Glebe House closed after safeguarding concerns
The decision, by the trustees of Friends Therapeutic Community Trust (FTCT), followed concerns raised by Ofsted last year
The Quaker-founded Glebe House, which closed this summer, was forced to permanently shut after concerns around its safeguarding practices and management.
The Cambridgeshire specialist care home and school supported boys who had a history of harmful sexual behaviour.
The decision, by the trustees of Friends Therapeutic Community Trust (FTCT), followed concerns raised by Ofsted last year. This led to the school’s services being temporarily suspended in November 2023.
The Ofsted inspectorate found ‘widespread shortfalls in management’. These included concerns around a lack of records relating to their oversight and decision-making, which meant ‘leaders and managers did not have the full information’ about incidents at the home.
Meanwhile an internal investigation following a ‘serious incident’ in July 2023 found that ‘safeguarding practice had not been good enough for a number of months’.
Stephen Cheetham, former chief executive of Glebe House, said the trustee’s decision followed ‘a number of reviews that I initiated, and followed comprehensive advice about how we would need to improve practice and improve the site. The financial position of the charity was also given huge consideration’.
He said on LinkedIn that he ‘fully accepted and respected the very difficult decision the Trustees had to make and I was asked to stay on for 3 months to provide support, advice and guidance to the Trustees about closure, as their CEO’.
Writing in the Friend in 18 October, Annaliese Brogden and Nicola Brogden Payne, daughters of Glebe House founder Geoffrey Brogden, asked: ‘Has the decision been made with the same trembling before the Spirit as the decision was to found it?’
In an online statement the trustees said they intended to ‘apply the remaining assets to other charities to further the intentions/founding principles of the charity’.
The school was founded in the early 1960s by Quakers, including probation officer Geoffrey Brodgen and psychiatrist David Clark, and included Quakers as trustees.
In 2009, an Ofsted inspection gave it an overall rating of ‘outstanding’, reporting: ‘Being healthy, staying safe, enjoying and achieving, positive contribution, achieving economic well-being and organisation are all rated outstanding.’
