Our Team and the work that we do
Background
Majestic Family Services offers residential family assessments and parenting support programmes to children and their families. We have two Residential Family Centres, Buckmaster House and The Elms- both within close proximity of one another. Buckmaster House is an eight bedded unit and replaced our flagship centre, The Laurels which had been in operation since 2012, moving to the new larger site of Buckmaster House in 2026.
Our aim is to offer the highest quality parenting assessments, which are robust and evidence based, with the child firmly at the heart of every assessment.
In addition to assessments, we provide nurturing individually tailored support programmes to try to empower parents to provide ‘good enough’ parenting.
We aim to provide objective and comprehensive assessments of families to assist placing authorities and the courts in making decisions about the welfare of young people. Our staff team work in partnership with relevant professionals to provide the best possible service to families and children in placement with us.
We work with families from across the country, and offer assessments to suit the needs of each individual family.
Find out more about assessmentsEthos
We are committed to helping families to break negative cycles and support parents to try to achieve positive changes. We ensure that we provide robust, balanced, evidence based and most importantly child focused assessments.
When there are concerns regarding a parent’s ability to care for their child(ren), there is a need for well-informed decisions to be made about each child’s future. Our highly trained staff will collate and provide comprehensive information that will help enable important decisions to be made in the best interests of the child.
Majestic Family Services will continuously strive in our aim to deliver the best possible service to all parents and children placed with us.
The Company Directors
Ross Barnett
Director & Responsible Individual
Ross Barnett is the Responsible Individual for The Elms and one of the company’s founding Directors. He has over 25 years’ experience of working with children and their families. Ross is a qualified Social Worker, registered with SWE.
He began his career within Local Authority front line child protection teams and mental health team.
In 2005 Ross established a residential therapeutic group of children’s homes, therapeutic schools and a fostering service and has a passion for residential therapeutic care.
He has a BSc Hons degree in Psychology and holds the Registered Manager’s Award.
Majestic Family Services was formed to really make a difference to the lives of children and families. We strive to provide outstanding, evidence based parenting capacity assessments, as well as first class support to families placed with us.
Kate Scoins
Operations Director
Kate Scoins is the Operations Director for the service, and also the Responsible Individual for Buckmaster House.
Kate is a qualified Social Worker with SWE registration and has worked with Children and Families for over twenty five years. Kate has previously worked for the Local Authority within various front line child protection and fostering teams.
She also holds a BS Hons Degree in Specialist Practice in Social Care (Children and Families). Prior to commencing her role at Majestic Family Services in 2011, Kate was the Specialist Lead Social Worker for the East Kent Parent and Child Scheme.
Kate also holds a Diploma in Leadership for Health and Social Care and Children and Young People’s Services (Registered Manager’s Award) and the Practice Assessor’s Award- Level 1 and 2.
Ross and I founded Majestic in 2011 with a shared motivation to provide high quality assessments of parental capacity, but where the parent could also be provided with intensive support. I have been proud to see the service develop from strength to strength with each passing year. We continually strive to improve and excel in the service we offer to families and professionals, always ensuring that the highest standards of assessment are produced.
The Senior Leadership Team
Our homes are managed by experienced, qualified social workers. Our objective is to provide early intervention and support to parents to help them recognise and effectively promote the needs of their children.
Gretel Ikediashi
Registered Manager at Buckmaster House and Practice Development Lean
Gretel is the Manager at the Laurels and qualified as a social worker in 2003.
More about Gretel
Gretel is registered with Social Work England (SWE) and holds a Practice Educator Level 1 Award. She is trained in supervising AIM (Assessment Intervention and Moving on) assessments of young people displaying harmful sexual behaviour, and she is trained and licenced to undertake CUBAS parenting assessments.
Since qualifying, Gretel has worked as a social worker in Local Authority Child in Need, Looked After Children and Children and Families Social Work teams. Gretel has also worked as a Specialist Social Worker for children diagnosed with cancer at University College Hospital London, as a Supervising Social Worker for an Independent Fostering Agency, as a Practice Development Officer for a Local Authority and as an Independent Social Worker.
Prior to joining Majestic, Gretel worked as a Children and Families Team Manager for a Local Authority for three and a half years, where she supervised social workers, newly qualified social workers completing their ASYE and students. Gretel has experience of managing cases in public and private law, and of supervising children and family assessments, parenting assessments, AIMS assessments, S47 enquiries, SGO assessments, connected carers and viability assessments, and ‘together or apart’ assessments, as well as cases under child in need and child protection.
Gretel promotes a continuous learning culture in relation to practice development, safeguarding and best assessment practice.
Amy Noone
Registered Manager- The Elms
Amy joined the servcie as an Assessing social worker in 2013, and in 2022 became the Registered Manager of The Elms.
More about Amy
Throughout her time at Majestic, Amy has developed an excellent understanding of residential parenting assessments and the procedures surrounding such a service. Amy is a qualified social worker registered with Social Work England and has experience of over 30 years working with children and their families.
Along with her social work diploma Amy holds a BSc (Hons) Inter professional health and social care and a BSc (Hons) in Early childhood studies and Behavioural studies. Prior to working for Majestic Family Services Amy worked for Kent County Council as a senior practitioner establishing a good understanding of family assessments in court proceedings.
Since working with Majestic Family Services Amy has undertaken further training with Women’s Aid and is also trained in CUBAS dynamic parenting assessment model. Amy has a wealth of experience and knowledge of the parenting assessment framework undertaken at Majestic Family Services.
Serena Bartram
Deputy Manager- Buckmaster House.
Serena has worked in the childcare sector for over twenty years and has been with Majestic for 13 years.
More about Serena
The
Co- Deputy Manager at Buckmaster House is Serena Bartram. Serena has been in post at Majestic for over thirteen years. Serena has worked in the childcare sector for over twenty years.
Serena has an NVQ Level 3 in Care of Children and Young People, NVQ Level 4 in Care and NVQ Level 4 for Managers in Residential childcare, (Registered Managers Award).
Serena also has a Diploma in Therapeutic Childcare and Education and holds an A1 Award Level 3 in Assessing Candidates.
Hayley Long
Deputy Manager- The Elms
Hayley Long, Deputy Manager of The Elms has nearly 20 years’ experience working in the social care sector.
More about Hayley
Hayley Long, Deputy Manager of The Elms has nearly 20 years’ experience working in the social care sector.
These positions have included working as a social work assistant for a private fostering agency and working in the local hospital in the special care baby unit as a neonatal nursery nurse working primarily with babies born addicted to substance and their families.
Prior to coming to work for Majestic Hayley over five years ago, Hayley set up and managed a local Supervised Contact Centre and gained the accreditation from the relevant awarding bodies. Hayley has extensive experience in multi-agency working and has a NVQ Level 3 in Early Childhood Studies.
Emma Bounds
Deputy Manager/ Senior Lead Assessing Social Worker
Emma is registered with Social Work England and qualified as a Social Worker in 2020.
More about Emma
EmmaBounds is the Co- Deputy Manager, and Senior Lead Assessing Social Worker at
Buckmaster House. Emma has a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a Master’s Degree in Advanced Relationship Based Social Work.
Prior to working at Majestic, Emma worked for the Local Authority in an assessment team and has experience completing Child and Family Assessments, working in Child Protection and Child in Need, and both private and public proceedings.
Emma is trained and licensed to use the CUBAS parenting assessment model.
Majestic’s history
Majestic was founded in 2011 by Ross Barnett and Kate Scoins, both qualified social workers who had both undertaken their social work training together in 2002. Both Ross and Kate shared a desire to support the many families in need of intensive support and education, often who have faced a multitude of adversities in the life making the challenge of parenting a potentially complex task for them.
After establishing a number of therapeutic residential children’s homes and DfE registered SEMH school, Ross was particularly influenced by the case of a teenager in one of his residential children’s homes who was pregnant and her local authority was struggling to identify a suitable service that could support and assess her, so he started to look closely at the services that could help support parents in need of intensive support and assessment of their parenting capacity.
Kate, with parent and child fostering background was aware of the excellent support that foster carers can offer to parents and children but knew that not all parents and children were suitable for foster placements and that most foster carers weren’t able to provide the intensive assessments that many families needed.
Ross and Kate therefore began looking into how they could help those parents whose needs would be best suited in other forms of supportive settings. They wanted to be part of helping to provide opportunities for parents and children to remain together by trying to equip parents with the knowledge and skills they would need to safely parent their children
Since 2011, Majestic Family Services has grown from strength to strength. The demand for our assessments and services had led to various expansions, the first in 2016 to a larger property to enable us to take more families, then opening a second home- The Elms in 2022. More recently, our flagship unit, The Laurels moved to a new larger site, Buckmaster House in 2026. We aim to continue to improve our service and have a multi-skilled programme of support and assessment.
