Chief Executive Officer

About Us

A place to live, a space to thrive. At Harmeny, our vision is for children and young people to have the love, encouragement and nourishment that they need, to grow and reach their potential.

Everything that we do reflects our four values:

1. Child Centred: Children and young people are at the heart, as they come first in all that we do.
2. Relationships: We believe in compassionate, nurturing relationships, for we know that they build trust, respect and understanding.
3. Learning: We believe that learning is a passport to life because we have seen that creative and engaging education has the power to transform lives.
4. Community: We believe in helping each other to thrive, for we are a community which is welcoming, supportive and celebrates difference, enabling everyone to flourish.

Our Services

As a Grant Aided Special School, we offer therapeutic care and education, on a residential and day basis, to children and young people, aged 5-18, with complex Additional Support Needs (ASN) as a result of early years trauma. Our school and five cottages are all based on one campus, on the outskirts of Edinburgh.

We have capacity for up to 29 children and young people to stay at Harmeny on a residential basis, with a team of dedicated residential care staff that go the extra mile to ensure children and young people feel safe, loved, nurtured and respected.

We provide an education programme that is stimulating and relational and tailored to the individual needs of our children and young people. The curriculum is delivered through creative teaching and experiential learning activities, in line with Curriculum for Excellence, and enhanced by abundant outdoor learning opportunities within our estate and beyond.

We also offer day placements. The Day Service aims to support up to nine children and young people who have found mainstream educational placements difficult to sustain and who may have experienced placement breakdowns including Additional Support for Learning (ASL) education placements.

We recognise that working with the child is only part of the solution; working in partnership with families is a vital component of our work. Through building positive relationships, alongside strength-based and solution focused approaches, we strive to support families to recognise their strengths to help create a positive way forward together.

We have recently completed writing our therapeutic practice framework – The Harmeny Way – which describes the strength-based and trauma informed approaches we use to guide us in our work with children and young people.

Our Estate

Harmeny is situated in a beautiful 35-acre campus, which provides a safe and nurturing place for the children and young people to grow and develop. Our estate comprises a mature woodland, pond, wildflower meadows, community garden, mountain bike track, skate park and lots of green space. All of this allows our children and young people the freedom to explore, take risks and have fun, as well as providing a stimulating and inspiring environment for our staff.

Our fantastic new Learning Hub, made possible by a successful £3.1m capital appeal, and soon to be complete, will allow us to deliver an exciting senior phase curriculum, in partnership with the local high school, college, third and business sectors. A newly refurbished cottage is also enabling us to provide continuing care to young people up to the age of 18, in line with The Promise.

Our Team

Our multi-disciplinary team comprises 170 staff and 20 regular volunteers, and we provide placements for up to ten students a year in social work, care, teaching and outdoor learning disciplines. Our practices are supported and enhanced by the contributions of therapists, including psychology, psychotherapy, speech and language, play and music therapy.

We take great pride in being a learning organisation, supporting the continuing professional development of our remarkable team of staff, and promote their wellbeing, through a range of work-place supports and initiatives.

We are highly committed to sharing our practice, skills and knowledge within Scotland and beyond and seek to influence policy and practice in relation to the needs and rights of children and young people with ASN, in partnership with children/young people, their families and other key stakeholders.

You can find out more about what we do and what we offer at www.harmeny.org.uk