Head of Integrated Children’s Services

About

St Mary’s Kenmure (St Mary’s Kenmure) is a registered independent charity, located north of Glasgow in Bishopbriggs, that offers secure residential care and education (“Secure Care”) accommodation to young people under 18.  Our values are: Respect, Compassion, Learning, Accountability, Delivery & Results, Collaboration & Integration.

The School and the residential living environment provide intensive support, care, education, psychological and health interventions in a safe, secure, and therapeutic environment. We meet each young person’s presenting needs, address risks, improve wellbeing and work collaboratively with a range of different partners towards positive outcomes. Upholding the rights of our young people, advocating for them and ensuring they are given relational, participative opportunities to grow and develop as individuals, is at the core of our approach.

The secure estate is comprised of four house units, each housing six young people and containing a living/dining room, a kitchen, an activities room and a visitor room.  There are a variety of recreational facilities including an astroturf football pitch, gymnasium, fitness suite and swimming pool.  The estate also contains a separate Therapeutic Residential non-Secure Child Care Service housing up to 5 young people.

At St Mary’s Kenmure there are around 130 employees.  Our teams contain highly qualified professionals, all committed to working collaboratively with internal and external partners to #KeepThePromise and drive the work of change to shift our policies, practice and culture.

The number of Scottish young people in secure care is updated on a daily basis and published at SAN Scotland – Secure Accommodation Network Scotland.  We also support a small number of young people from other UK countries and accept cross border referrals. The latest set of accounts and the Board of Directors can be found at ST. MARYS KENMURE overview – Find and update company information – GOV.UK (company-information.service.gov.uk).

The responsible Scottish government directorate for Secure Care is the Young People and Families Directorate: Secure care – Youth justice – gov.scot (www.gov.scot). A new Young people (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill (Young people (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill – Bills (proposed laws) – Scottish Parliament | Scottish Parliament Website) is currently proceeding through the Scottish Parliament.  The changes proposed recognise that Secure Care remains an important part of the solution.

Following our most recent inspections from the Care Inspectorate and Education Scotland, our rating for care provision is Adequate and the rating for our education provision is Good. These are improvements on the previous inspections but our ambition is to be Excellent across both dimensions.