Young Person at Ty Caredig Residential Children’s Care Home
Background
Ty Caredig is a residential children’s care home provider, which owns residential children’s home across South Wales and supports young people aged seven to seventeen. One of these residential homes is a four-bed placement, where “A” currently resides. Her name has been redacted for confidentiality.
A came to Ty Caredig after multiple breakdowns of placement due to several incidents of absconding. It was reported that the previous placement saw incidents in which A went missing from care (absconded) very frequently, and for days at a time. A has a background of significant neglect in her early childhood.
Intervention
The staff team at Ty Caredig have received a variety of training from the lead behaviour analyst in Draig Behaviour Consultancy. Most notably were the following:
Introduction to trauma-informed care: focussing on attachment theory, the Trauma Recovery Model, and creating safe relationships.
Understanding behaviours of concern: understanding the unmet needs that drive behaviours of concern, and creating a compassionate approach towards understanding behaviour.
Post-incident support: repairing relationships after incidents have occurred, learning and reflecting on what we can do differently in the future.
Outcomes
Both the frequency and duration of A’s missing episodes decreased over time; incidents occurring in April often resulted in A being missing for up to 3 days, whereas the missing episode on the 7th May involved A only missing her curfew by an hour. A has also been engaging more positively with education, and has agreed to the expectation that she is to take part in her education before going to see her friends. As such, it can be observed that the strategy of behavioural momentum has been effective in the gradual integration of expectations over time.
A has since reported that she is happy at Ty Caredig, and that she now trusts and confides in her team.
