“Our therapeutic model has not been lifted off the shelf.”

When Managing Director, Emma Blakemore, launched Innovate Services in 2018, she did so with one vision. Her aim was to bring together highly-experienced social work professionals, each with specialist practice knowledge, to work with local authorities to provide excellent outcomes.

This collaborative approach has recently seen renowned therapeutic care and cultural change consultant, Patrick Tomlinson, partner with Innovate Services.

A history of therapeutic care

Emma first met Patrick over 18 years ago when they worked together to deliver a recovery programme at SACCS. At the time, Patrick was the Director of Practice Development of the programme, which became recognised as a renowned therapeutic model.

Reminiscing, Emma commented:

“Working with Patrick all those years ago gave me an incredible appreciation for and understanding of therapeutic work with children.

“Being in different stages in our social work careers, our journeys took different paths, but we have always remained in touch.

“When, as a team, we branched into therapeutic residential care to work with children and young people in a different way, I knew we had to work with Patrick.”

Securing positive outcomes

Patrick’s experience in children’s services spans over 35 years. His specialist areas of interest are trauma, attachment, and therapeutic work, for which he has received international acclaim. His work has taken him across the world from Australia and Ireland to Japan, India, Romania, and most recently, Portugal. He works with organisations to create ownership of their unique therapeutic models.

Talking about the decision to bring Patrick into the fold at Innovate Services, Emma said:

“Innovate Services wants to support local authorities in terms of budgets, but most importantly, in securing the best outcomes for children and young people. Patrick’s work in many different countries is of particular interest to us. Some governments will not place children and young people with organisations unless they have a clear research-informed model.

“I have no doubt that his wealth of knowledge in this area will support us in delivering positive, sustainable outcomes for children and young people.”

Adding to Emma’s comments, Patrick said:

“As an organisation, Innovate Services is doing things differently. They form collaborative partnerships with local authorities to provide excellent outcomes at a fair cost. Recently, they saved one local authority £18,000 per week while improving outcomes.

When Emma asked me if I would like to be involved in helping Innovate Services to develop its own residential therapeutic model of care, I was excited at the potential.”

Creating a unique therapeutic model for residential care

Emma and Patrick have already started work on creating Innovate Services’ unique residential therapeutic model.

Discussing the challenge, Patrick said:

“Challenging the children’s residential care sector is difficult, but it needs an organisation like Innovate Services to come in and work differently. Emma and the team are being bold. Residential services must always balance the needs of business and care. However, residential care has become too business-driven with venture capitalists lining-up to get involved in many cases. Yes, residential care providers must have a good business, but the central focus needs to be on children and young people.”

Emma added:

“We already know from our work with children and young people that applying research-informed models secures better outcomes.

Our therapeutic model has not been lifted off the shelf. With Patrick’s help, we will formalise our work and develop a robust, research-informed therapeutic care model that delivers excellent outcomes.”

At the heart of the process is creativity and ownership, involving the entire team. The Innovate Services team already has a unique ability to help local authorities improve outcomes. Each of our social work managers are specialists within specific practice areas and have worked with each other for many years (before Innovate Services).

“Having our own therapeutic model that underpins everything we do is the next logical step for Innovate Services. At the centre of all our work is the child, and then we move outwards from there.”

How will local authorities benefit?

Innovate Services is already making a significant impact with its local authority partnership work. Developing a therapeutic model will further support local authorities to meet the needs of children in care.

Commenting on the benefits to local authority partners, Patrick said:

“There are currently limited options for children in care. They are often caught between failing foster care services and large high-cost residential care providers.

Cost-effectively delivering excellent therapeutic care will mean that local authorities can work in partnership with Innovate Services – talking about what they need, and how that need can be creatively met.”

Agreeing, Emma added:

“As a collective group of therapeutic and social care experts, we already have the knowledge and experience to create a holistic model. Once developed, we will impart what we know and embed best practice at a local authority level, as part of our commitment to sustainable change.”

Read more about our therapeutic care service.