Residential care shaped around the individual.
We are creating highly individualised solo and dual residential homes for children and young people whose needs, circumstances or experiences may mean a conventional group living residential setting is not right for them. Rather than asking a young person to fit an existing service, we shape the home, team and care around the individual.
Nurture. Empower. Safeguard. Transition.
These four principles sit at the heart of every Nestra home and every decision we make.
Nurture
We create homes where trusted relationships, consistency and a genuine sense of belonging can develop. We believe in restoring lost childhoods.
Empower
We listen to each young person, recognise their strengths and give them meaningful choice and influence over their life and home, whilst retaining the right to be a child.
Safeguard
We understand risk without allowing it to define the young person. We provide skilled, thoughtful safeguarding proportionate to each child’s individual needs.
Transition
We give every placement purpose. From the beginning, we support young people to develop the stability, confidence and skills they need for their next step. We work with local authorities to meet the identified care plan.
We don’t find young people to fit our homes. We create homes to fit our young people.
Nestra is a specialist provider of residential accommodation for children and young people, founded on more than 20 years of experience across care and housing.
Our leadership brings frontline and strategic experience of children’s social care, including over five years within local authorities and the management of placement and commissioning services. Led by a Registered Social Worker, we understand the realities facing the professionals searching for the right home for a young person, and the importance of getting that decision right.
That experience has shaped the Nestra model. We are developing small, highly individualised homes for young people with complex needs who may require a level of consistency, flexibility and individual attention that can be difficult to achieve in larger residential settings.
Every Nestra home will support no more than one or two young people. This gives us the opportunity to think differently about the whole placement, from the property and environment to the staff team, routines, relationships and support built around the young person.
Because complexity is never the whole story. We take time to understand the young person behind the referral: their experiences, strengths, risks, relationships, wishes and aspirations. Then we ask what needs to be built around them to give the placement the strongest possible foundations.
Nurture. Empower. Safeguard. Transition. These aren’t simply our values. They shape how we create each home, how we care for each young person and how we plan for what comes next.
More about NestraBespoke homes for individual lives
Solo and dual placements
Small, comfortable residential homes designed for one or two young people, supported around the clock by consistent, skilled teams.
Our model enables us to consider young people whose needs may make larger group living difficult, as well as carefully matched dual placements and sibling placements where living together is in the children’s best interests.
Explore our homesComplex and individual needs
We are developing our services to support young people whose experiences, behaviours, risks or circumstances require a more bespoke residential response. This may include young people who have experienced placement instability or breakdown, significant trauma, complex safeguarding concerns, or who require enhanced levels of supervision and support.
Where a young person is subject to a Deprivation of Liberty order or other legal framework, we will consider whether their individual needs can be safely and appropriately supported within the registration, resources and capabilities of the relevant Nestra home.
Our starting point is never simply “Can we fill this placement?” It is “What would it take for this young person to feel safe, make progress and have a realistic opportunity to thrive?”
Our approach
See the young person. Understand the complexity. Build around both.
Our care is trauma-informed, relationship-led and grounded in a detailed understanding of each young person. For some children, progress begins with very small things: staying in one place, trusting an adult, sleeping through the night, returning to education, managing a difficult moment differently, or beginning to imagine a future.
We don’t impose one definition of success. We create the conditions in which each young person can begin to find their own.
Explore the Nestra approachWhen the usual options aren’t the right options
Sometimes a young person needs something different. A smaller home. A carefully selected team. Greater consistency. A solo environment. The opportunity to live with a sibling. Or a placement designed around risks and needs that cannot safely or successfully be supported within a conventional group setting.
Talk to us early. We want to understand the whole young person, not simply the referral criteria. We will ask questions, consider what would need to be built around them, and be transparent about whether Nestra can provide the right home. Our matching decisions will always put the needs and safety of the young people involved ahead of occupancy, and we understand the need to work at pace.
Discuss a young personReferrals and placementsBuild something different
We are building our founding teams of residential support workers, senior practitioners and registered managers who want to do more than work in a children’s home. We want people who can create one.
People who understand that behind complex behaviour there is a young person with a story, strengths and possibilities. People who can nurture without creating dependence, empower without losing boundaries, safeguard without defining a child by risk, and support transition without rushing it. If that sounds like the kind of care you believe in, we would like to hear from you.
Register your interest