Hampshire County Council opening residential home for children

Hockley House is being created from buildings owned by Hampshire County Council in Romsey

A new residential centre for children with complex behavioural and mental health needs is expected to open in the autumn.

Hockley House is being created from buildings owned by Hampshire County Council in Romsey. 

Previously Hayter House in Hayter Gardens, it recently operated as an adults day centre and a register office, but had been sitting vacant.

It will house three children aged between 12 and 17 and associated staff.

It is for children who need care that parents or guardians are unable to provide, intended to stabilise them and enable them to move either back home or into shared care accommodation.

The council agreed last summer to spend £1.2m converting the buildings.

Placements are expected to last about six to nine months.

The home will have three self-contained maisonettes, with a communal family kitchen, dining area and outdoor spaces.

'Therapeutic'

Stephanie How, the council's area director in the children's service department, said it was an "answer to a gap in the service delivery across health and children social care".

Area director Kieran Lyons, during a children's and families advisory panel on Monday, said: "This is an exciting opportunity for us to create something different from what we have now.

"We are hoping that with this therapeutic model, which will have a lot of psychological and psychiatric input, we can manage these children in a different way that requires less staff, and hence it would be less intrusive for children."

Service lead manager Helen Gunniss said it could consist of children who have "suffered suicide attempts, self-harming, hospital admission, difficulty controlling themselves, and a tendency to aggressiveness and violence".

Councillor Steve Foster said the initiative would "provide ways for young people who are troubled to have the opportunity not to be institutionalised, which is one of the fundamental problems of the current models".

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