Our Approach
Most homes say they are trauma-informed. Maar Haven will be trauma-organised.
The difference is this: trauma-informed is a training course. Trauma-organised is a culture – where developmental trauma shapes every decision, every shift, every conversation, and every care plan.
Operating System
Therapeutic practice will not sit beside operations. It will shape them.
Maar Haven’s therapeutic model is not a service delivered alongside the home’s operations – it is the operating system of the home itself.
This means placement matching, staffing patterns, handovers, supervision, incident review, and commissioner reporting will all be designed through the same clinical lens. The work is relational, but it is also structured, documented, reviewed, and governed.
Therapeutic Frameworks
Three frameworks, translated into daily practice.
DDP
Dyadic Developmental Practice
Developed by Dr Dan Hughes, DDP treats PACE – Playfulness, Acceptance, Curiosity, Empathy – not as a therapeutic technique but as a way of being. All Maar Haven staff will be trained to practitioner level.
A member of staff who responds to a young person’s aggression with curiosity rather than sanction is not being permissive – they are doing the clinical work.
NMT
Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics
Dr Bruce Perry’s model holds that development is sequential and that trauma disrupts the sequence. NMT assessment will be used at placement to establish a developmental baseline.
A fourteen-year-old who functions emotionally at age seven will not be held to fourteen-year-old expectations.
PACE
PACE as Daily Culture
Every team meeting will include a PACE lens on a recent interaction. Staff will be coached to recognise and respond to shame, fear, and dissociation.
The goal is a team that applies the PACE framework without thinking about it – because it has become how they see.
Safeguarding Architecture
Safeguarding as designed governance, not a policy in a drawer.
This section is mandatory because it demonstrates the architecture Maar Haven is building ahead of registration.
01
DSL/RI Separation of Functions
The Registered Manager holds the DSL role; the RI provides independent oversight and challenge. If the RM becomes the subject of concern, escalation goes directly to the RI and then externally.
02
Anonymous Staff Concerns Pathway
A digital, mobile-accessible reporting tool independent of the line management chain, with all submissions reviewed by the RI within 24 hours and anonymity guaranteed.
03
Contextual Safeguarding
Every child’s peer network, online environment, and community context assessed at placement and reviewed quarterly, with MASH thresholds discussed before arrival.
04
Regulation 40 Notifiable Events
Zero late reports is the target; a compliance calendar managed by Faith Bvumbe tracks all notification deadlines.
05
Lessons-Learned Protocol
Every significant incident generates a written review within 14 days, completed by the RM and reviewed by the RI, with findings fed into training within 30 days.
06
Children's Route to Safety
Every young person will be told, in language appropriate to their understanding, how to raise a concern, who they can speak to outside the home, and what will happen when they do.
Day In The Life
What the model will look like across an ordinary day.
07:00 - Morning handover - a clinical conversation.
Handover is not a shift report. It is a clinical conversation in which staff review each child’s overnight presentation through a PACE lens: what was communicated, what was needed, what is carried into today.
09:30 - Key worker contact - proximity as intervention.
Key work is not a meeting. It is the quality of co-presence across the day. Three meaningful documented contacts per week per child is the minimum.
15:30 - After school - the transition hour.
The move from school to home is one of the highest-risk periods for dysregulation. Staff will be briefed, present, and regulated.
19:00 - Evening routine - structure as safety.
Routines are not rules. They are scaffolding within which young people who have rarely experienced predictability begin to trust it.
21:00 - Night - waking cover, not sleeping shifts.
There will be no sleeping nights at Maar Haven for EBD provision. A waking night worker will be present and capable of a therapeutic response.
Six Differentiators
Concrete commitments, not generic aspirations.
01
Clinical leadership above the RM
Joseph Bvumbe, a qualified RMN, holds the RI role, providing clinical oversight at governance level above the Registered Manager.
02
Hard 20% cap on agency usage
Agency workers will never hold key worker roles; the target is achieved through above-market pay and an internal bank pool.
03
Post-placement continuity
Key worker contact maintained for six to twelve months after a placement moves, wherever possible.
04
Governance from registration
The compliance systems, HR frameworks, and QA processes of a 133-staff business exist from day one of registration.
05
Care-experienced governance
A care-experienced young person holds an advisory role with genuine influence over practice decisions, not a token seat.
06
Quality-gated growth
No new home opens until the previous home has achieved stable operation, strong inspection outcomes, low agency use, and sustainable occupancy.