Croydon Council is set to open a new children's home in South Norwood for children with complex needs. The home will provide a safe environment for children requiring Deprivation of Liberty (DoL) restrictions. The South Norwood home will cater to children with very complex presentations as a result of trauma, adverse childhood experiences, who may also present with neurodivergence and be at risk of requiring the liberty to be deprived through the application for Deprivation of Liberty Orders (DoLS).

The new facility is part of Croydon's Stabilisation Plan, which aims to manage demand, reduce costs, increase income, and improve productivity within the Children, Young People and Education Directorate. The plan was discussed at the Scrutiny Children & Young People Sub-Committee meeting on Tuesday 01 July 2025.

The South Norwood home will be a redeveloped council-owned property. It will be registered as a multi-site home, offering the flexibility to operate as three solo children's homes or a larger two or three-bed home with communal facilities.

The specialism of this provision will be directed at children with specific and complex needs and enable Deprivation of Liberty (DoL) restrictions to be safely provided within a locally registered home. This addresses the current reliance on unregistered provision for children with high safeguarding needs, in line with upcoming changes to Ofsted regulation of DoL arrangements.

DoLS orders are sought where a child presents such behaviours of concern that they are beyond the control of carers. This may be going missing with known or suspected risks that they are being sexually or criminally exploited, it can be on the basis of their attempts to self-harm by cutting or overdosing and, in some cases, it is on the basis of suicide attempts.

The project is expected to take approximately 12 months from securing capital funding, including procurement, governance, design, and construction. The timeline includes:

  • Submitting the DfE grant funding application (Wave 2) on 28th February 2025 (Complete)
  • Completing the deed of surrender of lease by 29th May 2025 (Complete)
  • A CYPE Transformation Improvement Oversight Group (TIOG) decision on 12th June 2025 to work up a parallel capital funding bid (Complete)
  • Capturing lessons learned from Precious House insights to improve future performance by 30th June 2025 (In progress)1
  • Awaiting the DfE funding bid outcome in Summer 2025 (delayed from April/May 2025). If the DfE funding bid is unsuccessful, as part of the stabilisation plan a parallel plan is already logged on the capital forward plan to secure capital funding through the Council to ensure that progress is not lost if DfE decline to award in due course.

The project aims to reduce the use of high-cost unregistered homes and DoL orders, improve outcomes for vulnerable children, and increase the proportion of children with complex needs placed locally.

The sub-committee reviewed the additional information contained within the Stabilisation Plan report with specific reference to how it impacts on the delivery of services within the CYPE directorate.

1: Learning from the development of the Precious House project, a robust business case will be produced for governance and challenge to underpin this project from the start.