Fostering Solutions Limited

Fostering Solutions Limited Inspection report for independent fostering agency

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SC033219 Unique reference number 20 August 2009 Inspection date Sarah Oldham Inspector Key Type of Inspection

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Fostering Solutions Ltd Address Unit 4 Burnden House Viking Street Bolton Lancashire BL3 2RR 01204 522667 Telephone number

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Email

Fostering Solutions Ltd Registered person John Joseph Paul Keane Registered manager

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Responsible individual

7 December 2007 Date of last inspection .

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Responsible individual

This document may be reproduced in whole or in part for non-commercial educational purposes, provided that the information quoted is reproduced without adaptation and the source and date of publication are stated.

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Responsible individual

You can obtain copies of The Children Act 2004, Every Child Matters and The National Minimum Standards for Children's Services from: The Stationery Office (TSO) PO Box 29, St Cripins, Duke Street, Norwich, NR3 1GN. Tel: 0870 600 5522. Online ordering: www.tso.co.uk/bookshop

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About this inspection

The purpose of this inspection is to assure children and young people, parents, the public, local authorities and government of the quality and standard of the service provided. The inspection was carried out under the Care Standards Act 2000. This report details the main strengths and any areas for improvement identified during the inspection. The judgements included in the report are made in relation to the outcome for children set out in the Children Act 2004 and relevant National Minimum Standards for the establishment.

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The inspection judgements and what they mean

this aspect of the provision is of exceptionally high quality Outstanding: this aspect of the provision is strong Good: this aspect of the provision is sound Satisfactory: this aspect of the provision is not good enough Inadequate: 3 of 10 Inspection Report: Fostering Solutions Limited,20 August 2009

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Brief description of the service

Fostering Solutions was established in June 2000. In 2006 this agency became part of Acorn Care and Education Limited which specialise in the provision of education and care for young people with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties.

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Brief description of the service

Fostering Solutions (North West) is organised into three teams covering the Lancashire, Greater Manchester and Liverpool areas. They have approved a diverse range of carers to meet young people's assessed needs and are supported by qualified staff to provide 327 placements.

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Summary

This was an announced inspection of all of the key outcome areas under the Every Child Matters agenda.

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Summary

The is a well-managed agency which is supporting the carers well and providing good outcomes for the children and young children placed. Dedicated, experienced and suitably qualified staff who have access to appropriate training and supervision staff the agency. The quality of work undertaken by the staff team is good.

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Summary

The agency has robust policies and procedures in place to ensure that the safety and well-being of the children and young people is supported. The service is monitored and action plans and developmental work is ongoing to ensure that the agency continues to deliver a good service with positive outcomes for young people.

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Summary

Carers are effectively supported with ongoing supervision, training and development of their skills and experience. Carers feel that the agency is proactive in consultation and providing a wide range of training opportunities.

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Summary

The equality and diversity steering group has ensured that this is promoted throughout the agency and training has been provided to all staff and carers. The overall quality rating is outstanding. This is an overview of what the inspector found during the inspection.

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Improvements since the last inspection

At the previous inspection, two recommendations were made relating to ensuring that safe caring policies were produced in consultation with all members of the carer’s household, agreed by the child's social worker and explained clearly to the child. To address this, the agency has reviewed all safe caring policies to ensure that carers are completing them for individual children, supported by their supervising social worker and agreed with the placing authority social worker. Safe caring policies are signed by the carer and the placing social worker and explained to the child appropriately. Children and young people spoken to confirmed that they were aware of the safe care policy in the household and viewed it as household rules that respected all members of the household, including themselves.

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Improvements since the last inspection

The other recommendation related to the children's guide being in an accessible format. The agency has further developed this and a guide is available on a CD and DVD for all children and young people in placement. 4 of 10 Inspection Report: Fostering Solutions Limited,20 August 2009 The agency has further developed its recording systems to ensure that they have good safeguarding procedures in place to ensure that they respond effectively to notifications, complaints and issues regarding safeguarding. This was not identified as an issue at the last inspection. However, the agency wishes to be proactive in providing a high level of care and support to children and young people placed with carers recruited by the agency.

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Helping children to be healthy

The provision is outstanding. The fostering service actively promotes the health care needs and well-being of children and young people in placement. Carers ensure that all young people placed with them are registered with health care professionals, including doctors, dentists and opticians as well as any specialist health care professionals as identified as part of individual health care needs. Carers are aware that their role may include working with a range of health care professionals to promote the health of children and young people and this was evident from visits to foster carers.

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Helping children to be healthy

Training provided includes the promotion of health and wellbeing. Initial training is provided at the 'Skills to Foster' course for all prospective foster carers, with further training provided following approval. This training clearly identifies the role of the foster carers in supporting young children and young people and the required formats and information to complete, including when a child is unwell, has had an accident or any issues affecting their health. Foster carers say that this training is helpful to provide them with clear guidance and information.

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Helping children to be healthy

All foster carers have to complete seven core-training courses each year; one of these is promoting health care needs of children. Carers approved to care for babies and mother and baby placements, receive training on weaning, inoculations and development of babies and this training covers an overview of sudden unexplained death syndrome (cot death). However, this training does not contain full information of the procedures that will be followed in the event of this happening.

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Protecting children from harm or neglect and helping them stay safe

The provision is outstanding. The service is managed by staff who have the necessary qualifications, experience and knowledge to ensure that the service is managed effectively. The recruitment policy and procedure for all staff ensure that there are robust and effective systems in place for appropriate vetting of prospective staff. All staff are requested for a full employment history and where gaps in employment have been identified these are explored. References are sought and further confirmation of references is followed up with confirmation by telephone. All staff have appropriate enhanced Criminal Record Bureau (CRB) disclosures in place and these are updated every three years in line with good practice.

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Protecting children from harm or neglect and helping them stay safe

The recruitment and selection of foster carers also follows robust systems, including CRB enhanced disclosures. There is a renewal process of these in line with staff who work for the agency. References for carers are in place and the agency ensures that the views gained from prospective foster carer’s own children, both adult children and those still living at home, are clearly recorded. In addition, the views from previous partners are also gathered to ensure a holistic assessment is undertaken. Carers felt that the recruitment process was robust, they were also fully aware of why in depth assessment and references had to be undertaken to ensure the welfare of children and young people. 5 of 10 Inspection Report: Fostering Solutions Limited,20 August 2009 The service has recruited a member of staff who takes the lead responsibility for health and safety checks of carers homes. All carers have a health and safety risk assessment in place that

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Protecting children from harm or neglect and helping them stay safe

provides comprehensive information to ensure that children placed live in safe environments. The risk assessments also cover pet assessments for all pets maintained by carers, play equipment, for example, trampolines and any individual risks that may impact on the children and young people placed. The health and safety officer also provides a wide range of information to carers and staff. They are supported within their role by a number of foster carers who have undergone training to undertake risk assessments of fostering households outside of the area that they live in. However, the responsibility of health and safety remains with the health and safety department of the agency.

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Protecting children from harm or neglect and helping them stay safe

The agency ensures that appropriate matching documentation is completed for all children and young people in placement. Supervising social workers state that there is never any pressure to place a child if the match is not considered to be appropriate or in the best interest of the child. This view is also confirmed by carers spoken to, visited or who returned questionnaires.

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Protecting children from harm or neglect and helping them stay safe

All carers and staff from the agency have undertaken safeguarding training. Safeguarding procedures are made available on the internet site for foster carers and also detailed within the foster carer handbook. These procedures cover children and young people missing from home and strategies to put into place regarding this. Carers are provided with clear guidance about disciplinary measures, complaints and allegations. The service provides information to carers that the child’s or young person's room is their own private space, but does not clearly identify when it may be required to enter a child's room for purpose of searching for purpose of safeguarding. This is currently being addressed. To further ensure that safeguarding remains high on the agency’s agenda, senior managers meet four times a year as part of the safeguarding board where any issues of safeguarding or amendments to the policies and procedures are

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Protecting children from harm or neglect and helping them stay safe

All carers have safe care policies for their households that are personalised for each young person placed. These are kept under review, any changes are clearly recorded and amended copies are maintained on individual files. Carers are fully involved in the development and updating of these policies.

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Protecting children from harm or neglect and helping them stay safe

Foster carers have access to a psychologist that is employed by the agency. Access to this support is via a referral process. The carers feel that this service is helpful and responsive to their needs especially when supporting children and young people with complex needs or behavioural issues.

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Protecting children from harm or neglect and helping them stay safe

The fostering panel is organised efficiently to ensure that any decisions made regarding approval, review or de-registration of carers are fully discussed and explored prior to recommendations made. Panel membership includes independent representatives from health, education and a foster carer from an external agency. Discussion was in depth and issues clearly deliberated prior to decisions being made. Carers attending panel are supported effectively by their supervising social workers and recommendations made by the panel are clearly explained. It is made clear to carers that the panel can recommend but the final decision is with the agency decision maker.

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Helping children achieve well and enjoy what they do

The provision is outstanding. 6 of 10 Inspection Report: Fostering Solutions Limited,20 August 2009 The service promotes equality and diversity for all children and young people placed. It has an equality and diversity group that provides guidance and information on policies and procedures. All carers and staff have received training and guidance on promoting equality and diversity, with further training currently being planned to expand on this. The fostering service diversity group has developed the advertising to include access in different languages and the agency has had the statement of purpose translated into other languages to ensure that it is accessible. Carers are able to demonstrate a good understanding of their role in promoting equality and diversity. This is discussed during carer’s supervision and through foster carer reviews. The service also ensures through the matching process that carers are able to meet diverse needs

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Helping children achieve well and enjoy what they do

Carers are provided with support to maximise children’s and young people's full potential to lead as full a life as possible. Agency staff support carers to discuss individual needs of young people with the placing authority to ensure that appropriate equipment is provided to meet individual needs of young people. Carers who provide care and support to young people with complex needs are provided with appropriate training and guidance to meet those needs of the children placed.

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Helping children achieve well and enjoy what they do

Carers who provide care for children in trans-racial placements have ensured that necessary skills have been gained to ensure that all aspects of cultural, health and wellbeing are met effectively. A number of young people placed confirmed this and included carers providing appropriate dietary knowledge and meals and ensuring basic skin and hair care needs were met to promote their self-esteem and cultural identity.

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Helping children achieve well and enjoy what they do

Carers are supported to ensure that the educational needs of the young people in placement are met. Information is provided regarding education through educational training. The agency is further promoting this through the education group which is looking at issues surrounding funding for individual young people to assist and promote education including how to obtain this funding from placing authorities. The agency has access to independent tutors to provide support to children and young people to attain positive educational outcomes. One young person said 'having access to a tutor has given me much more confidence and I am getting better marks for my school work'. Carers attend parents’ evenings and school events to support and celebrate young people's educational achievements as well as providing transport to schools outside of the area to ensure that the education of young people is not disrupted when placed

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Helping children achieve well and enjoy what they do

out of area. The agency also provides certificates of achievement for young people and provides information in newsletters on a regular basis.

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Helping children achieve well and enjoy what they do

The agency monitors the attendance of children and young people at school and is active in supporting carers to gain fulltime placements in education for children in placement.

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Helping children make a positive contribution

The provision is outstanding. The service ensures that contact for children and young people is promoted in accordance with their individual placement plan. Carers are provided with training about the importance of contact and their role and responsibilities regarding promotion and support of this. All carers keep individual record sheets for young people and record any issues that may have arisen at contact, how the young person presents following contact and if any issues have arisen, reports this to their supervising social worker. 7 of 10 Inspection Report: Fostering Solutions Limited,20 August 2009 The agency has developed excellent forums, events and newsletters for consultation. These include social activity events for carers, foster children and the children of foster families. Support groups are available for carers as well as social groups for children who are fostered and children of foster carers. There are regular newsletters for children that are age appropriate

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Helping children make a positive contribution

and newsletters for carers. The service sends out questionnaires to all children on an annual basis as well as questionnaires for foster carers’ annual reviews. In addition, the service has further developed its fostering website providing greater opportunity for consultation. The foster carer forum meets four times per year; this is when foster carer representatives can meet with the senior directors and managers of the organisation to further develop consultation.

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Helping children make a positive contribution

The agency gains the views of children and young people, their parents/guardians and placing authority social workers for the annual assessment of foster carers. The children of foster carers are also provided with the opportunity to make their views known as part of the annual review.

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Helping children make a positive contribution

Supervising social workers also ensure that they have the opportunity to meet with children and young people placed with carers when they undertake supervision sessions with the carer.

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Helping children make a positive contribution

Children and young people say that they feel that they are consulted about their care and support that they receive. They are also aware of who to contact if they have any concerns or problems. Examples of what children said include ‘I am really happy here; I am one of the family and can talk to my carers about anything that is worrying me’. ‘I like living here, I feel safe’; ‘I don't ever want to leave.’ All the young people who were spoken to and those that completed questionnaires said they knew what to do if they had a complaint, this included talking with their carers, or their teachers or social workers. They felt that any complaint made would be listened too and that their complaint would be followed up and resolved.

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Achieving economic wellbeing

The provision is good. The agency supports young people who are preparing towards independence in a number of ways. Carers receive training and guidance in assisting young people prepare for independence, including support with basic budgeting, cooking and self-care. The agency supports carers to ensure that pathway plans are in place and that young people have access to leaving care workers from placing authorities. Where a young person is remaining in placement past 18 years of age the agency has supported carers in liaising with placing authorities to promote foster care beyond the age of 18 in supported lodgings or continuing care placements.

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Achieving economic wellbeing

The agency has a policy in place for carers to support young people obtain an appropriate savings account and carers are provided with guidance regarding ensuring savings are in place for young people. Carers are also provided with a clear pocket money structure for young people.

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Achieving economic wellbeing

The agency has a finance department responsible for ensuring payments to carers are received in a timely fashion. All carers state that payments are received on time and there have been no issues identified with additional payments for clothing or equipment for children and young people placed in an emergency. The payment scale is provided to all carers as part of the information provided at the commencement of the assessment period.

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Organisation

The organisation is outstanding. 8 of 10 Inspection Report: Fostering Solutions Limited,20 August 2009 The promotion of equality and diversity is outstanding. The service has further developed policies and procedures that fully support equality and inclusion for all children who are looked after by carers. The service has an equality and diversity group who have further developed polices and arranged for translation of documents into four languages with a further three planned in the near future. All staff and carers who work for the agency have undertaken equality and diversity training and further advanced training is being planned for the near future. The views of children and young people are sought to ensure that they have an opportunity to voice their views and pinions. Children whose parents foster are also able to share their views and opinions through consultation and specific ‘Children Who Foster’ groups.

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Organisation

The statement of purpose has been reviewed and updated. It is made accessible to all carers, placing authorities and parents/carers and other interested parties. The service also arranges for this document to be translated if required. There are children's guides for younger and older children that are available on a CD and within the children's welcome pack. These contain information about living with foster carers, what to expect and how to complain if they have any concerns.

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Organisation

The service has significantly developed the practices for monitoring of the agency and this enables all managers and staff to have an overview of how the agency is performing as well as providing details on specific parts of the service. This further supports young people in placement and ensures that there are effective and comprehensive systems in place to safeguard children and young people.

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Organisation

The service has a clear management structure in place and staff are aware of who they are accountable to. The structure of the organisation is explained to carers and details are provided in post approval training as well as in the initial information pack provided to carers. Supervising social workers are clear about their role and responsibilities. Caseloads remain manageable and all carers spoken to and those that responded to the questionnaires sent out by Ofsted, to gain their views of the service, felt that they received an excellent level of support form their social worker. Carers also stated that they knew the managers and found them to be helpful and supportive.

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Organisation

Supervising social workers have the necessary qualifications, experience and knowledge to fulfil their role and provide the support to the carers. All social workers receive supervision on a regular basis and feel that they are supported effectively. Training for social workers is made available and all have access to a number of internal and external training programmes. Social work staff feel that this contributes to their overall effectiveness within the agency. Caseloads for supervising social workers are consistent and manageable and staff say that managers are exceptionally supportive with their allocated caseloads.

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Organisation

All carers have a copy of the foster carer handbook and this is also available to them on the website through a secure password protected system. They also have access to policies and procedures as well as notification forms. Carers were clear about their role and responsibilities and felt that the carer supervision and support that they received from their supervising social workers was excellent.

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Organisation

The service has a comprehensive training programme in place for carers, this includes seven core training courses that all carers are expected to undertake. In addition, the Children's Workforce Development Council (CWDC) training has been introduced and this is commenced 9 of 10 Inspection Report: Fostering Solutions Limited,20 August 2009 by all carers who are undertaking assessment for approval as well as being provided to exciting carers. Carers’ training is discussed at the carers’ review and any issues clearly identified if training has not been undertaken within the agreed level. Overall views of the carers is that training provided is good and they like the mix of external and internal training that is provided. Support groups for carers also cover additional training and discussion points. Support groups have increased in number to ensure that all carers have access to support groups.

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Organisation

The service has a clear system in place for receiving and recording notifications and complaints. Complaints are responded to within agreed timescales and a record is maintained of the action taken to address the complaint. All carers, children and staff are aware of the complaints procedure.

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Organisation

The service has further expanded to include the opening of a satellite service within Liverpool. This service is situated within a multi-cultural area and is accessible for carers. The main office is situated in a purpose built office and provides appropriate access for carers and young people for training and development along with the core function of the service.

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Statutory requirements

This section sets out the actions, which must be taken so that the registered person meets the Care Standards Act 2000, The Fostering Services Regulations 2005 and the National Minimum Standards. The Registered Provider must comply with the given timescales.

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Recommendations

To improve the quality and standards of care further the registered person should take account of the following recommendation(s): • ensure that the training for carers who care for babies and young children provides information about Sudden unexplained death syndrome (NMS 12.5) • ensure that it is made clear to carers that when it is necessary to search a child’s room this is clearly recorded in accordance with the safe care policy and agreement is obtained from the placing authority (NMS 9.4) 10 of 10 Inspection Report: Fostering Solutions Limited,20 August 2009

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