The home keeping homeless families together

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By Jackie Long BBC Newsnight One year housing a family of four costs the same as one child in care

Thirty-one-year-old Susan is under no illusions - she has made mistakes.

But she also knows she has paid a heavy price - four of her six children were taken into care and adopted.

"How do you say goodbye to your children? How do you ever? It's not a thing you ever want to do," Susan, whose name has been changed to protect the children's identity, said as she described the farewell contact meeting she had with her two eldest children.

"I went there and I was on a giro at the time and I spent all of my giro on my kids. I was trying not to get upset in front of them, and trying my best not to cry," she explained.

"Social services pushed me through the gate and my kids were on the other side. I knew they were taking them. This was it. This was goodbye."

If I wasn't here I would still be hanging around with the wrong crowd and taking drugs and not leading a very good life. Living here has made us a family and it's going really well Michael, father at Save the Family

Susan's background is pretty typical of the families who end up at Save The Family, a homeless charity based in Chester.

Abandoned by her own mother, by the time she was 19 she was homeless, with an emerging prescription drug problem and pregnant.

A second child child followed in quick succession and Susan's life became more and more chaotic. Eventually social services deemed her unfit to protect the children and put them up for adoption.

Here again Susan is typical of the women Save The Family try to help.

Once the children were taken away, her drug and drink problems escalated. Two more babies followed. Both were taken into care and both adopted.

Parenting classes

"I was living a mad life," she explained. "A mad, chaotic life, partying, but it wasn't the life I wanted. I needed to have a child, I needed to have a family... I was still upset for my children, my babies. "

When the families arrive they are given 24-hour care and support

It is this cycle that Save The Family believes it can break.

Plas Bellin Hall is the centrepiece of the Save The Family project - a purpose built "village" in the Flintshire countryside.

It is home to 24 homeless families. When they arrive, they are usually just days away from having their children taken into care.

They come with myriad problems - often drugs and drink, a history of criminal convictions, sometimes they have children on anti social behaviour orders (Asbos).

Initially they are put into the main house where they receive 24-hour care and support. They get help with any addictions, and must attend parenting classes and sessions on budgeting.

Save The Family was set up by former headteacher Edna Speed.

Though it will not take in families with any history of child abuse, or serious violence, Mrs Speed believes there are very few families the charity cannot help.

"It's do-able, very do-able," she said. "We can keep these families together and we do. Why should these children be denied that childhood, that family, denied that mother, that father?"

Drug treatment

Save The Family say it is cheaper than putting children in care too. They can house a family of two adults and two children for around £40,000 a year. It costs around the same to keep one child in care for the same period.

Save The Family was set up by former headteacher Edna Speed

By the time Susan arrived at Plas Bellin earlier this year she had had two more children with her partner Michael. They had struggled on, even while he spent time in prison for stealing to fund his heroin habit, until they eventually realised they needed help.

He is now on a methadone programme and Susan has also dealt with her prescription drug problem. She has learnt to cook and family trainers say that seeing Michael play with the couple's two sons is a sign of real progress.

And Michael himself, is in no doubt that coming to Save The Family, has helped his family stay together.

"If I wasn't here I would still be hanging around with the wrong crowd and taking drugs and not leading a very good life. Living here has made us a family and it's going really well," he explained.

Double-edged sword

For some though the very beauty of Save the Family's Plas Bellin project - its isolation - is also its biggest drawback.

The centre's idyllic surroundings gives families a chance to escape

It lifts families, both physically and emotionally, away from the drug dealers, pubs and crime that create the chaos in their lives.

But what happens when the families have to move back there?

The charity does offer ongoing support. It has a number of homes on estates with Save The Family workers living on site.

However, a number of people we spoke to were living at Plas Bellin for the second time, a situation the charity described as "not ideal".

Jane, another of the mothers there, understands why. She ended up sleeping in a lift with her husband and son, who has learning difficulties, after being evicted for not paying her rent.

"I'd live here forever," she said. "This is heaven to me. I wish there were more places like this."