Hearing the Voices of Canterbury’s Children-Evaluating the Place of Cholmondeley in the Overall Canterbury Social Services Environment

Since 1925 Cholmondeley Children’s Centre (formally Cholmondeley Children’s Home) has provided emergency and planned respite residential care for children aged between 3 and 12 years old, that is directly accessible to families in Christchurch and the greater Canterbury area who are experiencing distress and lack appropriate supports. This evaluation is the first to be conducted in Cholmondeley’s nearly 90 year history. It has been completed to create an initial baseline for the development of a more comprehensive framework for measuring and reporting outcomes and the difference it is making to children and their families who access it’s services. The study was also conducted after a comprehensive review and restructure of the organisation (along with it’s service delivery and practice models) had been implemented just prior to the Canterbury Earthquakes.