Manager's Blog 5th April 2012

Welcome,

This week the Atkinson is proud to announce the Ofsted approval of major works to the Home. We have upgraded the air-conditioning in all the young people’s bedrooms. We have also upgraded the doors and windows in all the bedrooms, and added desk spaces so the young people can complete homework and keyworking projects in comfort. The addition of modern CCTV in communal areas completes 4 months of hard work from everyone in the Home. My congratulations to all the staff at the Home for their enthusiasm during this period of change.

We can now move forward with our final grant project in partnership with the Deparment for Education – a building extension to improve our young people’s mental health support team facilities and family visit area. We are in the final stages of design with building work scheduled to start later this year.

Over the next two weeks I will be writing our new Restorative Approach Policy for the Home. We have worked really hard to change the overall philosophy of the Home to incorporate restorative approaches in everything we do, improving the positive lifestyle choices of young people along the way. I’ve been distracted this week though, with our Easter holiday programme in full swing. Yesterday we had the local zoo visit the young people with some interesting animals and creatures.. some of which I was glad stayed in their glass boxes!

Next week we have a National Diversity programme coordinator visiting the young people to work on a small multi-cultural project over the coming weeks. Soon after that we will be launching our own ‘Kick it Out’ campaign in the Home in partnership with www.kickitout.org 

Happy Easter!

Pete Spearman, Manager, Atkinson