Oasis is a ground-breaking group of charities that have been pioneering models of sustainable and holistic education, supported and affordable housing and community development over the last 35 years. The Oasis vision is for community – a place where everyone is included, making a contribution, and reaching their God-given potential.

Oasis is about people, their aspirations, opportunities, education, employment and their communities – in other words, their wellbeing. We believe that things can change. Where systems leave communities disadvantaged we’re bold about pioneering alternatives and trying new things. We’re not satisfied with the status quo where it keeps people trapped in poverty, or constantly at risk of exclusion.

Working alongside some of the most vulnerable communities our purpose is to develop Oasis ‘Hubs’, which provide wide ranging and integrated services, designed to meet the breadth of human need. We seek to work in an integrated and holistic way, providing a range of mutually supporting services. We do this because we have learnt that separate, non-integrated “solutions” often fail to achieve lasting change.

High quality, trauma-informed care and an aspirational education offer are some of the critical elements of our multi-disciplinary work that serves over 60,000 children, young adults and their families.

Together, Oasis staff and volunteers aspire to:

• Understand individuals’ stories and contexts to help them grow and develop
• Create safe, stimulating home and learning environments
• Believe that change is possible, no matter the starting point
• Provide bespoke learning and care with quality, compassion, and rigour to help everyone we work with to realise their full potential

At Oasis Restore, our vision is to transform the life chances of children in the criminal justice system, so that they have the opportunity to reach their full potential and be the best they can be.

Our mission is to provide a therapeutic and educational community that embeds hope, stability, and opportunity within and beyond Oasis Restore. We will do this through our three cornerstones of relationships, discovery, and community. 

Oasis Restore will offer a reparative opportunity to children and young people, who have become criminally involved, often because of neglect, trauma, and loss.

We recognise that our students will have been placed into Oasis Restore with restrictions to their freedom, for their own and society’s safety. As with all Oasis communities, our vision for Oasis Restore is to create a place of care where every child is given an opportunity to thrive. All involved – staff as well as students – are learners and will be encouraged to take responsibility for leading their ongoing personal transformation.

Our practice will be psychologically informed through building trusting relationships with and between our young people and adults. We will be practical, effective and creative in order to celebrate individuality and we will do this in the context of treasuring the community. As we embrace this approach, we will seek to address some of the consequences of trauma and loss in our young student’s lives.

Our mission, therefore, is to not just deliver an innovative education offer but also to develop a healthy sense of identity, a sense of purpose that improves our students’ social cognition, emotional intelligence and to support them as they journey onwards. We recognise that most of our students will not have enjoyed the traditional classroom setting and may have a fear of education delivery that feels institutional. We know the young people we serve will exhibit behaviours characterised as dysregulated, challenging, and complex. However, we also know that none of our students come from zero; that all have inherent strengths and interests.

Our goal is to tap into their curiosity and talents to develop skills for life and learning whilst providing them with training or qualifications in areas in which they have interest. We want to focus on what is strong, not what has gone wrong. To this end, we will use enquiry and curiosity – in both structured and unstructured sessions – together with the creative arts, media, sport, and the outdoors to support our philosophy of learning.

Most importantly, from the very first day of their stay at Oasis Restore, we will work with each of our students not only to focus on their time with us but to prepare them for transition back into the community or into the wider custodial estate.

We will support them, not simply with the goal of not reoffending, but crucially, to enable them to achieve long-term wellbeing. We want our students to maintain a positive contribution to their community as well as to wider society throughout their lifetime.

If you're searching for your next education job, please get in touch. You'll be working for a great employer and be part of a friendly, helpful team. We're always interested to hear from enthusiastic, committed education professionals - send us your CV now via our Talent Pool and detail what sort of role you're looking for. By joining our Talent Pool we'll know you're interested in working here when the right vacancy comes up.

Oasis Restore has a values-led, evidence-based, and bespoke approach to our practice. This is encapsulated in the Restore Framework which is designed for the specific group of children we serve and informs all that we do from our policies and processes to our structures and daily interactions.

The Restore Framework is grounded in the Oasis ethos and 9 Habits and supports whole, integrated systems. By having an inter-dependent, pan-organisation approach to our staff and systems, we encourage collaboration and enable each area of practice to bring the benefit of their learning and, together, we can deliver high quality care for our students.

Importantly, Restore’s Framework is psychologically informed. This means we have used tried-and-tested knowledge of practice and psychological theory to inform our understanding of areas such as:

• How the human brain develops in childhood and adolescence

• What happens to the brain when a child has experienced trauma such as neglect, abuse, lack of loving connections or threats

• How these experiences affect children's social, and emotional development and their ability to process and retain information, learn new things, concentrate, make decisions, and problem solve in everyday life (cognitive functioning)

• The foundational role that quality, secure early attachment relationships play in the emotional development of children and functioning through their teenage years into early adulthood, and their lifelong necessity

• What this means for how we should understand, care for and work with the children at Restore, their families and communities, and how we train and support our staff to help them thrive.

Oasis Restore’s leaders will be expected to model and operationalise a secure school that is based on the Oasis Restore Framework of Care.

Oasis Restore’s Framework is founded on the following principles:

R - Relationships through building trust

E - Empowerment through providing choices and nurturing responsibility

S - Safety through providing consistency, a secure base and community

T - Trauma-Informed practice through creating a psychologically informed culture and systems

O - Ownership through providing life affirming opportunities

R - Restoration through offering support and challenge

E - Enquiry through encouraging openness and reflection

In using these principles throughout our policies, practice, and processes in the school, we will ensure that we create an environment of high-quality care and psychological safety for our students and staff.