of placement individual recovery treatment programmes are drawn up by the Recovery Team, and these are regularly reviewed. In addition, reports are prepared for the statutory review process by the Recovery Team. These are designed to ensure consistency of approach in the recovery process.
Structured handovers take place daily, each care team holds a weekly meeting and engages in regular therapeutic parenting consultancy sessions with a senior practitioner who can offer an objective perspective on individual children. Further, an external team of consultant psychotherapists, psychiatrists and psychologists meet with the care teams on a regular basis to discuss children in detail and co-ordinate strategies in the recovery process.
Within every home, regular children's meetings are held at which the children are empowered to contribute ideas to influence the care they receive. Each child also has individual time with an Independent Person who visits the house every four to five weeks as part of the complaints procedure.
Every home is inspected and registered by the Commission for Social Care Inspectorate (CSCI). In addition, an Independent Social Work Consultant visits each home on a monthly basis to provide a thorough inspection and report in line with Regulation 33 of the Children's Homes Regulations, 2001.
Therapy
We offer therapy to every child living at SACCS as an integral part of an individual Recovery Treatment Programme. All regional offices are equipped with specially designated therapy suites, separate to the child's home and the child is taken by a member of the care staff, usually the Key Carer.
After an initial therapeutic assessment, a decision is made about the most suitable therapist for the child to support the recovery process.
Each child has an individual therapy plan, as part of their individual recovery treatment programme, normally involving a child receiving weekly therapy sessions. This plan is continually updated and reviewed to reflect the child's current needs.
The Therapist works on the relationship between the child's inner world and external realities. Within the safety if the therapy relationship, the child begins to feel comfortable enough to externalise their feelings and share parts of their experiences. Through this process, the therapist is able to understand the survival of trauma they have suffered and adapt to the placements and associated losses subsequently experienced. Understanding these psychological defences, the therapist is able to help the child to re-process past experiences, within their current cognitive ability, and place their past into perspective, so that they are able to progress and develop healthily.
We have a proven track record of children engaging deeply in the therapeutic relationship and of this work leading to very successful recovery outcomes.
Life Story Work
At SACCS, we believe that life story work is an integral factor in recovery whilst a child is living with us. We have a specialist life story team who are experienced in working with the children to produce an in depth and well researched Life Story Book. We are committed to be the very best in delivering recovery for traumatised children. Every child at SACCS is allocated a life story worker who liaises closely with the child's key-carer to facilitate communication with the child regarding their life events and those of their family.
The Life Story process enables each child, with the support of a life story worker, to understand the past, confront distorted thinking and accept themselves for who they are. Helping traumatised children develop the story of their life and the lives of those closest to them is the key to understanding their past experiences.
Life Story is an effective tool which supports Recovery of children from their early experiences of abuse. Its process is dependant on high skill levels of communication from the professionals involved enabling the children to talk about their experiences in a safe and contained environment.
The life story process consists of three stages:
- Information collation: which involves members of the life story team working closely with the child's key carer compiling factual information about the child's past.
- Internalisation: involves the life story worker sharing the gathered information with the child in such a way that the child has an opportunity express their feelings and reframe some distorted thinking about past experiences.
- The Life Story Book itself, each child will leave SACCS with a comprehensive life story book which will be a reflection of their experiences and provide a real point of reference in their future years.
Education
At SACCS we believe inclusion within mainstream provision is a child's human right. Exclusion from mainstream education not only prevents a child from being part of a community and a culture, it suggests to the child that they are different and 'not good enough'.
We further believe all children have a fundamental need to feel accepted and normal, one of the most damaging things we can do to a traumatised child is to make them feel different. Once the break is made and a child with special educational needs is excluded from their peers, it becomes far more difficult to re-establish them within the mainstream of life in future.
However, at the point of Referral or Admission to SACCS it is acknowledged that not all children will be able to access mainstream education. For these children SACCS currently offer educational support and assistance via a DFES registered and inspected specialist unit. This provision has proven to be successful in supporting both children into mainstream education placements, and or children who have been excluded from school either prior to placement or whilst placed at SACCS.
We have developed a strong cooperative working partnership with all local schools and hence have an exceptionally low rate of school exclusions. Our children's school attendance and performance improves, considerably during the treatment phase.
Contact
SACCS have a vast experience of assessing contact need and agreeing with individual Social Workers and other professionals the appropriate levels of contact that children should have with siblings, parents, family members and other important people in the child's life.
We continually listen to the child's wishes and assess and promote contact at a level appropriate to their therapeutic needs. Each child has a contact plan and agreement drawn up through consultation with the child's Social Worker, outlining the recommended frequency, duration and nature of contact (i.e. direct or indirect). Contact is regularly reviewed to monitor it's continued benefit to the child.
It is often necessary for contact sessions to be held at a neutral venue in a town away from the place where the child lives and we provide a range of venues, which are conducive to safe contact sessions. Comprehensive written contact reports are completed following each contact.
In addition to providing normal supervised contact, children often need an opportunity to explore the past by asking questions of a parent and receiving direct answers. The child is empowered to ask these questions during therapeutic contact sessions. We have vast experience and skills in supervising 'therapeutic relationship closures' between children and relatives. Detailed contracts are drawn up to structure the contact sessions, for an individual child.
Equal Opportunities
We oppose all forms of discrimination on grounds of racial origin, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability, age, social class or any other classification. Cultural and Racial Issues.
We are committed to a pro-active approach to anti-racism and promote a culture in the organisation where diversity is respected and celebrated.
We strive to create an environment where differences in background, religious belief or racial origin are respected and celebrated in our children, their families, our staff, our colleagues and the community.
We endeavour to develop and maintain strong links with local religious and cultural organisations to enable the children we care for to maintain their cultural and religious identities and to worship as they wish.
Four Stages to Placement
Initial Enquiry
- Basic referral information taken
- SACCS criteria for placement agreed
- Initial Enquiry Assessment completed & Provisional offer letter sent
- Required information requested
- Assessment visit arranged
NB: placement can be achieved within a maximum of 4 weeks.
Assessment Visit
- Interview social worker and/or relevant professionals
- SACCS Pre-admission assessment completed
- Collection of information as per requested Required Information list
- Completion of IPA by Home Manager
- Further visits by Home Managers can be arranged
- Social Worker visit to SACCS
Post Assessment
- Completion of Pre-Admission Assessment
- Placement discussion meeting
- Feedback to social worker
- Funding available
Child's Moving in Plan
- Head of Contracts to confirm placement in writing
- Moving in plan agreed
- Initial visit to Child to share SACCS Welcome book
If you have a child to place: 08000 32 30 31 or E-mail: saccs@saccs.co.uk
