Shalamar Children

Shalamar Children’s Homes – Isola, Cairn, and shortly Glebeland – are based in family-sized houses around rural Essex. We are residential children’s homes with a therapeutic approach. Our aim is to resolve issues in young people and not to merely contain them. We achieve this by using attachment-based care and to look for the communication behind any behaviour. We believe behaviour is a form of communication. We would look for the meaning behind all negative behaviour in the young people within our care. From this, we work with our young people helping them to not only to control their negative behaviours, but also attempting to work through the issues which are the cause of these behaviours. Shalamar carers use Dan Hughes’ PACE method to gain a positive attachment with the young people within our care. PACE stands for Playfulness – Acceptance – Curiosity – Empathy. Given time, we aim to create a stable, secure base and safe haven for all young people staying at Shalamar, allowing the space and the confidence to heal and develop. At Shalamar, there are daily community meetings where young people have the opportunity to voice any issues they have with their care, or state how it can be improved. This space allows for the young people to feel listened to, raising their confidence, self-esteem and making them feel valued and cared for. Shalamar’s work looks to change the negative way that young people view themselves and the adults around them. Through attachment-based nurture we restore their self-belief and provide positive experiences with adults who care. We understand that many children who display challenging behaviour have had trauma at some point in their life. This usually manifests itself in emotional developmental delay. Therefore we treat the child at their developmental/emotional age, rather than strict biological age. This creates a realistic and settled environment for the young person who can succeed and receive praise for their work and efforts. We also provide a psychodynamic behavioural approach, which is worked alongside the attachment framework, where we bring the subconscious to the conscious. This allows the young people to understand why they are feeling and acting the way they are and is the first step to taking control of their actions.