Mission Statement

Dean and Cauvin Trust is based in Edinburgh. We provide a warm and committed staff team to work alongside young people and young parents. This includes care experienced young people and young people at risk of homelessness. The young people we work with will have experienced adversity and may struggle to see their own potential. We provide a range of supports to help them recognise their self-worth and individual strengths and potential in their transition to adulthood.

Dean and Cauvin Trust are a family of interconnected services. We provide residential group living, supported tenancies, community outreach and group work offering a continuum of care and support in the life space of young people.  Dean and Cauvin Trust’s teams also work collaboratively with relevant partner agencies throughout Scotland.

We recognise that all life’s transitions and challenges can be hard. Investing in good relationships is the key to offering security and attachment which creates an overall sense of belonging, allowing young people to move on into adulthood with confidence and spirit.

Philosophy of care

We strive to empower young people to believe in themselves and see a positive future. Acknowledging their own strengths, skills and ambitions and building on these encourages young people to identify and achieve their chosen goals.

As an organisation we offer unconditional acceptance and compassionate care for our young people as individuals, yet will actively aim to challenge young people to reflect on behaviour that presents a risk and offence to themselves or others. We do this through creating meaningful, sustained and trusting relationships, through sharing experiences alongside young people.

We acknowledge the importance of understanding our own personal and professional strengths, and vulnerabilities.  By sharing this we show young people that we have vulnerabilities too, helping us to challenge barriers of power, difference and diversity.

We demonstrate this by creating a culture of learning together through spending quality time with young people as compassionate and patient mentors, educators and social role models.  We embrace the values of being open and honest with young people, accepting and respectful of the choices that they make, whilst ensuring that they are informed and guided.

In providing person centred support, we promote a consistent experience for all young people across our services, with a shared value base and practice model. We work collaboratively and creatively with young people in developing support plans that are realistic, engaging and motivational.

Through the above values we recognise young parents as young people themselves, acknowledging that balanced support is required. To support both the individual personal growth in confidence, resilience and skills of the parent. As well as the need to support positive parenting. We recognise that happy, secure parents are in a better position to provide physical and emotional security for their children and be responsible and caring young parents.

We invest in a culture of learning through training, reflective and evidence based practice. Our service works in line with local and national strategy.  However, as our primary stakeholders we prioritise young people’s contribution and actively incorporate their feedback into the continuing growth and development of our services and practice. At the heart of our ethos, is the underlying shared ambition to ensure our young people succeed.