Clare Lodge has been awarded Healthy Schools status for promoting healthy lifestyles and improving the health and well-being of its staff and residents.

The home in Welmore Road, Glinton, Peterborough, provides accommodation and support for 16 young women aged between 10 and 17, who are in need of care and protection within a secure environment. It is licensed by the Department of Health and is one of only two of its kind in the UK.

It is the second time the home has been achieved the standard.

The National Healthy Schools Programme is a long-term initiative which supports the links between health, behaviour and achievement. It aims to create healthy and happy children and young people, who do better in learning and in life.

To achieve the award schools must adopt a 'whole-school approach' to physical and emotional well-being involving children and young people, parents, school staff and the whole school community.

Schools need to focus on four core themes: personal, social and health education; healthy
eating; physical activity; and emotional health and wellbeing.

Councillor Geoff Ridgway, cabinet member for education and children's services said:

"Education is a key part of the services provided at Clare Lodge to help turn around the lives of some of the country's most vulnerable young women. I am delighted the team has achieved Healthy Schools status. It is a tribute to the hard work they have put in to encourage all the young women who stay there to be healthy and achieve at school and in life."

Deputy head teacher at Clare Lodge's school, Denise Frost, said: ''The ethos behind the
National Healthy Schools Programme is that if schools provide opportunities for enhancing
emotional and physical health, we will improve long term health, reduce health inequalities, increase social inclusion and raise achievement for all. When the young women leave Clare Lodge we want to have given them the skills and knowledge to live a healthy life in the future."

Manager Michael Nerini said: "The accreditation is a glowing endorsement of the work done at Clare Lodge. It represents the high standards to which the establishment is working."

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