The London Secure Children’s Home Review provided strong evidence of the need for a secure children’s home with re-integration / transition accommodation in London in order to better support and improve outcomes for some of London’s most vulnerable children.
London boroughs are leading on proposals to design, build and open a new secure children’s home in London, using funding from the Department for Education. The proposed service will provide up to 24 specialist welfare placements for highly vulnerable children with complex needs. It will also include accommodation for up to 4 children who no longer need to live within a secure environment but will need a period of extra support to help them achieve a positive transition back into the community. London Boroughs will develop and oversee the running of the new provision through the Pan London Vehicle for Children’s Complex Commissioning Ltd (PLV Ltd).
PLV Ltd will also provide a mechanism for future joint commissioning to improve the lives of London’s children.
Programme Goals
This programme will deliver improved access to appropriate and safe local facilities that will provide specialist care, education, and support for London’s most vulnerable children.
The programme will address the following issues:
- Nationally, there is a significant shortage of welfare placements in secure children’s homes provision, and the situation is particularly stark in London as there are no secure children’s homes in the capital.
- Often, places are not available for London children when referrals are made, leading to a wait of several months or the use of alternative, high-cost and less suitable provision.
- When a place is available, despite their complex needs, London’s children who require secure welfare provision are often placed the furthest from their home – on average around 200 miles away, meaning some children lose regular contact with their families, friends and communities.
- When children are placed at this distance it impacts negatively on the outcomes that can be achieved for the child.
Programme Milestones
Delivering a secure children’s home in London remains a key priority for London boroughs and the Department for Education as there is still a national shortage of welfare placements in secure children’s homes and currently there is no service of this kind in London. This means London’s most vulnerable children are waiting several months for a placement, and these are usually hundreds of miles away – far from their families, carers, friends and other people that are important to them. By keeping these children closer to us, here in London, we can provide them with greater support when they are ready to leave secure care and settle back into the community.
Since launching the public pre application consultation on our proposal to deliver a secure children’s home on Lea Bridge Road, Waltham Forest, a great deal of work has been done to develop our design proposals so that they reflect the views of the local community, local planning authority and other key stakeholders.
We were planning to run a second round of consultation and then submit a planning application by the end of September ‘24. This will now be delayed due to the need for further design development and the need to review the project delivery approach in partnership with the Department for Education. We are doing this to give this complex project and our future planning application the greatest chance of success.
The new timelines for the project, including planning application submission will be published once a new date has been established.
Programme partners
Programme Governance and Delivery
