A FOREST couple have opened a brand new residential children’s home called Adamas House CIC, which became Ofsted-approved in July.

Kevin Oversby and husband Daniel Oversby who live in Lydbrook, hope to remove the stigma attached to children’s homes and aim to return the most vulnerable into foster care or kinship groups. 

The Oversbys are experienced, having fostered children for over 15 years. They started off as therapeutic foster carers for an agency, and then came to work for Gloucestershire County Council (GCC) to foster directly. 

They have three children they foster permanently, and Kevin is a trainer who assesses new foster parents. From the pair’s experience, they have seen areas which they believe can be improved.

Kevin Oversby said: “We have witnessed fostering being done in a way which is not child-centred. It should be about the permanence of these children, and so many of the looked-after kids go through so many foster placements in their lifetime as a child that it’s not been brilliant for them. 

“We just decided we’ve got to do more with the model. Children’s homes in particular have got this real stigma attached to them and I’ve listened to foster carers talk for all the years we’ve been doing this and some are using children’s homes - almost like a stick of - ‘if you’re naughty you’re going to end up in a children’s home’. They’re like holding pens for kids until they’re 18.

“When actually, these kids all deserve an equal chance. So we decided we were going to open our own children’s home and get it registered with Ofsted. We’re sort of trying to recreate what we’ve been doing with fostering in the residential sector to get them back out of fostering. 

“We call it bridging and bonding where we get them into our home and then turn it around for them to have a permanent relationship with their foster carers or kinship or reunification. It does not have to be the end of the line.” 

The process has taken a number of years, but the pair have now opened the children’s home and are looking to partner up with Gloucestershire County Council to improve the financial impact on the local authority, and redirect the money to the children and their outcomes. 

Kevin said: “We’ve set ours up as a not-for-profit charity. We’ve got two parts of it, the house and then a registered charity through the Charities Commission, to make sure that any money we make over what it takes to pay the staff and reinvest into the children, it goes into the right direction which is to support the kids.” 

Currently, the house is open and operational. The Oversbys are in the process of onboarding staff and viewing profiles of potential children through the local authority GCC. 

The house’s name is an amalgamation of the Oversby’s first fostered child Adam and the Ancient Greek word 'adámas', meaning unbreakable, which the word diamond derives from. Kevin says this is because they truly believe there is a diamond in every child. 

If you are interested in helping out, you can get in touch with Adamas House CIC via social media or email [email protected] 

You can also find out more about fostering in the county by visiting the Gloucestershire County Council website or by calling 0300 456 0120.