A CHILDREN’S home where an autistic teenager died after staff failed to spot drugs and alcohol could close.
Blackburn with Darwen Council has unveiled proposals to convert Cherry Tree children’s home into an adolescent support unit (ASU), offering short breaks and outreach support to young people aged 11 to 17 who are most at risk of coming into care.
Danny Sewell-French, 16, was found dead in his bedroom at Cherry Tree in October 2016.
The change is one of a raft of proposals put forward for the future of care services in the borough.
If approved, ASU capacity would increase from 55 with 20 of these receiving regular short breaks to 75 with 25 receiving regular short breaks.
The current ASU base at Lytham Road would be retained as a satellite base.
New staff roles would be introduced across the residential service to ensure that the service has the staffing capacity required to manage young people with very complex needs.
One on Whalley New Road would continue to operate as a four-bed children’s home for young people whose care plan is long term residential care.
Another on Whalley New Road would become surplus to requirements and reviewed as a council asset.
The report states: “Staff at Cherry Tree have struggled to recover from the death of a young person in their care in 2016 and have been increasingly unable to manage the complex and challenging behaviours of adolescents admitted to the home.
“Despite extensive training, support and a period of closure it is clear that the skills base of staff required to manage this cohort of young people has not developed to the extent required.”
Council bosses say the changes could potentially lead to redundancies if staff are unable to retrain to adapt to the new roles.
Funding for the proposal will be found from the combined current budgets of the ASU and Cherry Tree and the council says no additional funding is required to staff the expanded ASU.
And staffing implications at Whalley New Road will also be met from existing resources.
A report detailing the proposals states: “It is possible that additional costs may arise from a reduction in residential capacity.
“It is anticipated that these costs will be offset by future savings to be realised from having Whalley New Road at full occupancy, reducing the number of adolescents coming into the care system and developing the support offer to foster carers so that more are willing to offer adolescent placements.”
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