Well done to two of our young people who recently travelled to London to record a podcast for the In My Opinion (IMO) project. The podcast covers their views and experiences of care and will be released in the New Year. They also took part in an animated project for IMO at the same time. It is a considerable achievement for the young people to get involved in such projects and I look forward to downloading and listening to the podcast (it will be available on the IMO website).

Christmas celebrations took place at our Congleton School yesterday with a traditional turkey dinner followed by presentations, awards and plenty of fun. Everyone was invited to come along and office staff joined care staff, teachers and young people at the festive table. A big thank you goes to Sam for organising and preparing the lovely food, which was enjoyed by all.

Well done to Emma and her team in this Bedfordshire home, as well as the young people and everyone else involved "behind the scenes" on the recent Ofsted rating of "Outstanding" in all areas. These ratings are not easy to achieve and this result is testament to the hard work and child focused care of Emma and her team in making a difference to the young persons' lives. These are some of the strengths mentioned:

- Children who have experienced significant trauma gradually learn to trust and build positive relationships with the staff and one another

- The children have extremely good education attendance and make significant academic progress

- Regular therapeutic guidance from a clinical team enhances the staff's practice

- The manager is extremely dedicated to her work and is an inspirational leader.

What a fantastic result!

We are delighted to announce that Dove Cottage, one of our Bedford homes, has been judged "Outstanding" in its recent Ofsted inspection.

One of the comments made was that Dove Cottage feels as close to a home as the inspector had ever seen before from a children’s home, with a family feel and so many little touches that make it a great home. It is sometimes difficult to quantify some of these small touches, which is what makes it increasingly more difficult to achieve an "Outstanding" judgement. Well done to Emma and her team on this fantastic achievement.

Below is just a sample of the positive feedback given:

The full report is available on request