Therapeutic and psycological services are available for all children placed with Oak Lodge Residential Service from our consultant psychotherapist and can be commissioned by the placing HSE area as agreed in the child's individual care plan and service level agreement.

Therapeutic Relationships

• Good relationships between staff and young people are critical in contributing to an environment that is caring, supportive and conducive to the young person's learning and growth. It is understood that the staffneed to develop relationships with young people that are based on openness, honesty and respect. Staff will actively work towards developing an athmosphere of belonging and care. Good relationships offer young people the oportuinity to grow and achieve and give a message that they are cared for and respected.

• A staff member working with a young person needs to convey a belief in the young person. Young people need to be offered a vision of their future potential and clearly shown the level of their progression. It is important to recognise that learning is much more likely to occur where constructive role modelling is present. Staff who model consistent and positive ways of behaving teach the young people in their care new ways of dealing with and coping with difficult situations.

• All staff and young people are encouraged to build positive relationships. In addition to this a keyworker system is operated so that each young person's needs can be focused on by a named person. The keyworker has the responsibility of co-ordinating efforts to meet these needs both within the service and in consultation with the social worker, outside the service.

Strengths Based Approach

• Oak Lodge staff work with young people around their identified strenghts and use these strengths to promote the young person's self-esteem, enable positive progress and to help tackle the young person's behavioural difficulties if present. The young person's specific strengths are clearly identified in his/her placement plan and will quickly become a parent in daily life in Oak Lodge. A strengths based framework has the key advantage of promoting a young person's sense of self-worth and self-belief, even in the most difficult of circumstances. Drawing on a young person's strengths on a daily basis serves to empower the young person and allows them to understand their own abilities to manage and control difficult emotions and situations.