How quiet, think i prefer the sounds of kids around the house
Just a quick note to say how strangely quite the house is with all young people out for the day to school or college after the summer break. A good achievement for young people, staff and professionals like.
Comming soon – The Hollies
It has been a little later than originally planned but now is the right time given that Harmony House is running well, stable and going in the right direction that it is the right time to be looking to open “The Hollies”.
We are actively looking in the Kirklees, Calderdale,Wakefieldarea for a suitable house to make a home for 2-3 young people with all the space and quality that Harmony House offers.
The aim in to have the home identified, registered and running by late December, or January depending on finding the right property and Ofsted registration.
You will no doubt be kept to date via the blogs and web site, but now I best get back to looking.
Mark
Welcome to another authority
Welcome to our new resident and new professional partnership fromNorth Yorkshire.
The process, planning and execution of the placement, from all parties has been exceptional and should help ourselves to provide the best quality of care to the young person in our care. I look forward to keeping you update with their achievements and progression within Harmony House.
If you wish to discuss any young person that could benefit from our approach, ethos and recognises “Good” care please do not hesitate to be in touch and we can happily discuss this further.
Praising words indeed
I though I must share these words of praise with you from a deputy manager from Calderdale LA, Harmony have had the pleasure to work alongside
….. my involvement with your service has been through supervision of the social worker responsible for XX and XX, I am impressed with your dedication to providing the best, safest service possible. I would highly commend your service to others.
I was very proud to read these words that were sent to the team, as we provided a service to these young people, parents, social worker, deputy manager that we see as only normal and natural to our ethos of quality care.
Importance of your own front door
This month one of our long term residents was ready taken that big next step, with a little of our continued support and advise, into her own home, with her own front door. A great achievement for them and we wish them all the success with this.
We will continue our ethos of offering continued support after leaving Harmony House in what every way we can to help them achieve sucecss now and for the future.
Harmony is able to offer further supported living and semi independent options for male and female, to local authorities that may wish to use our services. We have successfully provided accommodation and varying degrees of support but always with positive results within Kirklees andHalifaxareas.
If you wish to discuss this further with me please do not hesitate to contact ourselfs
Harmony House scores a hat-trick
Hello all,
Just a quick update to say to that today Harmony House had it’s third unannounced Ofsted inspection and I am delighted to say that we have been provisionally been awarded a GOOD grading again.
As always it’s a team effort from all of us as staff and also the children who spoke highly and honestly of the service they receive to the inspector.
In the debriefing session the inspector advised that they felt we had provided sufficient evidence to warrant a GOOD grade in all the areas and outcomes scrutinised during the inspection, and even went so far as to discussed some areas of our service that they felt were immaculate.
I am not going to say anymore than that as you know it’s all provisional so far, so I will wait the report to be QA’d and final version published on the Ofsted site before sending further information on. The link to the most recent report and previous reports will be on the website when it’s made available.
As always we won’t be resting on our laurels and will be looking as to how we can keep the progression of Harmony travelling the right journey and make our service better.
Needless to say I am very proud of the service we provide for our young people and to Julie our manager who has had the reigns for the past few month who has lead and worked alongside the staff team, all of whom helped made this result possible.
Mark
Testimonial from Calderdale Pathways Team
Harmony have had these kind words sent in respect to a supported tenancy service we provided for a young female recently for Calderdale Pathways Team
“Thank you very much indeed for the excellent service you endeavoured to give us in support of JB, in spite of her not wanting to engage we know that the service you were willing to provide would have been exactly what she needed and of the highest quality.
We will be happy to consider Harmony Children’s Services in the future.”
Best wishes
Scandal hit Rochdale Childrens Home. Fundamental failings obvious
I have a great news app that seeks out all news articles related to Childrens homes on the net every day for me to help me keep upto date with happenings in our industry
Today it flagged this article up:- http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/the-venture-capitalists-and-the-scandalhit-childrens-homes-7782676.html
It is about the privately owned Rochdale Childrens home, central to the first Rochdale CSE case. However it is believed this is not connected in anyway to the second recent arrests and subsequent investigations going on regards another group of men, again from the same ethic heritage inRochdale.
I find it hard to believe that such a large organisation, which provided 2:1 care, at a very expensive weekly fee , even for a 2:1 child had to have Ofsted tell them the fundamentals to our industry in a public report that they needed to have some CSE training.
You have to wonder what the placing authority had to say to this when they forwarded on the report to the commissioners.
They have coincidently sold up to another large faceless venture capitalist company days before the obvious guilty verdict was made.
Something you’ll never get from Harmony. Where here for the long term, I have no interest in selling out and compromising our high level of care or ethics for a quick buck. You will always receive a personal and honest service from those running Harmony or those within the homes it operates.
At Harmony we always do things in a professional matter. If possible prior to any new admission or if not, very quickly after placement we, my self included, as a whole staff team undertake extensive training or refresher training on any significant issues or behaviours linked to the individual resident that will benefit their quality and level of care, ensure and support greater safety for them.
These have included CSE training, attachment disorder, substance and alcohol misuse, neglect, self harm and a 2 day behvaiour management course. We will invite relevent professionals and social workers to staff meetings to aid Harmony staff in their information gathering, placement plan writting and allow Harmony to work in a more productive manner with the new resident, and existing residnets.
Staff are encouraged to bring forward any training needs they feel they have in the scheduled 3 weekly supervision meetings they attend and these are discussed and acted upon in a planned and timely manner.
Our registered training provider Orchard Rock http://www.orchardrocktraining.com consistently provides ourselves a very professional and prompt service. We use them as they specialises in health and social care training, have friendly and caring trainers and can tailor the sessions to the individual needs of the residents and staff and not just a one session fits all approach.
If you need to find a placement, or wish for Harmony to look over a referral for a young person between 9-17 who can benefit from our professional approach to residential child care services please do not hesitate to contact myself on 07702 050 890 or at mark.raw@harmonycs.co.uk or alternatively you can contact the home manager Julie Cuttell directly on julie.cuttell@harmonycs.co.uk . If you wish to have a brief look around Harmony you can see the high quality home and facilities offered at our web site www.harmonycs.co.uk and find out more about our services.
Myself and Julie will be attending the forthcoming NCTCC event at Swanick on the 9th and 10th or July. If you wish to meet with ourselves for a coffee and chat about the value for money service Harmony can offer for you as commissioners or social workers for your young people please contact us and we will be happy to meet up at the event.
Mark Raw
Managing Director
A massive “undefeated all season” achievement from my boys & girl football team.
I just have to let you know how proud I am of the achievements of my under Maccabi 9’s football team I jointly coach, the team includes my twin son and daughter.
We play every Sunday in a good standard competitive league and have gone all season undefeated by any team, that’s 18 matches. That has guaranteed the team at least a second place finish, and depending on results of only 1 other team next Sunday, we may win the league winners title this season.
We have found out that no team in our clubs history, or the league’s history has managed this level of performance.
We had our annual end of season meal last night for the team with a special celebration to acknowledge their achievements and awards were given to individuals with different praise, however I was especially proud that my son was awarded the golden boot for most goals scored within our team.
Lets hope we can mirror this type of performance next season and continue on to bigger and better things next season, however what I am most looking forward to is my Sunday morning’s back for a few months till it all starts again next season.
Tony Forster must have been a special type of Home Manager
A lot of admiration for Nicole who is cycling Lands End to John O’Groats in memory of her past childrens home manger. http://www.thisisscunthorpe.co.uk/m-cycling-length-country-memory-Tony/story-15990281-detail/story.html Tony has inspired Nicole to follow a carrer in social services and make big differences to other children in care.
Donations can be made at Nicole’s just giving site at www.justgiving.com/nicolesendtoendchallenge