Lyth Hill
Lyth Hill is a large
bungalow set in a rural location approximately five miles from the centre
of Shrewsbury and is registered to accommodate up to four children. The
local area is well served by both by primary and secondary schools and
other community facilities.
The young people living at Lyth Hill will generally be aged between eight and fourteen years when they first arrive and will frequently have had a number of previous placement breakdowns that have, in part, been attributed to their demanding behaviour, also specialising in eating disorders / self harm / mental health issues.Working with Attachment in mind, Lyth Hill provides group living within a consistent, predictable, nurturing and stimulating environment that goes some way to help children to develop a more balanced way of dealing with the world, to begin to use information from both emotions and cognition in a flexible way. We understand this to be an emotionally 'holding' environment that gives the young people the experience that their difficult, disturbing and un-containable emotions can in fact be held and contained, and so represents for the child the important and often missing primary experience that leads to developing a sense of trust and the ability to think and feel. This is the general therapeutic milieu that enables the growing sense of self-worth that is necessary for participation in therapy.
Group living deals with emotion, but does not demand an emotional commitment from the child to the adults. Rather, we would seek to help the young people develop some emotional literacy through the provision of warmth, high expectation and high explanation. Predictable care from a team of adults will, over time, help young people better manage their anxiety arousal, and experience that interactions with others can be predictable. Consistent availability, a pervading sense of unconditional positive regard and a nurturing response to need, (over time) counterbalance the primary experience of unavailable adults and allows for a healthy development of self-esteem and self-worth. The structured nature of the social-emotional environment allows for the experience of positive social interactions, the introduction of positive affect into play and an increasing (cognitive) appreciation of consequences and responsibility for our own actions. The use of precise language is very important when communicating with traumatised children.
We have developed a sense of communication difficulty that is embedded in disruptive and challenging behaviours and in response to this have cultivated a careful form of working that allows us to empathetically communicate through their distress and demonstrate 'attunement' towards them, through acceptance, curiosity and empathy. The constant reassurance that insecurely attached children need, is woven into scripts that reaffirm this empathetic understanding and defuses their ability to draw adults into conflict laden stimulus-response scenarios. Linking to this general therapeutic milieu is therapeutic work from our Creative Therapists. As well as contributing to maintenance of effective group work of the staff team our Therapeutic Services oversee Life Story Work and undertake a planned program of creative therapy designed to address specific issues for residents.
The staff team consists of a Registered Manager, two Senior Residential Childcare Workers and six Residential Childcare Workers who work closely with professional colleagues in plans designed to support an eventual move to a family placement setting or, if this proves impossible a longer-term residential placement culminating in the creation of a 'Leaving Care (Pathway) Plan'. Whilst we attempt to arrange admission to local schools in most cases the Company's own educational resources are available to the children living in Lyth Hill.
