Admission Enquiry
Local authority placing teams get in touch with our operations team, either by phone or email to discuss our availability.
If you’d like contact us, please call 01282 685473 or email office@lifechangecare.co.uk.
Referrals and Admissions
Our process for accepting new children into our care.
At Life Change Care we make sure to adhere strictly to legislative guidelines and our own personal ethos concerning the ethical treatment of children and young people. We do this to ensure that acceptable standards of safeguarding are met, while also setting a further example that those in our care should be exempt from any unnecessary turmoil in the arduous and often distressing process of moving to a new placement.
The majority of our referrals come to us through the local authority placement teams. These are received and processed initially by our operations team, who monitor these requests to filter out those which are incompatible with our terms of service and conduct initial risk assessments on the remainder for viability. Potential cases are then forwarded to the Management team of a home in which we have a vacancy for further approval.
Please see the summary below for a more detailed breakdown of our admissions process for successful referrals. In line with our policies and procedures, we are regrettably unable to accept emergency referrals, though we would be willing to discuss the possibility of a future placement for a child undergoing an imminent move as a more permanent solutions once they have transitioned into their new placement.
Pre-Admission Assessment
If we have a bed available and the prospective young person is compatible (e.g. female and within age range for a female-only adolescents’ home), the placing commissioners will send the documentation over for review by the Registered Manager of the home.
These documents will include the young person’s initial referral sheet, but the Placement Officer will also need to contact the young person’s Social Worker to procure any other files that provide necessary context for their presenting behaviours, such as risk assessments, chronologies of incidents while in care, and psychological assessments, where applicable.
The Social Worker may also wish to contact the Operations Team directly over the phone to provide verbal context surrounding the young person’s needs and risks.
Expression of Interest
The Registered Manager will review this information and, if appropriate, express interest in the placement. In accordance with our policies and procedures, no member of the Life Change Care team may make a formal offer at this stage.
From this point the Registered Manager, the young person’s Social Worker and the Social Workers for the other young people currently in placement must meet to conduct a collective risk assessment of the young person.
Formal Offer of Placement
Once all involved are satisfied, and the Registered Manager has had the opportunity to meet the young person in their current placement, a formal offer of placement can be made.
The other documents mentioned in the admissions policy will still need to be signed before the child can be moved in.
Information & Referrals
If you wish to learn more about our provision, or are interested in contacting us with a referral, please email our Operations Team on office@lifechangecare.co.uk.
