Lewes Councillors In 'Discrimination' Row Over Seaford Children's Home

The operators of a children’s home set to open in Seaford say they were ‘saddened’ at comments made by councillors.

Last week, Lewes District Council’s planning committee approved proposals to convert a house in Seaford into a residential home providing therapeutic care for up to five vulnerable children. 

While approved, the team behind the application has expressed frustration at some of the discussion had by the committee before it was narrowly approved, five votes to four.

Susannah Pascoe, 37, director of operations for Rubicon Children’s Home, said:

“We were really saddened at the level of obvious discrimination from some of the members of the panel. 

“Some of the comments that were made were not rooted in fact; they seemed very anecdotal and really nothing to do with the planning considerations as far as we understand them. 

“Our expectation was that members of the panel would be able to take a view that was based on an open perspective given the evidence in front of them. There was a comment that the garden was a yard. The garden is a very similar size to another property that we have, but we also have chosen the property based on the fact it has an amazing access to open spaces. 

“Our children in our other service is about a 10 minute walk from the beach. Every day in the holidays they are at a different beach and outside and enjoying themselves. They have the resource of an adult being able to go, ‘right, what amazing thing are we going to be able to do today.’

“We have all of these opportunities for them, they are not just staying in the garden when it’s nice weather.”

The home planned by Rubicon is deeply specialised, intended to provide therapeutic care for its children beyond that found in a typical children’s home. The group currently runs another such home in Herne Bay, Kent. 

During the meeting, the committee heard how there was a national shortage of such facilities, meaning that local children needing that sort of care can currently be placed a long distance from their families and support networks. 

Ms Pascoe said:

“We are in a much better situation as a sector than we were ten years ago, but there is definitely, I feel, still a lack of service provision. 

“On some days we can get a hundred referrals through. We have five spaces and children are with us long term so it is not very often we have a space. 

“People call us from all around the country and say ‘we’ve heard about your good work and we think you are the place we would like to place our child.’ We have to say we don’t have a place probably coming up for about a year.”

The home would be geared towards taking local children, primarily from East Sussex and Brighton. 

It would take in children between the ages of eight and 12, although the children could potentially remain until their 18th birthday. 

Ms Pascoe said such a situation was unlikely however, as children would typically only stay at the home for between two and three years on average. 

She said:

“I would never envisage this home being in a position where we were supporting several 18-year-olds. The way it works is we can look after a children until the day before their 19th birthday. 

“However, our aim is to take children up until the age of 12 on admission. What that would mean is, if they were 11 when they came to us and they were working really well, they wouldn’t have to move on until they were ready to do that. 

“You can do whatever care planning you want but ultimately a child takes whatever time they take to get ready to manage and move on in a positive way.”

She added:

“Having five older teenagers in a residential home would make for a really challenging environment. It would not be right for a setting like Seaford. 

“If you were going to do that well, you would want to be in town with loads of access to other resources with teenagers that were managing really well and able to go out and spend time out. 

“That would not be right for the home that we have and that is not our specialism.”

One common concern raised by both councillors and local residents was around potential “noise and disturbance” from the home; an argument disputed by Rubicon.  

Ms Pascoe said:

“It’s a real shame that due to confidentiality and the vulnerability of our children that we can’t introduce people to the kids we work with already. I think that would really demonstrate that there is nothing to be afraid of. 

“When I walk into our home in Kent I am often nearly knocked off my feet by children who are trying to get hugs in first. For all intents and purposes, they are your average child of that age. They love to play, they love to dance, they love to sing. 

“They do all the normal kid stuff, but at times when they struggle they need lots of effort from the team to feel safe in their surroundings. We very rarely get a child who says, ‘right, I don’t feel safe therefore I will go outside into the community where I will feel even less safe.’

“So as far as anti-social behaviour goes I really don’t feel like we are at any more risk than an average family in having an impact on our neighbours. In fact I would say we are probably less risk, because of the amount of adults we have around to support our children and to manage that. 

“Children’s homes used to have a really bleak history and I think there is still a lot of lack of understanding about how homes operate now.

“We are absolutely determined to change people’s perception of our kind of service simply by being good neighbours, by running effective services and by getting great outcomes for our children.”