Published: Friday, 25th June, 2010 9:30am

Sunnyside Up

Sunnyside Children's House in Auchinleck has become the proud recipient of the Bronze Award in the COSLA Excellence Awards 2010.

The Council decided to apply for the award following the house being awarded three 'excellent' ratings by the Care Commission in June 2009.

Councillor MacKay with Sunnyside staff; Susan Taylor, Head of Service: Children and Families & Criminal Justice and Councillor Kathy Morrice.

The house won the award in the 'Service Innovation and Improvement' category for its innovative approach to service improvements for accommodated children and young people. The approach uses the involvement of young people, changes in staff and management ethos and a robust and developing quality assurance system which helps to shape the future of the service.

The development of the building and its environment has involved young people and staff from its design stage to its opening and beyond. This has encouraged greater ownership and investment from young people in the house than existed previously and has helped them to take a real pride in their surroundings. The young people even picked the name of the house as well as the fabrics, furnishings and colours used within it.

The house holds weekly young person's meetings where issues of importance to them are discussed with managers which can regularly result in significant changes to service delivery. Young people also form part of the interview panel when recruiting staff to all East Ayrshire Council residential childcare houses. Staff from Sunnyside took part in specially commissioned training which helped form a new staff group with an enthusiastic commitment to creating a more dynamic approach to improving the service.

All of the young people currently at Sunnyside are attending school or college, are working towards a targeted education plan and have a full leisure and activity programme.

Councillor John MacKay, Spokesperson for Community Health and Wellbeing, said: "The focus of Sunnyside Children's House has always been to produce a welcoming, caring and safe environment. A defining feature in the creation of Sunnyside has been to see it through the eyes of the young people who live there and to make sure that they are always fully involved in decisions surrounding the place in which they live. My congratulations go to all the staff, and indeed the young people, for coming so far in the award process."