Anchor - Emotional Health and Wellbeing Team
We are a team dedicated to the emotional health and wellbeing of Looked After Children from 0-18 years of age. Our service is made up of professionals working together from two different services, which are Herefordshire and Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust and Worcestershire Children First (WCF).
Contact information
Telephone number: 01905 846 111
Service hours: Monday – Friday 9am to 5pm
Location: Worcestershire Children First, County Hall, Worcester, WR5 2NP
Team Manager: Lisa Bradshaw
Clinical Lead: Dr Sabrina Nowinski
About us
We support the emotional wellbeing of Looked After children through targeted specialist attachment and trauma focused interventions.
Our aim is to ensure that Looked After Children and young people are able to thrive with carers who understand and are supported to meet their needs. Our team contributes to the provision of therapeutic placements, to increase placement stability and decrease the risk of placement breakdown. Anchor also provides support and guidance to the professional networks around the child to help them to develop an understanding of the impact of early adversity on a child’s development.
The Green Fingers Project sits within the Anchor team and provides access to play based activities that are therapeutic, as well as alternative educational experiences and opportunities for Looked After Children.
The Named Nurse for Looked After Children ensures that they have a high-quality health assessment that takes place in a timely manner. Undertaking school age Review Health Assessments, the specialist nurses for Looked After Children provide health advice, support and guidance to Looked After children living in Worcestershire and make referrals or signpost on to other services, when appropriate.
What type of support does Anchor offer?
- Assessment to make sense of current difficulties and work out what type of support might be most helpful
- Attachment focused therapeutic parenting support to Kinship, Foster carers and Residential/Outreach Workers
- Attachment and trauma-focused therapeutic input with children, young people and carers
- Thinking Spaces for Social Workers, Fostering Social Worker or Children’s Home staff – for more information please see our ‘Thinking Space’ information leaflet
- Consultation to teams and referrers on an individual basis.
- Support to commission therapeutic intervention from independent providers, where relevant or where children are living out of the Worcestershire area
Outside of the scope of Anchor
- Children placed with birth parents or birth relatives (excluding Kinship carers
- Carers or children placed under Special Guardianship Orders (SGO)
- Looked After Children placed in Worcestershire by other Local Authorities, with the exception of Health Assessments and Green Fingers (if funding is available)
- Court based assessments
- Legal care planning decisions
- Worcestershire Looked After Children placed outside of Worcestershire
Our team is made up of professionals from different backgrounds including;
- Clinical Psychologists
- Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist
- Senior Mental Health Practitioner
- Social Workers
- Named Nurse for Looked After Children
- Specialist Looked After Children nurses
- Administrators
- Community and Leisure Worker
- Green Fingers Mentors
Digital resources and further information
Referrals and feedback
Referrals can be made by Social Workers, through Liquid Logic, or by Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) practitioners and health professionals through the Trust's staff intranet. To access the portal please use the link below which will also allow you to access online training and information.
Unfortunately we cannot accept referrals from family members/carers.
If you are a young person or carer who looks after a young person, who has had support from Anchor, your feedback is important to us. Please click the link below to complete our feedback form.