Venue details
Address (not for correspondence):
13 Leopold Street,
Derby, Derbyshire, DE1 2HE
Opening hours
Days & Times: 6 days a week 10am-8pm. Closed Sundays.
Centre charges
Details available on request
Services available here
Supported contact
Supervised contact
Enhanced Accredited
Virtual Contact (Supported)
Virtual Contact (Supervised)
This centre is accredited to provide supervised contact
Accreditation is a way of checking that your contact centre is safe and meets our standards.
How is a centre checked?
An assessorSomeone working on our behalf who has experience and an interest in child contact services and must assess if a service meets our standards. looks round the centre’s rooms, toys, equipment, and any outside play areas to make sure that they are safe and good for you to use. They talk with the people at the centre to make sure that they are trained and helped to do their job as well as possible. They then check the informationThe assessor checks through the centre’s accreditation portfolio which includes policies, procedures, risk assessments, reports (if the service offers supervised contact) and information for families. on what happens at the centre and how it keeps you safe. If your family time happens in the community The service might use local community venues to deliver their service or in some cases, residential properties including family members’ homes, where this is safe and appropriate., then the assessor will check that this is going to be safe for you.
When the assessor is happy that a centre meets our standards then they are awarded their accreditation and you can find them on this website. Accreditation happens every three years with extra checks if needed.
Accreditation Summary
Date: 23/03/2022
Summary:
Children First Derby was established as a charity in 1974 and opened its Family Support Centre in 1987. The charity continues to operate from its premises on Leopold Street, and currently provides supervised contact, family support and mentoring services. The supervised service is only available for children who are looked after by Derby City Council, and they do not take private referrals. Derby has its own train station, a large bus station and East Midlands Airport nearby. The bus station is an approximate 5-minute walk from Leopold Street and the train station 10 minutes. The building is a Victorian two storey house in a quiet one-way street with other commercial premises. At the rear there is a good-sized garden and small car park.
Children First Derby focus on delivering a child centred service – providing a neutral place for children in the care of the local authority to meet their parents or other family members. The centre is therefore used long term by families to spend time together. The centre is well equipped with a range of toys and equipment which reflect the diverse needs of all the children who attend. As children attending for family time are subject to care orders they reside with either foster carers or in a residential home and it is their remit to bring children to the centre (there is a separate entrance for children to arrive by). The contact rooms provide the space and equipment suitable for children of all ages and abilities. There are two well-proportioned rooms which are used for contact which are bright clean and well equipped. They have a large, fully equipped kitchen area in which families can cook, bake, or prepare meals of their choice. The centre has a large enclosed, safe garden with a range of outdoor furniture and equipment – including basketball and football nets.
Upon receipt of a referral, the referral is allocated, and the family time agreement is drawn up which is a detailed information and risk assessment form for individual families and gives details such as how many staff are required to manage risk, the level of supervision required, who is attending etc. Once the family time agreement form has been risk assessed and completed the family are sent dates of the contacts and on their first visit to the centre, they go over the agreement and both parents are asked to sign. There is a very useful leaflet which is given to parents with information about the centre and what can be expected. There is also a good leaflet for children attending.
The supervised contact service is managed by a qualified social worker and the contact team are all experienced child-care professionals with nationally recognised qualifications. There are clear and good procedures between the city council and the centre, with evidence of good levels of communication ensuring looked after children spend valuable time with their parents. Any recommended actions following the visit are now complete meaning the service meets the standards for enhanced (supervised) accreditation.
Photos from this centre
