Services

Specialist Schemes

By developing Specialist Placement Schemes, Compass is pro-active in offering innovative services that meet the specific needs of children and young people:

Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children

Children with Disabilities

Parent & Child Assessment 

Babies

Foster carers approved for these schemes are trained to be skilled and experienced in their related specialism. Each scheme is managed by a dedicated Scheme Co-ordinator. The schemes are further sustained by specialist support groups, the input of specialist advisors and regular training.

Education Services

Compass Children’s Services is renowned for its focus on education. Considerable resources are invested in its education service to ensure the children and young people in their care are given the best possible chance of realising their potential. With a philosophy of ‘Encouraging Esteem through Education’ we believe foster placements are enhanced by the active involvement of the Education Team to maximise every child’s outcomes and success.

Our Head of Service Education and the Education Team have extensive experience and qualifications. They liaise with the relevant education authorities to ensure that young people placed with Compass either continue in their pre-placement school or are provided with an alternative appropriate, education placement as soon as possible after placement.

After registration, all Compass Foster Carers receive an Education Tool Kit during an individual education training session in the home. The aim of this training is to raise the profile of education throughout the company and to promote a positive attitude towards education in the individual foster homes. Carers are encouraged to build a good relationship with the young person’s school, to keep appropriate records relating to education, to celebrate success and to reward achievement.

Compass is proactive in securing a Personal Education Plan (PEP) for every child and young person in their care. Support and advice at these meetings and all other school meetings is provided by the Education Team.

If a child does not have a school place after two weeks in placement, Compass can provide Complementary Education. This is subject to negotiation with the young person’s social worker and their department. Complementary Education is provided for up to 25 hours per week. It is delivered by specially trained Compass foster carers outside the main placement. The aim is to encourage esteem through enhanced experiences and to provide a bridge back into formal education.

Pioneering Schemes:

Compass is a pioneering agency offering 'Catch Up'.

Catch Up:

Compass have piloted, and are now disseminating throughout the company, this literacy intervention programme that enables Carers to deliver Catch Up in the home setting to children and young people who find reading and writing difficult.

Compass Consults Kids

Compass Consults Kids is a young people’s forum with the specific aim of creating an arena to consult with young people on agency and general fostering issues. It consists of 10–12 young people aged between 11 and 18 who are in foster care with Compass Children’s Services or who belong to a Compass Fostering Family. The forum meets twice a year and is supported by at least two members of staff and at least two Compass Carers.