Children's Home run by Darlington Borough Council in Darlington

Unique reference number SC068000 Inspection date 31/05/2012 Inspector Stephen Smith Type of inspection Full Provision subtype Children's home

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Date of last inspection 23/03/2012 Website: www.ofsted.gov.uk

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Brief description of the service

This children's home is local authority managed and provides care and accommodation for up to three children with emotional and/or behavioural difficulties or learning disabilities.

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The inspection judgements and what they mean

Outstanding : a service that significantly exceeds minimum requirements Good : a service that exceeds minimum requirements Adequate : a service that only meets minimum requirements Inadequate : a service that does not meet minimum requirements

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Overall effectiveness

The overall effectiveness is judged to be good .

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Overall effectiveness

This is a good children’s home that helps produce outstanding outcomes for young people.

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Overall effectiveness

The home is well managed. It benefits from an experienced, well-trained and competent staff team and takes a robust approach to monitoring its performance and the quality of care provided. The home has an annual development plan in place, although this is not as specific or well-developed as it could be.

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Overall effectiveness

The home is good at helping young people to keep safe. It has good arrangements in place to protect young people and ensures that any bullying is dealt with effectively and promptly. Staff and managers have very good relationships with young people. Consequently, young people do not go missing from the home and any minor instances of young people being away from the home without permission are dealt with appropriately taking young people’s ages into consideration.

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Overall effectiveness

Young people are consulted about and involved in the care provided to them. Effective placement planning ensures their care needs are met. Staff have very good relationships with young people’s families. This helps promote positive and beneficial contact for young people and helps them retain their own identity. The home provides young people with very good support for their health and education.

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Overall effectiveness

This strong support for young people translates, in practice, to them achieving outstanding outcomes in terms of their health, transition into adulthood and particularly their on-going educational attendance and achievement. Young people achieve impressively well in their education and recognise the difference the home has made in their lives in supporting this achievement. For example, one young person said, ‘When I came here I didn’t really care about anything. They got me the help I needed and I started talking about things and my life got turned round. All my mates have seen the difference in me.’

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Recommendations

To improve the quality and standards of care further the service should take account of the following recommendation(s):

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Recommendations

 ensure that the written development plan for the future of the home identifies any planned changes or confirms the continuation of the home's current operation and resource. Specifically, that it is sufficiently detailed and specific (NMS 15.2)  ensure that all care staff hold an appropriate qualification at a minimum of level 3. (NMS 18.5)

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Outcomes for children and young people

Outcomes for children and young people are outstanding .

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Outcomes for children and young people

Young people’s life chances are significantly improved improve as a result of the care provided by the team working at this home.

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Outcomes for children and young people

Young people have ready access to all the primary health services they require. They receive the support and encouragement they need to access any medical appointments. Young people take an increasingly independent role in the provision of their own health care, as appropriate, in order to help them prepare for adulthood. Young people access any specialist health provision they may require including any support needed with their emotional health. They benefit from good support and education which improves their emotional and sexual health.

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Outcomes for children and young people

Young people retain strong links with their families and receive help to maintain or improve any relationships which may be difficult for them. This helps them retain an understanding and appreciation of their heritage and the key relationships they will require in later life. Young people are able to develop and maintain friendships outside the home and can have friends to visit or go and stay overnight with them. Their safety is well monitored in these situations. Young people’s friends are made welcome in the home and visit very regularly; this helps young people form appropriate and meaningful friendships.

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Outcomes for children and young people

Young people’s attendance and achievement in education improves impressively during their stay at the home. Young people develop aspirations and work hard to achieve these. Attendance at school or college is excellent in respect of all young people living at the home and they achieve extremely well. Young people's achievement is particularly outstanding given their situations at the time of admission to the home. Their individual support needs are met in ways that suit them and they access additional support or tuition as they need. The achievement of young people provides them with significantly enhanced opportunities to succeed in later life.

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Outcomes for children and young people

Young people who are getting ready to move into adulthood receive excellent, individualised support which helps them make successful and smooth transitions into independent living.

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Quality of care

Relationships between young people living at the home and the young people and the staff team are very good. Young people and staff are respectful to each other and this helps young people to manage their own behaviour appropriately. Behaviour management is proactive and positive. Sanctions are extremely rare as is the use of physical intervention which is only minimally intrusive when it does occur. One young person said that the rules ‘are fair’ and another said ‘There’s so little bad behaviour that they reward good behaviour’. Monitoring of children’s behaviour and the use of sanctions is good which helps to ensure that methods used are effective. For example, a sanction imposed recently was cancelled by the manager as a result of her monitoring because of its negative impact on the young person in other areas. Young people describe the home as ‘laid back’ and ‘just like a family home’.

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Quality of care

Young people have a significant say in their own care and how the home is run. This ensures that their views are heard and helps them learn how to make good decisions about their lives and future. The quality of relationships in the home and its way of working with young people promotes their involvement and helps them become more responsible for their own lives. Each young person has a key worker, whom they meet with regularly, to ensure that they have opportunity to express their views. Keyworkers discuss young people’s achievements with them as well as any key issues they are facing or any problems they have. This helps inform the home’s effective placement planning for young people and ensures that the care provided is focused on young people’s needs.

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Quality of care

Staff at the home work very positively and proactively with young people’s families and develop good working relationships with them. This further enhances the quality of the care provided to young people. Families are welcome to visit the home and do so on a regular basis. The home also liaises effectively with young people's social workers and external agencies to help ensure that their needs are identified and addressed.

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Quality of care

The home works sensitively with young people’s individual needs and situations. Care provided is inclusive, supports young people and reduces any discrimination they may face. For example cultural needs are dealt with sensitively and young people are helped to develop their own sense of identity. The home provides young people with good support for their health. Any medication needed by young people is well managed and safely stored. Young people are encouraged to self-administer medication such as painkillers following an assessment of any risks involved. Staff members are trained in the safe administration of medication and in first aid. The home provides young people with a lot of support and advice regarding their emotional and physical and sexual health. This can be provided by staff ‘in-house’ or through the home’s effective links with external agencies.

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Quality of care

The home works effectively with schools and other agencies to help young people get the education they need. The home works hard with young people to encourage their attendance and attainment. Staff have high expectations of young people and this translates into the high aspirations that young people have. Staff provide structured support with young people’s education including helping with homework, and providing set periods of time for educational work to be done. Additional tuition is arranged for young people where this will be beneficial. This work helps support the impressive educational successes being achieved by the young people at the home. For example, young people’s educational outcomes are improved regardless of whether they were already achieving well or not on admission to the home and young people make significant improvements in relatively short periods of time.

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Quality of care

The home’s premises are well-maintained, homely and comfortable and personalised with young people’s personal items, books and photographs.

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Safeguarding children and young people

The service is good at keeping children and young people safe and feeling safe.

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Safeguarding children and young people

Young people living at this home are kept safe and well. They feel safe and have strong relationships with staff members which further help to protect them. Young people behave well their relationships with the staff team allow for positive methods of behaviour management to be employed. Recording and monitoring arrangements are robust and help promote young people’s safety should incidents occur.

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Safeguarding children and young people

The staff team know how to respond to allegations, suspicions or evidence of harm and receive regular training in how to safeguard and promote children's welfare. Staff are alert to the potential of bullying and work constructively with young people to prevent this. Where any bullying does take place this is identified and addressed promptly by staff. Young people are helped to understand others and to accept their differences. Consequently, bullying is extremely rare and young people say that they ‘get along OK’.

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Safeguarding children and young people

Relationships within the home are very good and the home welcomes young people’s friends and family. Consequently young people hardly ever go missing from the home. The home has appropriate arrangements within the local joint protocol to respond to such a situation should it occur. In the rare situations in which young people are away from the home without permission, the home responds appropriately in line with their age and maturity and in liaison with the police. This helps young people to become more responsible for their own actions and safety.

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Safeguarding children and young people

The home’s premises are maintained in a safe condition. The electrical equipment, gas appliances and equipment for preventing, detecting and extinguishing fires are professionally serviced regularly. Fire drills take place appropriately. Hazards that may affect young people have been assessed and action is taken to minimise any identified risks. Recruitment procedures are safe and all new staff undergo thorough checks in line with relevant legislation prior to their appointment.

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Leadership and management

The leadership and management of the children's home are good .

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Leadership and management

This is a well-managed home with an experienced, well-trained and competent management and staff team. The home has begun to address the one recommendation relating to staff training made at the last inspection but has not been able to complete this yet because of the relatively short time period between inspections.

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Leadership and management

The home’s operation is well monitored both internally and by the home’s external visitors. Young people’s care and their records are regularly supervised and checked. Their progress is monitored closely and the information is used to help formulate and review plans of care. The manager assesses the home's operation every month in line with the regulations and an external visitor visits the home once a month to monitor the care independently. Both these monitoring systems are robust and include the views of young people and their families and social workers. They focus on ensuring any identified improvements are addressed. The home’s management team provides a clear sense of direction for the home’s work and understands its strengths and areas for development. However, the home’s annual development plan is not sufficiently detailed or specific to fully set out and underpin the home’s future and continued development.

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Leadership and management

Staffing levels at the home are suitable to meet the needs of the young people. There is a low turnover of staff within the home. This stability ensures that staff are experienced and have good working relationships with young people. The staff receive training in a wide range of subjects that help to enhance the care provided to young people. All staff apart from one bank staff member now have an appropriate qualification at level 3 and the remaining person is working toward this. Formal supervision and appraisal systems operate effectively and support the care provided to young people.

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Leadership and management

Young people's individual placement plans are comprehensive documents that are regularly updated and monitored. Plans set out young people’s care needs, the reasons for their placement at the home and the progress they make. Young people are regularly involved in discussions about the care provided to them and are able to access their records and record their comments if they wish. Statutory reviews of young people’s overall plans of care take place on time and the home contributes effectively to these. Records are stored securely and confidentiality is maintained.

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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 to assess the effectiveness of the service and to consider how well it complies with the relevant regulations and meets the national minimum standards.

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About this inspection

The report details the main strengths, any areas for improvement, including any breaches of regulation, and any failure to meet national minimum standards. The judgements included in the report are made against the Inspections of children’s homes – framework for inspection (March 2011) and the evaluation schedule for children's homes.

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