About Us | Fostering Provider | Five Rivers Child Care

Welcome to Five Rivers

Throughout 30 plus years of providing therapeutic children's services with clinical, education provision alongside our residential homes and fostering families, we have a dedicated service to children and young people who are in need, creating an environment that nurtures and guides them to a meaningful future.

We are proud to be a partner of choice of over 135 local authorities and NHS Trusts, providing a comprehensive and connected service across five key focus areas. We operate from 22 locations around England, guided by a senior leadership team recruited from every key discipline of child care to ensure that our childrens’ needs are met and respected.

Fostering in your area

What We Do

We give children and young people the sense of belonging and self-worth, promoting independence...

Social Enterprise

As a social enterprise we are driven by social objectives and reinvest back into the community...

Participation

We give our children and young people a voice in decisions relating to their own care...

Our Values

We put our children's care above all others showing them respect and encouraging responsibility...

Meet the Board

Introducing the Five Rivers Board - learn more about who they are what roles they do

Five Rivers, Five Fundamentals

Five Rivers is built on a systems-based approach integrating Five Fundamental services to provide children and young people who were neglected or abused, subject to trauma, or needing specialist mental well-being help.

Always striving to implement evidence-based practice, Five Rivers as a social enterprise, reinvests into developing services to improve children’s experiences and turning children’s lives around.

Our children and young people are cared for with authentic warmth, with our adults trained in skills in providing developmental, attachment and trauma informed care (D)ATIC. Supported by clinical teams of child psychologists and therapists specialising in our work, headed up by leading practitioners across each of the services, Five Rivers has been at the forefront of therapeutic provision for 30 years, partners of choice to many local authorities and health CCG’s. – High Impact, Sector Leading

Fostering

Our foster carers are passionate about providing caring family homes, supported through education, psychology, specialist training (D)ATIC, involvement in service development and feedback, experienced social work teams and managers providing high levels of support when it’s needed and regular development of skills for the whole family.

Residential

Our homes provide specialist therapeutic care based on our model of attachment and trauma informed care which is built on a developmental knowledge to create personalised care plans with individual and group therapies. Our teams are trained professionally and receive reflective supervision from their clinical teams and therapists.

Education

All children and young people need to rediscover their innate curiosity to take them into a love of learning. Our schools and teachers provide imaginative and stimulating learning environments. Our own Virtual School Head service provides specialist support for our foster carer families, including their own children and young people when needed.

Assessment & Therapy

Funded through our reinvestment, Five Rivers is leading research in the area of validating assessment tools and devising treatment protocols for children and young people in need. In addition, the teams provide high levels of support to all the adults involved in services, providing supervision, individual work and training. Our community-based assessment services are sought after where making decisions about children’s placements and to support court orders.

Crisis Intervention

Whether it is through a placement that is made because of a crisis or through taking the opportunity in the moment of crisis, Five Rivers has worked to seize this as a potential exponential shift in children’s lives. Supported by the clinical teams and specially trained practitioners, we create environments where change under pressure can be made and made to last.

A Message From Our Founder

You don't choose a vocational career; it chooses you!

It arrives in your life, takes it over, and demands that you give it every ounce of energy, passion and determination you have. And I wouldn’t have it any other way: I have worked with children and young people for over 35 years, in the belief that every one of them is worth fighting for. At Five Rivers, our approach is modelled on the childhoods that most of us took for granted, where children are cared for, loved, valued and respected.

We create an environment where a child finds, often for the first time, that everyone wants the very best for them and to show them a meaningful future. Equally, they discover that this requires rules and boundaries, effort, and respect for everyone around them.

I founded Five Rivers Child Care in 1989, having previously worked in the care system as a social worker, psychotherapist, family therapist and expert witness.

Today, Five Rivers draws on over 30 years of experience in recapturing the childhoods of neglected and abused children and young people. With our care homes, fostering network and education services, we have never been better placed to turn children’s lives around.

Meet the Board of Five Rivers Child Care

Pam McConnell

Five Rivers Child Care CEO

Pam McConnell, CQSW, CTA, MSc., IGA and IFT trained, founded Five Rivers Child Care in 1989, having previously worked in social work with children and families where mental health and safeguarding were concerns. Trained as a Group Analyst, Family Therapist and Psychotherapist, these skills were used to create an integrated therapeutic service for looked after children.

Our Office Locations

We are a trusted partner for local children’s services throughout England.

With our range of locations we can provide access to care for looked after children and young people from the local authorities and NHS Trusts who choose us to be a partner of choice for comprehensive children’s services.

Apply to Foster

Do you feel you have the energy and true commitment to make a positive difference to a child’s or young person’s life?

Apply to foster