Care built around the child, not the rota.
Many children come to us having experienced loss, disruption, or relationships that have not always felt safe. Our whole approach is built to give them the opposite of what they have known: stability, patience, and adults who stay and try to understand.
PACE underpins how we think, relate and respond every day.
PACE stands for playfulness, acceptance, curiosity and empathy. It is an attachment-based approach, developed for children who have experienced trauma, disrupted attachments and relational adversity, and it is used in the best therapeutic homes in the country. It is not a programme we run at a child; it is how our staff are with children, every day. When relationships become strained, we stay alongside children, helping them make sense of what has happened, repair the connection and move forward together.
Playfulness
Playfulness keeps the relationship warm, even on hard days. It tells a child they are more than their worst moment.
Acceptance
Acceptance means we accept the feeling underneath the behaviour, even when we have to set a limit on the behaviour itself.
Curiosity
Curiosity means we seek to understand the meaning beneath behaviour, asking "What might this child be communicating?" rather than simply reacting to it. Behaviour is communication.
Empathy
Empathy means a child does not carry a hard feeling alone. We stay with them in it.
A psychologist who knows the children.
Every Oasis home is supported by an in-house psychologist who sees the children and supports the staff team. For a child, that means their care is shaped by a real understanding of trauma and development. For our staff, it means reflective support and someone to think alongside them when a placement is hard.
Therapeutic care only works when the people delivering it are supported to do it, so we built that support in.
Trust is built in months and years.
Our homes provide long-term, planned placements, because the children we care for need the opposite of more moves. Trust is built in months and years, not days.
A solo or two-child home, a settled team, and time are what let a child finally put roots down.
The ordinary, made dependable.
- A calm house with predictable routines.
- Shared meals.
- School supported and championed.
- Activities and interests encouraged.
- Contact with family handled with care.
- Clear, fair boundaries held with warmth.
- A team who know the child well enough to spot the day they are struggling before it becomes a crisis.