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Anchor - Emotional health and wellbeing (Looked after Children)

  • We are a team dedicated to the emotional health and wellbeing of Looked After Children (children in care) from 0-18 years in Worcestershire.

About our service

  • Monday — Friday 9:00 —5:00pm 
  • Phone: 01905 846111

We support the emotional wellbeing of Worcestershire’s looked after children. To do this, we offer specialist attachment and trauma-focused support. We aim to make sure that children thrive with carers who understand them. Our team also support therapeutic placements to help create stability.

We provide support and guidance to the professional networks involved in a child’s care. This might include social workers, schools or residential home workers. This helps the adults around a child to understand how early difficult experiences might impact their development.

The Green Fingers Project is also a part of our team. This project offers therapeutic play, activities and alternative education opportunities. To find out more about Green Fingers, please visit Green Fingers Project | A healthy lifestyles project for 'Looked After Children' and carers.

Our team also includes nurses for Worcestershire’s looked after children. This includes a Named Nurse and Specialist Nurses. The nurses carry out high-quality health assessments and reviews. They give health advice, support and guidance. They can also refer or signpost to other services for further support.

Digital resources and further information

What we do

  • Assessment to make sense of current difficulties and work out what type of support might be most helpful
  • Attachment focused therapeutic parenting support to Kinship, Foster carers and Residential/Outreach Workers
  • Attachment and trauma-focused therapeutic input with children, young people and carers
  • Thinking Space meetings with Social Workers, Fostering Social Workers and Residential Home Staff. For more information, please see Anchor - Thinking Space Leaflet
  • Consultation to teams and referrers on an individual basis.
  • Support to commission therapeutic intervention from independent providers, where relevant or where children are living out of the Worcestershire area

Our service does not support:

  • Children placed with birth parents or birth relatives (excluding Kinship carers)
  • Carers or children placed under Special Guardianship Orders (SGO)
  • Looked After Children placed in Worcestershire by other Local Authorities, with the exception of Health Assessments and Green Fingers (if funding is available)
  • Court based assessments
  • Legal care planning decisions
  • Worcestershire Looked After Children placed outside of Worcestershire

How to refer into the service

We do not accept referrals directly from patients or their carers. Referrals can be made by social workers, through Liquid Logic or by a  CAMHS practitioner or other health professional.

To access the portal please use the link below which will also allow you to access online training and information:

Feedback

If you are a young person or carer who looks after a young person, who has had support from Anchor, your feedback is important to us. Please click the link below to complete our feedback form.

Resources

We have produced a series of videos aimed at professionals that cover the content of our attachment workshops, these are available to view online. The sections are as follows: 

  • Introduction
  • Attachment theory
  • Neurobiology of attachment and trauma
  • Toxic stress
  • Polyvagal
  • Window of tolerance
  • Recovery and repair
  • Reflections and contact details

Please note this resource is password protected. To request the password please email the Trust Communications Team.