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The Director General of Health has said that a specialist therapeutic facility for struggling children, which recently had to close just months after its launch due to lack of referrals from Government, “came too early” – but it may have a future as healthcare reform gets underway.
Drug and alcohol rehabilitation charity Silkworth opened ‘Hope House’ in March in the former Brig-Y-Don children’s home to provide a four-week therapeutic residential programme for young people experiencing emotional distress or struggling with addiction, mental health issues and eating disorders.
Grilled by Public Accounts Committee Chair Deputy Inna Gardiner over the loss of the facility at a hearing yesterday, Health boss Caroline Landon said she had the “pleasure” of visiting Hope House, describing it as a “great facility with lots and lots of potential.”
Pictured: Silkworth spent £250,000 and five years on the creation of Hope House.
"I think hope House was a great facility, I had the pleasure of seeing it and I think it very much had a place within the delivery of island health care but it’s just working through what that place was but from our perspective," Ms Landon said. "It was a great facility with lots and lots of potential."
When Deputy Gardiner asked why it hadn't worked out and why the facility had been lost, the health boss said it had come “too early” and that a need might later be identified as the Jersey Care Model – a new healthcare model that prioritises care in the community rather than institutional settings – is implemented.
"From HCS perspective, we didn’t have any provision we could necessarily put in there for an acute perspective. I think Hope House came a bit too early for HCS as we move down care model absolutely I think we could provision service within there but we didn’t have any services within HCS that we were able to move there.
Some – including leading local children’s rights lawyer Advocate Darry Robinson – had previously suggested that Hope House should be used as an alternative to Greenfields, a youth detention facility which had been used for children in emotional distress during the pandemic.
Ms Landon said she had not been involved in conversations around the use of Hope House in this way – Health is responsible for over-18s’ mental health provision, while children’s mental health services fall into CYPES’ remit – but said that there wasn’t any requirement for the facility within adult care.
She then said it could "absolutely" and "definitely" could be included going forward as the department moves towards the Care Model.
Pictured: Caroline Landon said Hope House was "a great facility with lots and lots of potential".
PAC member Constable Andy Jehan subsequently sought the views of CYPES’ Director General. Mark Rogers, who also attended the hearing.
Mr Rogers said his view was in line with the comments recently shared by the Education Minister, Deputy Scott Wickenden, in the States Assembly.
“We place children on the basis of assessed needs,” he explained. "The provision at Hope House, I think only on a couple of occasions may have been suitable to meet that need.
"Most of the need we have in our age of care and children in care population is of a different nature and Hope House was registered with the care commission for a specific programmed we would have only needed very infrequently," Mr Rogers added.
Express spoke to Silkworth CEO Jason Wyse about his concerns that Government 'gatekeeping' is stopping the island's most vulnerable children access the best quality therapeutic care...
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