Statement of purpose

(Health and Social Care Act 2008)

Contents

Apricot Centre CIC, legal status, address and other contact details        2

Introduction to Apricot Centre CIC - Wellbeing Service and Biodynamic Farm - The organisation and it’s ethos        3

Statement of Purpose for the Apricot Centre Wellbeing Service for Children and Families        3

Aims and Objectives of the Apricot Centre Wellbeing Service for Children and Families        4

Organisational Structure and Management        5

Responsible Person        6

Registered Manager        7

Our full list of policies, procedures & trainings        7

Governance, Supervision and Training        8

Description of the Location        9

Directors Information        9

Apricot Centre CIC, legal status, address and other contact details

Introduction to Apricot Centre CIC - Wellbeing Service and Biodynamic Farm - The organisation and it’s ethos

Operating Name: Apricot Centre CIC

Service Name: Apricot Centre Wellbeing Service

Core Purpose: ‘To cultivate sustainability in lives, livelihoods and land’

The Apricot Centre CIC began in 2010 on an organic farm in Essex with the aim of bringing together therapeutic work with young people with a Biodynamic/Organic farm. We are a not-for-profit social enterprise /Community Interest Company formed in July 2010. In 2017 the farm base and administrative base were relocated to Huxhams Cross Farm in Devon. This is the only administrative base for the organisation from which we also continue to manage services for children, families and communities of East Anglia, Devon, and London.

The ethos of the Apricot Centre is very much aligned with the Permaculture ethics of

‘earth care’, ‘people care’ and ‘fair share’, which are also found in most traditional cultures which live in relative balance with their environment. In addition to these ethics is an important principle from Process Oriented Psychology of being guided by feedback and nature. Inherent in this attitude is that both farm and human systems have evolving processes and natures which can be facilitated and responded to in the work we do ‘to cultivate sustainability in lives, livelihoods and the land’.

Statement of Purpose for the Apricot Centre Wellbeing Service for Children and Families

The core purpose of the Apricot Centre is ‘to cultivate sustainability in land, lives and livelihoods’. The Apricot Centre Wellbeing Service approaches this through facilitating and supporting children, families and communities towards increased wellbeing. What brings a sense of wellbeing encompasses a diverse range of experience such as; finding greater meaning/sense of purpose, a sense of belonging or identity, good relationships, self-esteem and confidence, enjoyment of and ability to learn, ability to deal with stress or conflict, feeling a part of family or community, making a contribution, having a job, healing or dealing with the impact of adverse life experiences such as; abuse, neglect or trauma, a sense of enjoyment playfulness or creativity, knowing your abilities, experience of love or compassion towards self and others, a connection with nature, etc.. We use various methods to measure wellbeing within the service, however we honour the most fundamental sense of wellbeing as being guided by positive feedback in which an individual or family feels congruent with their nature.

The Apricot Centre Wellbeing Service provides professional therapeutic and mentoring services for children and families in ‘non-clinical’ therapeutic environments.  We are a holistic service in that we believe that sustainability and wellbeing are most likely when individuals feel supported and engaged within their families and communities. For this reason we work at many-levels with individuals, relationships and systems.

The Wellbeing Service rooted within a farm and nature base. It is our intention where possible to enhance our work with children, families and communities through positive experiences in nature. The Apricot Centre at Huxhams Cross Farm is a productive biodynamic farm producing high quality food for the local community. The 34 acre site provides a variety of nature environments whereby we can connect young people with nature and food. As a predominantly rural based service additional sites and venues are hired in the counties within which we work. The interface of wellbeing and farm/nature is a unique aspect of our overall approach to sustainability, wherein we value and acknowledge the wide ranging benefits of a positive human relationship with nature.

Aims and Objectives of the Apricot Centre Wellbeing Service for Children and Families

• To enhance wellbeing in young people and families with complex needs, through the provision of high quality specialist therapeutic and mentoring services in East Anglia, Devon/Torbay and parts of London.
• To provide an Adoption Support service to Looked-after and Adopted children (LAAC - LAC, SGO,CAO, ICO & Adoption), young people, parents/carers and families. This work is with professionals informed with an understanding of attachment, trauma and child development, as well as system theories.
• To provide high quality initial assessments, multidisciplinary assessments and bespoke therapeutic packages.
• Our ‘Edge of Potential’ approach aims to support young people and families struggling ‘at the edge of care’ or at the ‘edge of accessing mainstream education’. Through working with disturbances at the developmental ‘edges’ of experience we aim to tap into the potential through a mixture of individual, relational and systemic work, as well as mentoring activities and group work.
• Our therapeutic mentoring approach is aimed at young people who are struggling to attend mainstream education, many of whom have Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND), and involves therapeutically supervised mentors working as a team with between 1-6 young people over a period of time greater than 6 weeks. This work aims to help the young person and their family to deal with emotional states, conflicts, relationships and their ability to access zones of learning and development. This work can take place in our nature-based environment and within the community.
• To deliver ‘nature-based’ wellbeing work from our nature bases and Social Forestry area, engaging young people in group activities or projects involving participation in nature. This work is usually funded by grants or from schools, private individuals or local authorities.  Projects and groups mainly focus around particular areas of need such as for; children in deprived/ marginalised communities with little access to nature, children with autism, children struggling with attending school, home-schooled children, schools developing a Forest School.
• To help communities build resilience to adversity, to support young people and families with wellbeing and mental health through enhancing the potential within the community and deepening community relationships. This approach will commonly be delivered in collaboration with other partners such as; Plymouth, Norfolk, Suffolk local authorities, and key leaders and members of the local community.
• The Apricot Centre aims to make a proportion of wellbeing services available at a reduced rate or no cost for those who are financially disadvantaged through our wellbeing fund, charitable funds or local government funding. In addition there will be funded as well as voluntary and community activities on the farm with health and wellbeing benefits.

Organisational Structure and Management

The Apricot Centre has developed an efficient lean business model which operates with minimal hierarchy and high quality management and governance. We have 7  Directors, 5 Managers (all based at Huxhams Cross Farm), 2 Clinical Leads, 2.5 WTE administrator/finance person, 5 WTE farm workers, 24 therapists and mentors. Our business structure enables us to provide responsive, resilient and flexible services during times of turbulence and change.

Our administrative and leadership processes have been streamlined, and we dedicate important time to practitioner reflection through team supervisions and support. We have designed and built our own SuiteCRM record management system which enables us to be flexible and offer services to rural communities. And we have developed a Report Generating and Performance Dashboard to report on therapeutic experience. Our Wellbeing Service Manager has completed the 2 years Level 5 Diploma in Management and Leadership (Exeter College) towards improvement at all levels of the organisation and service delivery.

Our wellbeing staff are recruited according to safe recruitment procedures. We carefully vet and contract experienced registered and insured therapists who are dedicated to working within a multidisciplinary team approach.

• Finance Director: Paul (Bob) Mehew
• Farm Director: Marina Brown-O’Connell
• Registered Manager & Wellbeing Director: Mark O’Connell
• Education Director: Rachel Phillips
• Non-Executive Directors: Matt Harvey, Liliane Uwimana, and Rhodri Samuel
• Facilitator of Board of Directors: Amir Qureshy

Farm Staff:

• Biodynamic Farmer - Dave Wright - Full-time
• Marina Brown-O’Connell & Paul (Bob) Mehew also work as part of the farm team
• Finance Person and Administrator: WTE 2.5 days per week

Wellbeing Staff:

• Registered Manager & Child Psychotherapist: Mark O’Connell - Full-time
• Responsible Individual: Amir Qureshy - Part-Time
• Wellbeing/Education Manager: Rachel Phillips - Full-time
• Clinical Lead: Alexandra Thomas - Full-Time
• Clinical Lead: Anna Lidzey - Contracted part-time approx 28 hours per month
• Therapeutic Practitioners:  24 contracted therapeutic practitioners - Psychologists, Psychotherapists, Art/Music/Drama Therapists, Counsellors and other registered practitioners.
• Therapeutic Mentors: 10 Therapeutic Mentors are contracted and have experience working with young people and some therapeutic background or understanding
• Farm Apprentices: 3 Farm Apprentices working 4 days per week on a rotational basis with different roles on the farm

Responsible Person

The Responsible Individual  is: Amir Qureshy

Qualifications: Dip Social Work (Plymouth University), Advanced Dip Social Work/Approved Social Worker Mental Health (Portsmouth University), Registered with Social Work England, NHS Aspiring Top Leaders Programme in association with Exeter Business School (University of Exeter).

Amir has over thirty years experience both as a successful senior operations manager, and as a frontline practitioner within the health and social care sector. Amir has worked both in the children and adults sector and in the public and private sector in permanent and locum roles. Amir has always wanted to make a difference and through continual service improvement has led and developed nationally accredited services to be recognised as ‘Outstanding’ by the CQC.

Registered Manager

The Registered Manager: Mark O’Connell - Child Psychotherapist

Qualifications: Mark holds a Post-graduate equivalent diploma in Process Oriented Psychology (RSPOP Zurich/UK) (UKCP reg with Processwork UK/HIPS) later grandparented by UKCP as Child Psychotherapist (UKCP reg with Northern Guilds/HIPS), a diploma in Family Systems Therapy (Plymouth Uni), a Post-grad Diploma in Attachment and Adoption (2010 Family Futures Consortium, Greenwich Uni). He holds a Level 5 City & Guilds Diploma in Leadership & Management (Exeter College). Level 2 & Level 3 Safeguarding Training. Safer Recruitment Training.

Experience: Mark is a Founding Director of the Apricot Centre. He has managed two NHS services between 2009-2016 - ‘Trouble Tree’ CAMHS Tier 2 service in Southend/Rayleigh, and the ‘Connect Service’ for Adopted and Looked-after children with the Norfolk & Suffolk Foundation Trust (NSFT). He has worked with young people and families since 1991 in residential children's homes (Devon and East Anglia) and then in private practice and with the NHS. Mark is a founder developer of the Apricot Centre with his wife Marina O’Connell.

Our full list of policies, procedures & trainings

See full list of policies, procedures and trainings (with review dates). Our latest policies can all be found on the website at apricotcentre.co.uk. A Health and Safety Review was completed by Marina O’Connell in June 2022 and the team were briefed on November 3rd 2022 onsite and practitioners received Google Classroom training subsequently. A benchline review of all policies and procedures was undertaken in September 2022 in preparation for an Ofsted inspection.

Schedule

Governance, Supervision, Training and Research

As a Community Interest Company (Not for Profit Social Enterprise) the work of the Apricot Centre and service delivery is overseen by a board of Directors. We are have recently extended the board with further Directors from within the local community with experience in business, mental health and sustainable farming.

Apricot Centre staff are inducted, supervised and trained according to the level of their responsibilities within the organisation. Therapeutic Practitioners and mentors are employed according to safe-recruitment practices and their qualifications, registrations, DBS, and professional indemnity insurances are shown to be valid at all times.

The Registered Manager, The Responsible Individual, Clinical Leads  and Education Manager maintain up to date level 3 (or 4) safeguarding training. All therapeutic practitioners are required to have a level 2 safeguarding training within the last 2 years.

The Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL) is Alexandra Thomas supported by appropriately trained and experienced managers.

All working practitioners and mentors are required to attend a minimum of 8 peer team supervisions per year, receive regular 1 to 1 case supervision, and are required to maintain regular professional clinical supervision relevant to their practice and registration requirements. Practitioners who have a very low caseload are given individual supervision within ACWS 6 - weekly.

ACWS provides core in-house training on the following topics: Trauma/Attachment and Child Development, Working with an awareness of Rank Power & Privilege, Working therapeutically with Feedback. We also provide some First-aid training, and bespoke trainings on specialist areas such as; Lifestorywork, Sensory-integration approaches, Working with Suicide.

RESEARCH

Description of the Location

The centre of our administrative support and management, as well as the core therapeutic and mentoring work all take place from Huxhams Cross Farm in Devon. The Apricot Centre venue is on the farm site and specifically designed with good access and spaces for therapeutic work and training, as well as for team / management meetings and supervision. We have recently installed additional therapeutic accommodation in the form of a Mokki to support on site work.

Our wider services are coordinated and supported from this core base and involve therapists working in East Anglia and Devon in various hired locations which we vet for suitability according to the service being offered. At The Apricot Centre venue there is good parking available and good wheelchair access. Toilet facilities are designed for disabled access and use. There is a lockable office with lockable filing cabinets for sensitive and confidential materials to run the service.

The surrounding environment is a working biodynamic farm producing high quality food for the local community. Young people are supervised at all times while on site, and the spaces have been carefully designed with young peoples’ safety in mind.

The Devon base is the foundation of all services whether delivered in Devon or East Anglia. Our practitioners are managed and supervised from the central team in our physical base in Devon. Much of our work is rural based in these areas and therefore we vet and source appropriate venues to work from on a case by case basis, sometimes working within schools or Children’s Centres.

Directors Information

For each director please provide the information below.