Lawrence House (Ofsted rated OUTSTANDING – September 2018 – full report here: Lawrence House Report) is a registered Therapeutic Community with the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ Community of Communities. Our quality assurance is done through them. The home is located in Knowsley outside Liverpool and is a tranquil house in a quiet residential area supporting up to five young people. It is a fully-fledged therapeutic community with education on site and offers an integrated care, therapy and educational experience.
This is a bespoke service working particularly well with young people who are surviving complex trauma utlising a SPARCS based approach.
Lawrence House Therapeutic Community is an ideal environment for young people stepping out of tier 4 adolescent mental health services. The young people may be self-harming or struggling with emotional regulation and self-worth. Through our integrated wraparound care plans, we offer young people in acute stress and trauma the opportunity to access the therapeutic care they require. Our school is integrated into our therapeutic paradigm and has its own Mental Health tutor, who integrates mental health literacy and resilience into the curriculum.
Lawrence House’s clinical team is lead by Consultant Clinical Psychiatrists and supported by a clinical team of assistant psychologists, therapeutic practitioners, and therapeutic assistants, all supported by a robust on-going CPD programme. Each of QPCs homes has dedicated mental health first aiders.
Lawrence House team provide young people with a personalised living and learning experience; we engage in pioneering new approaches through research and training. We have worked collaboratively with Edge Hill University to make a DfE Spring Consortium Innovation Fund bid for SPARCS. Our goal is to ease young people’s trauma-related behaviours and raise awareness, aspiration, and the resilience of young people. 
Lawrence House offers a range of clinical and educational assessments, focussed around each young persons unique requirements.
Although Lawrence House offers an inclusive integrated service we also see the value of young people gaining increased community presence. Lawrence House has its own Community Engagement officer, who supports our young people in “supporting” others. Some examples of this have been working with the elderly in residential homes, homeless people in the community or supporting people with learning disabilities. Our young people have benefited in increased confidence and giving them a sense of the “social world”.
Staff at the community have a range of skills and assessment tools that help keep our young people safe.
We currently utilise the STORM self-harm and suicide risk mitigation assessment tool. We will shortly be adding the ASSIST model of assessment. This gives the community a robust and measurable tool for working alongside young people who place themselves at risk, it also recognises that risk can fluctuate and our assessment must reflect that ensuring young people are safe.
Lawrence House Therapeutic Community also utilises a range of community provisions to enhance the young person’s experience of self-worth. These include activity based experiences such as sailing and narrow boat time. We also use time out in relaxation and Spa.
Our goal is to have young people who are Brave, Hopeful and Emotionally and Physically able to contribute to the Social World.
Pictures of displays around our School:
