About Five Rivers Child Care

Five Rivers is a leading independent Social Enterprise that works with children who are in need of specialist care throughout the U.K.

We were established in 1989 to provide a secure environment for children who are in need of specialist residential care. Our mission is to turn children's lives around, which we do through residential child care, our fostering service, our education provisions, and through assessment and therapy.

We promote a strong, pragmatic philosophy, shared by all of our professional and experienced staff, that each child or young person is an individual in their own right, with their own unique sets of difficulties.

Five Rivers strives to ensure that the young people we work alongside have access to the right programmes for all-round development, thereby offering placement opportunities with endless choices during the planning process.

As a leading Social Enterprise, we hold Investors in People (IIP) Gold status and work with a wide range of national organisations including the National Fostering Network and the British Association of Adoption and Fostering (BAAF).

We are also a member of the Social Care Association (SCA), The Social Enterprise Coalition (SOC) and many more associations that support our values of child care practice.

Read more about the importance of being a social enterprise by our CEO and Founder, Pam McConnell.

What we do

We train and support rare and special people who can meet the intensive challenges of giving a vulnerable child the experience of family life. We also address the need for specialist foster care, such as placements for parents with children, and for terminally ill children.

This is where our story began, and today we run seven homes across England. Much more than just ‘looking after’ children, our homes offer a therapeutic approach that maximises the chances of making positive and lasting improvements.

 Simply, we regard education as the passport to every child’s future. For many, this begins with showing them that they actually can learn, and then progresses to the joy of learning, advancing and achieving.

Five Rivers is called on in emergency situations (such as placement breakdowns) to bring calm and stability to teenagers, and indeed children of all ages. We see crisis not so much as a logistical issue to ‘solve’, but as an opportunity to effect real change through fresh thinking.

This service, and its growing affiliate network, harnesses clinical psychology to support our internal residential, education, social work and fostering teams. Increasingly, this service is also becoming outward-facing, working alongside, or as an alternative to, CAMHS.

All our work with children has been built by the talents of people. We are unashamedly selective, choosing those who bring assets you can’t teach – such as curiosity, humanity, passion and empathy. We then train and develop them with expert insight and technique. Five Rivers recruits adults from every walk of life and thrives on the diversity we attract.

Work with us

Every child needs a hero, but children and young people in care need something more: remarkable people who can make them feel – often for the first time in their lives – valued, safe and genuinely cared for.

Whether you’re an experienced caregiver, or perhaps just feel instinctively that you could make a difference to challenged lives, Five Rivers Child Care provides both the opportunity and the total support to make it happen. We pride ourselves on being a learning organisation, encouraging continued personal development for both our staff and the young people in our care. With us, you can progress your career in a rewarding and engaging environment.

We offer a full suite of Child Care services and are always keen to hear from engaged, passionate people in the areas below. And we offer rewards that reflect the vital role you’ll perform.

Five Rivers Child Care is proud to have been a finalist for Employer of the Year – Gold Category and to have been awarded Gold status as Investors in People. The award pays recognition to our commitment to developing a culture where our people can learn, progress and be rewarded for their hard work, dedication and achievements.

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