Child House - NHS England London Region

NHS England and NHS Improvement (London Region) (hereafter referred to as "The Authority") invites Expressions of Interest (EoIs) and completion of EOI questionnaires from all suitable providers, who are capable of delivering the Child House Service in North Central London.

The Child House Service is a jointly commissioned project between NHS England (London Region), the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) and North Central London Clinical Commissioning Group.

The Child House aims to radically improve support to children, young people and their non-offending families following incidents of child sexual abuse including exploitation, by delivering services related to health, wellbeing, and criminal justice.

Following the success of an initial 3 year pilot, we are seeking to continue with a Child House model going forward, although with a reduced financial envelope we anticipate an adapted offer to the current pilot service in place.

The development of the Child House Pilot came from a review in 2015 of child sexual abuse pathways in London which was commissioned by NHS England (London region).

This showed that only 1 in 4 children who have been abused come to the attention of statutory services.

If the case then proceeds in the criminal justice system the child or young person is then subjected to a prosecution based process with multiple police interviews.

Many cases do not have enough evidence to proceed to trial and those that do can take up to 2 years before they reach court.

Conviction rates are also low.

Access to specialist health and wellbeing services is a crucial part of supporting children and young people for short term interventions and longer term recovery, whether or not their cases proceed through the criminal justice system.

The concept of a Child House is in line with international best practice, the European PROMISE agreement and evidence from the pilot project included in the service evaluation, and aims to provide a service which is centred around the child.

Rather than the child/ young person attending numerous agencies and different locations to access different services the Child House will provide support 'under one roof'.

The environment will be reflective of the circumstances with an emphasis on being safe, secure and focused around the needs of the child/young person.

The service required will include Child Sexual Abuse Medical assessments (non-urgent pathways), therapeutic interventions including counselling, clinical psychology, 1:1s and group work, advocacy, Video Recorded Interviews, Court Live Link and Section 28 remote link suite, Social Care Liaison Officers.

It is anticipated that Police Liaison Officers will be directly provided by our partners in the Metropolitan Police Services (MPS).

The service will accept both professionals and self-referrals.