More children in care to live in 'family style' homes

The new homes are co-designed by people with care experience

Three more houses are to be adapted into "family-style" children's homes under a £3m plan.

Each home will be co-designed by young people with care experience and will be run under Somerset Council's Homes and Horizons scheme, which already has 16 children living in eight houses.

Council leaders said the new houses will allow more children in care to move back to their home county.

A council report stated that children already living in the homes have "improved engagement in education - with 100% of the cohort in education - and notable improvements in emotional health and wellbeing and peer relationships".

The project is a partnership between the council, the charity Homes2Inspire and Somerset NHS Foundation Trust.

The first home opened in February 2023 with the eighth opening in August this year.

Young people living in the homes may be verbally aggressive, have mental health issues or self-harming behaviours.

They are supported round-the clock by a team of live-in staff with experience in mental health, therapy, and social work.

It is a departure from what has been the trend across the sector over recent decades, which has seen fewer council-run residential children's homes and greater reliance on private providers, which can often mean young people are sent far away from where they live.

Some Somerset children in residential care are living more than 20 miles (32km) outside of the county, a report shows,

Excluding set-up costs, the model has saved the council £5.2m over the past two years, as the authority has not needed to pay for more expensive placements in private or unregistered children's homes.

The three new homes will be paid for with £1.5m of funding from the Department for Education and £1.5m which the council will borrow.

The three new homes are expected to save £876,000 from the children's social care revenue budget over the next three years, the reported stated.

As well as financial savings, council leaders said the project had produced "significant positive outcomes for Somerset's most vulnerable children".