£900,000 Care Home For Kids Opens In Derbyshire

A NEW £900,000 home for looked-after children has opened in Clay Cross near Chesterfield. The newly-built Stephenson Unit, on Market Street, is a modern seven-bedroom children’s home which provides emergency care for youngsters.

It replaces a previous home on the same site which was built in the 1970s and was too big and unsuitable for modern day-care.

Building work, which took around a year, cost nearly £832,000 and a further £70,000 has been spent on furniture and equipment such as kitchen appliances.

Coun Anne Western, Derbyshire County Council’s cabinet member for children’s services, said: “This is a fabulous new building which means we will be able to provide an even higher standard of care for the young people using it.

“Youngsters come to the unit facing difficulties in their lives and this helps to ensure Derbyshire youngsters needing care can stay in the county.”

Current residents, who are aged 12 to 17, were encouraged to get involved in the moving process and make the new bedrooms feel like home.

More than 20 previous service users returned to visit the new unit at an open day and local residents attended a coffee morning where they learned about some of the unit’s success stories.