Principal Director

Oasis and our Ethos

About Oasis

Oasis is a ground-breaking group of charities that have been pioneering models of sustainable and holistic education, supported and affordable housing and community development over the last 35 years. The Oasis vision is for community – a place where everyone is included, making a contribution, and reaching their God-given potential.

Oasis is about people, their aspirations, opportunities, education, employment and their communities – in other words, their wellbeing. We believe that things can change. Where systems leave communities disadvantaged we’re bold about pioneering alternatives and trying new things. We’re not satisfied with the status quo where it keeps people trapped in poverty, or constantly at risk of exclusion.

Working alongside some of the most vulnerable communities our purpose is to develop Oasis ‘Hubs’, which provide wide ranging and integrated services, designed to meet the breadth of human need. We seek to work in an integrated and holistic way, providing a range of mutually supporting services. We do this because we have learnt that separate, non-integrated “solutions” often fail to achieve lasting change.

High quality, trauma-informed care and an aspirational education offer are some of the critical elements of our multi-disciplinary work that serves over 60,000 children, young adults and their families.

• Together, Oasis staff and volunteers aspire to:
• Understand individuals’ stories and contexts to help them grow and develop
• Create safe, stimulating home and learning environments
• Believe that change is possible, no matter the starting point
• Provide bespoke learning and care with quality, compassion, and rigour to help everyone we work with to realise their full potential.

Oasis Restore's Background

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) appointed Oasis to establish the UK’s first secure academy trust – to be known as Oasis Restore; an innovative, new model of care for young people in the youth custody estate, where the aim is to improveoutcomes for children.

The policy vision put forward by the MoJ is for a new type of provision – secure schools - to deliver care and rehabilitation creating ‘bespoke provision for individual children that has education, healthcare and physical activity at its heart – a therapeutic environment in a secure setting’ so that children who have offended can move on to lead positive and productive lives.

Secure Academy Trusts – which are independently run charitable companies akin to the Department for Education’s Academy Trusts - will run and manage secure schools. They will be funded by the Ministry of Justice and NHS England (NHSE), who are joint commissioners - using a Funding Agreement, not a commercial contract. Secure schools will deliver provision that is child-focused, integrated and values-led, with a specialised workforce. They are designed around a joint outcomes framework, working in partnership with NHSE, offering individualised care for children that establishes strong links with the community.

The MoJ has recently passed legislation to enable this significant policy change and to allow Academy Trusts to exist in the secure estate. Secure schools will be dual registered as 16-19 Academies and Secure Children’s Homes, and they will be inspected as such by Ofsted and Care Quality Commission.

Oasis Restore is planned to open in late 2023 and will care for 49 children aged 12 to 18 years who are sentenced or remanded to custody by the courts.

Oasis Restore's Vision

We recognise that our students will have been placed into Oasis Restore with restrictions to their freedom, for their own and society’s safety. As with all Oasis communities, our vision for Oasis Restore is to create a place of care where every child is given an opportunity to thrive. All involved – staff as well as students – are learners and will be encouraged to take responsibility for leading their ongoing personal transformation.

Our practice will be psychologically informed through building trusting relationships with and between our young people and adults. We will be practical, effective and creative in order to celebrate individuality and we will do this in the context of treasuring the community. As we embrace this approach, we will seek to address some of the consequences of trauma and loss in our young student’s lives.

Our mission, therefore, is to not just deliver an innovative education offer but also to develop a healthy sense of identity, a sense of purpose that improves our students’ social cognition, emotional intelligence and to support them as they journey onwards.

We recognise that most of our students will not have enjoyed the traditional classroom setting and may have a fear of education delivery that feels institutional. We know the young people we serve will exhibit behaviours characterised as dysregulated, challenging, and complex. However, we also know that none of our students come from zero; that all have inherent strengths and interests.

Our goal is to tap into their curiosity and talents to develop skills for life and learning whilst providing them with training or qualifications in areas in which they have interest. We want to focus on what is strong, not what has gone wrong. To this end, we will use enquiry and curiosity – in both structured and unstructured sessions – together with the creative arts, media, sport, and the outdoors to support our philosophy of learning.

Most importantly, from the very first day of their stay at Oasis Restore, we will work with each of our students not only to focus on their time with us but to prepare them for transition back into the community or into the wider custodial estate.

We will support them, not simply with the goal of not reoffending, but crucially, to enable them to achieve long-term wellbeing. We want our students to maintain a positive contribution to their community as well as to wider society throughout their lifetime.

At Oasis Restore, our vision is to transform the life chances of children in the criminal justice system, so that they have the opportunity to reach their full potential and be the best they can be.

Our mission is to provide a therapeutic and educational community that embeds hope, stability, and opportunity within and beyond Oasis Restore. We will do this through our three cornerstones of relationships, discovery, and community.

Oasis Restore will offer a reparative opportunity to children and young people, who have become criminally involved, often because of neglect, trauma, and loss.

Oasis Restore’s Framework

Oasis Restore has a values-led, evidence-based, and bespoke approach to our practice. This is encapsulated in the Restore Framework which is designed for the specific group of children we serve and informs all that we do from our policies and processes to our structures and daily interactions.

The Restore Framework is grounded in the Oasis ethos and 9 Habits and supports whole, integrated systems. By having an inter-dependent, pan-organisation approach to our staff and systems, we encourage collaboration and enable each area of practice to bring the benefit of their learning and, together, we can deliver high quality care for our students.

Importantly, Restore’s Framework is psychologically informed. This means we have used tried-and-tested knowledge of practice and psychological theory to inform our understanding of areas such as:

1. How the human brain develops in childhood and adolescence
2. What happens to the brain when a child has experienced trauma such as neglect, abuse, lack of loving connections orthreats
3. How these experiences affect children’s social, and emotional development and their ability to process and retain
4. information, learn new things, concentrate, make decisions, and problem solve in everyday life (cognitive functioning)
5. The foundational role that quality, secure early attachment relationships play in the emotional development of childrenand functioning through their teenage years into early adulthood, and their lifelong necessity
6. What this means for how we should understand, care for and work with the children at Restore, their families and communities, and how we train and support our staff to help them thrive.

Oasis Restore’s leaders will be expected to model and operationalise a secure school that is based on the Oasis Restore Framework of Care.

Oasis Restore’s Framework is founded on the following principles:

R ▶ Relationships through building trust

E ▶Empowerment through providing choices and nurturing responsibility

S ▶ Safety through providing consistency, a secure base and community

T ▶ Trauma-Informed practice through creating a psychologically informed culture and systems

O▶ Ownership through providing life affirming opportunities

R ▶ Restoration through offering support and challenge

E ▶ Enquiry through encouraging openness and reflection

In using these principles throughout our policies, practice, and processes in the school, we will ensure that we create an environment of high-quality care and psychological safety for our students and staff.

Our Staff Offer

Whilst much of the work we undertake will be purposeful and emotionally or spiritually rewarding, it will also involve delivering high quality, holistic care in a high-pressure environment that can be challenging.

We will support all of our staff through a programme of personal development, which includes line management, team meetings and small group or 1-1 clinical supervision which is a space to allow you to make meaning and focus on particular children or issues, practice development, personal insight and emotional containment. You will also benefit from reflective practice which occurring in a group context, supports Oasis Restore staff to integrate across roles, to express and develop their ideas and practice.

We have a comprehensive induction and training programme for all staff. In addition, you will have regular development reviews to identify where you would benefit from support, coaching to develop you practice and ongoing training to equip you. We will make a commitment to your wellbeing so that you can deliver the best to the young people under your care.

Our offer does its best to balance a progressive and pragmatic approach to career development, promoting staff well-being to ensure we retain and develop the best people, offers family-friendly employment and flexible working whilst operating 24/7 provision and taking seriously our responsibility as a public body to ensure value for money to the public purse.

Teaching Staff Working Pattern

Like many residential education and health and social care settings we will be providing a 24/7 provision, and whilst teaching staff will not be required to work nights or weekends, we will be operating a term time structure that differs to the traditional academic year.

Our annual cycle is organised into terms and ‘mid-terms’, adjusted to each calendar year and aligned to Kent school term dates Mid-terms will have light teacher-coverage and are the time for teachers to take annual leave. An advantage of this working pattern, is that teaching staff are not wholly constrained to mainstream school holidays, but with some alignment to benefit staff with preferred leave during these times. An example of our draft term time structure is available on request and will be shared with candidates who go through our section process.

Benefits to Academic Staff:

• Class sizes of an average of 5 children, supported by two additional support staff
• A minimum of 15% planning, preparation and assessment time (PPA)
• Reduced workload, exams and at home marking expectations
• 40 days annual leave including bank holidays
• A mixture of one to one and group reflective practice, coaching & supervision sessions as well as regular line management.
• Experience an Appraisal policy that decouples pay and performance.
• An elected staff forum to listen to, and act on, staff feedback
• Access to a competitive defined benefit pension scheme (either the Teachers Pensions Scheme or Local Government Pension
• Scheme subject to individual scheme rules).
• Subject to meeting basic eligibility criteria, be entitled to up to 8 weeks full-pay and 18 weeks half-pay paid maternity/adoption/
• shared parental leave (based broadly on the NHS Employers scheme).
• Subject to meeting basic eligibility criteria be entitled to up to 3 weeks fully paid paternity leave.
• Paid time off to attend antenatal appointments (those staff who are either pregnant or whose partner is pregnant)
• Have a structured and bespoke induction training plan plus a probation period of 6 months as well as a training offer bespoke to
• our context leading to a level 4 qualification in the therapeutic care of adolescents.
• Receive the same offer of sick leave pay (based broadly on the length of service in the national ‘Green Book’ framework) from
• Day 1 of employment.
• Up to 5 days discretionary paid compassionate/emergency/general leave plus further discretionary unpaid leave
• Up to 4 weeks paid parental bereavement leave plus up to 5 days paid bereavement leave for the death of other specified close
• relatives.
• Expenses and travel costs incurred as part of the working day (as appropriate, not including travel to work)
• Access to an eye care vouchers scheme, season Ticket Loans, a cycle to work scheme and free car parking.

What are you waiting for, join Oasis Restore today!