Garden Party Glamour at Children's Unit
Published on:
29
July 2010
Staff at the Woodside Residential Unit for Children brought the glitz and glamour of a royal garden party to Clackmannanshire when they held their own celebration for the young people in their care.
The idea for the 'not-royal garden party' came from Unit manager Kaye Smith who was invited to attend the annual Royal Garden Party at Holyrood Palace earlier this month.
She said: "I was nominated to attend because of our consistently excellent inspection reports. I was allowed to take a guest and had hoped to take along one of our young people, but was disappointed to be told that I couldn't take anyone under the age of 18. I took our Senior Care Officer Edwina Jenkins with me to Holyrood and then we did our best to recreate the garden party at Woodside a few weeks later."
Invited guests included Provost Derek Stewart and Councillor Sam Ovens along with Chief Executive Angela Leitch and Deirdre Cilliers, Head of Social Policy. Tony Clark from the Care Commission, who has awarded the unit top marks during his inspections, also attended. Kaye also invited neighbours and friends.
Councillor Ovens said: "This event was an excellent example of corporate parenting. It was lovely to see everyone dressed in their best and enjoying the occasion. The young people themselves make a huge contribution to the unit receiving these excellent reports, so it was only right that they got to celebrate."
Staff recreated the garden party atmosphere with cucumber sandwiches, fancy cakes and tea served in bone china cups - sourced from local charity shops!
Woodside Residential Unit for Children is managed by Clackmannanshire Council. It provides domestic scale, individualised support for five young people between the ages of 12 and 16. And three young people who have recently left Woodside to live independently also returned for the day to mark the occasion.
