Kibble’s Day Services provide a safe, nurturing and secure environment for young people who attend education within the Centre and live at home or in alternative local authority care. Munro is the sister unit to McKechnie unit and staff currently work with up to 17 young people. Munro unit is staffed by a service manager, three child & youth care workers, one annualised hours worker and a classroom support work and an operations manager.
Prior to admission a referral will be made through either the social worker or the educational psychologist. On receiving the paperwork a planning meeting will be convened so that a multi-agency approach can be taken to meeting the young person’s identified needs. The young person and his family would then be introduced to unit staff and given a guided tour of the campus in preparation for the young person’s time at Kibble.
Young people arrive at the unit between 9.00am and 9.30am having been dropped off at school by taxi. Currently youngsters travel from across Renfrewshire, Glasgow, West Dumbartonshire, North Lanarkshire, North Ayrshire and Inverclyde. On arrival the young people are encouraged to have breakfast, relax, play pool, socially interact or watch a DVD before attending school assembly. Staff recognise that this time is crucial in gauging a young person's mood and frame of mind, so youngsters are assessed before going to school and supported to deal with any difficulties.
The young people enjoy a full curriculum with small class sizes within education between 9.30am and 4.00pm; morning and afternoon breaks encourage the young people to interact socially with their peers and staff, promoting positive social skills.
Lunchtimes are a key part of the day within the unit and the young people become part of the wider Day Services group within the large communal dining area. Corrine and Jean, our dedicated catering team ensure that a healthy choice and home cooked meal is available. Lunch breaks allow the young people to enjoy structured and unstructured activities such as five a side football, snooker, pool, walking to the local shops, play or video gaming.
All young people are assigned a designated keyworker who helps them to formulate a placement plan during the first six to eight week period of the placement. This ensures that they identify appropriate levels of intervention to meet the individual needs of the young person and informs the work undertaken with the keyworker. Unit staff are qualified to at least HNC in Social Care and SVQ 3 level and they have additional expertise in areas such as Life Space Crisis Intervention, Safe Crisis Management, Developmental Assets, Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training and Child Protection. This empowers the staff to foster a safe, caring and supportive environment where young people are motivated to invest in their placement and embrace the learning ethos.
Where appropriate, the young person may be referred to our dedicated social education team to undertake cognitive behavioural programmes work or other specialist individual work.
Munro staff work in partnership with other agencies and parents who are provided with weekly reports on the progress being made by the young people. We recognise that the young person does not exist in isolation and home visits and family support is an integral part of service provision
Young people who attend Munro unit are provided with:
Attendance within Munro is consistently between 80 - 90%. Given the youngsters' previous school attendance, this highlights the successful nature of the service. Irregular or inconsistent attendance is addressed through home visits and additional pupil and family support.
As an ever-improving service we are looking to extend our capacity over the next financial year. By late 2008 staff will be training in delivering parenting programmes that will help them to support carers to deal consistently with challenging behaviour. This programme will be delivered to parents of young people who attend the service, who wish to participate.
Additionally we will be looking to develop structured family work over the next two years. This will follow the family assessment framework designed by the Department of Health.
Munro staff recognise that trauma can significantly impact on a young person’s developmental progress, and creative strategies such as unstructured play, are designed to support healthy development. As a learning organisation, Kibble strives to ensure that staff are trained in the most up to date and innovative practices across the social care sector. This is reflected in the success of the service.