UAE: UK boarding facility for students with mental health challenges to open in Dubai

A UK-based facility that provides boarding services to students with mental health and behavioural issues is setting up a premise in Dubai. Resicare Alliance, which has 11 homes in the UK, will open in the emirate later this year.

“We usually work with children who have been displaced from their families due to safety concerns or learning and physical disabilities,” said Antony Bainbridge, head of clinical services and clinical lead. “We provide a reunification pathway model where the child spends between 12 to 16 weeks in our facility after which the student can be reintegrated back into the family or a foster home.”

Antony gave the example of a student from the region who had been admitted to their facility recently. “He was hidden away in his house because he had a lot of behaviours which were culturally unacceptable,” he said. “For example he would strip naked and his mother and father did not know how to handle it. We did a lot of speech and language therapy as well as play therapy. By the time he was released, his behaviour had changed and his English had improved tremendously.”

Founded in 2020, Resicare Alliance creates safe, structured, and inclusive environments where children with learning disabilities, autism, and mental health challenges can thrive. According to Antony, the facility is 80 per cent occupied and currently has over 30 students across its 11 homes.

One of the most commonly recurring issue that Anthony faces with several of the students is relating to online bullying. “Sometimes I wish the internet didn't exist,” he said. “The internet could be either your best friend or your worst nightmare, where children are concerned. On the back of Covid-19 where everyone was locked in a room, what we are seeing is a massive increase in mental health issues amongst children and young people. They are having anxiety, depression and health anxiety based issues which massively complicates things.”

He said he has seen the worst side of social media during his work. “We have a huge issue with cyber bullying amongst children and young people which lends itself to the development of eating disorder and body dysmorphia,” he said. “So social media, including Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter are the bane of my life. When I work with children therapeutically, I know it's a great platform of communication. However, I see the dark side of it too. I work with children who have attempted to kill themselves because of cyber bullying or being stalked. So all of those things that we think about in a positive way about social media can sadly be very disruptive and dysregulated for children.”

Antony explained that during the course of their stay with Resicare Alliance, the children have to be stabilised and a very structured schedule is put in place. “Most of these children are generally very dysregulated and we have to provide a lot of guidance to stabilise them,” he said. “We help them settle by putting us as much structure around the child as possible- from getting up in the morning and having meals to bedtime routines. Sadly, we see in families that this structure has been missing for whatever reason.”

He said the predictability of the structure becomes very important for the child. “That predictability becomes so important in giving that child regulation, stabilisation, nurture and guidance, which they need to navigate their way through their journey,” he said. “Through our care that's what we strive for. Every single time we take a child into our services, we always look at the child carefully to see if we can match needs against the service.”