Children's Home run by Channels and Choices Kent LLP in Kent

Unique reference number SC385631 Inspection date 11/07/2012 Inspector Angus Mackay Type of inspection Full Provision subtype Children's home

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Date of last inspection 09/02/2012 Website: www.ofsted.gov.uk

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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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Brief description of the service

The home is registered to provide care and accommodation for no more than three young people, with emotional and/or behavioural difficulties. Young people are encouraged to maintain education at their school or college but may attend the company school or receive home tuition. Work with young people is advised by a psychotherapist, who also provides support to the staff team.

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The inspection judgements and what they mean

Outstanding : a service of exceptional quality that significantly exceeds minimum requirements Good : a service of high quality 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

The manager provides good guidance to the staff and young people. Social workers and parents praise her excellent communication which ensures good collaborative working. The manager makes good use of monitoring information which she discusses with staff in their monthly meetings. The manager uses these meetings effectively, directing staff activity.

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Overall effectiveness

The home provides good assistance to young people in improving their personal health. This leads to young people saying they feel fitter and expressing good understanding of the benefits of healthy eating and exercise. Young people also control high risk behaviours such as self-harm, going missing and offending behaviour. Staff are good at working with other professionals aiding the young people’s development and promotion of their good mental health.

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Overall effectiveness

Young people say that they really like the home and really like the friendly caring staff. They say that they feel safe in the home and that staff listen to them and respond positively to their complaints. Staff provide excellent support to young people in their meetings which are powerful vehicles for positively engaging the young people in the management of the home and in developing a positive culture there. Staff use their excellent recording and application of detailed placement plans, to assist young people in successfully developing an understanding of who they are and of their family and cultural roots. Staff are good at aiding young people to understand other cultures and religions and to follow their own. Staff are excellent at assisting young people to repair often severely damaged family relationships.

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Overall effectiveness

The manager successfully addressed two previous recommendations but has not yet sought young people’s views about staff to enhance their appraisals. The home has not met all identified training needs to ensure staff can meet all of the young people’s needs. Some changes to the procedure following restraint will enable staff to follow guidance to keep young people safe. The previous frequent changes in staffing and poor rota production have not supported the development of relationships and predictability in staffing for young people.

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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 staff annual appraisal takes into account any views of children the service is providing for (NMS19.6)  ensure all staff hold the level 3 Children and Young People's Workforce Diploma or be working towards it within 6 months of confirmation of employment (NMS 18.5)  ensure staff receive sufficient training on health and hygiene issues and first aid with particular emphasis on health promotion and communicable diseases (NMS 6.9)  ensure that every effort is made to achieve continuity of staffing so that children's attachments are not overly disrupted (NMS 17.8)  ensure that where there has been a physical restraint children are always given the opportunity to be examined by a registered nurse or medical practitioner. (NMS 3.16)

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Outcomes for children and young people

Outcomes for children and young people are good .

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Outcomes for children and young people

Young people engage positively in healthy eating and exercise with encouragement from staff. Young people praise the wide range of activities which staff provide. Health care is good and staff enhance it by regular key working targeted at the main issues for each young person. Young people make significant progress in improving their health by engaging in discussions on issues such as smoking cessation, drug and alcohol abuse and other key issues for them.

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Outcomes for children and young people

Young people receive guidance from care staff and therapists assisting them in their development of a positive self-view. Young people make good progress in self- confidence and in making good decisions about friendships aiding them to stay safe. They recognise that improvements in their decision-making assists their earning more free time and extended family contact. Staff manage home contacts carefully, to assist young people in developing positive relationships with their family. Young people use these improving relationships to improve their understanding of their personal background. Staff actively assist young people to explore their curiosity about religion taking them to church and broadening their understanding of other religions through key working. Staff use key working sessions to assist young people to develop good skills of negotiation. Young people use these enhanced skills to seek changes to house rules around issues such as having boyfriends or girlfriends visit

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Outcomes for children and young people

and the use of the house telephone. Staff support these positive engagements and respond positively to young people encouraging them in their development of these essential communication skills.

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Outcomes for children and young people

Young people make good progress with education and are proud of their achievements. Young people attending the company school say they are planning to take a wide range of examinations in the coming year. Young people not fully engaged in a school programme, engage enthusiastically in work, set by their school, enhanced by staff taking them on educational trips. One social worker said, ‘the young person had missed a lot of school but has applied themselves really well here and done really well. I am very pleased with the home.’

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Outcomes for children and young people

Young people are generally polite to each other, staff or visitors and display good social skills. They assist in the management of the home engaging in serious discussions about health and safety issues, maintenance and the upkeep of the building. Young people are often supportive of staff and provide appropriate positive assistance in maintaining good order in the home. Some young people are actively involved in fund raising for charities developing their social conscience and care for others. Young people also help within their local community providing assistance to younger children in their local youth club.

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Outcomes for children and young people

Many young people significantly reduce offending behaviour or high risk behaviours which had placed them in an extremely vulnerable position. One social worker commented,’ the young person has made excellent progress in reducing risk, not going missing and requiring less supervision.’ Where young people do not act appropriately staff intervene appropriately to aid the young people to reduce the occurrence of high risk behaviours.

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Quality of care

Young people enjoy excellent relaxed relationships with staff. One young person saying, ‘I really like the staff they are all good, friendly, nice and they listen to you. You can have a good laugh with them.’ Staff work closely with young people, their families and social workers constructing meaningful placement plans which reflect their personal needs and ambitions. Young people attend all of their care and education planning meetings and contribute to these in person and in writing. Staff have discussions with young people about their cultural heritage and family background. Young people engage enthusiastically in these discussions agreeing ways in which they can meet identified needs such as religious worship.

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Quality of care

Staff are sensitive to religious requirements and apply these in the purchasing of food and in discussions with young people. Young people actively participate in the revision of menus through their weekly meetings and in regular dialogue with staff. Issues raised by young people, for example about snacks and treats, can be positively resolved in this forum. Young people say that they are aware of healthy- living programmes. They say that they involve themselves in a lot of physical activities as part of this including swimming, running, horse riding and football. Young people say that the activities are excellent and help keep them fit and positively engaged in the community. Young people say that meals are generally excellent and they assist staff in preparing them. Young people make sensible suggestions about improvements to the menu evidencing their awareness of the need for a well balanced diet.

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Quality of care

Social workers praise the assistance provided by staff in supporting home contacts for young people. One social worker described the home as having excellent relationships with the family and acting as a mediator in family disputes. Staff ensure that contacts take place providing transport, supervision and excellent reports on contact to aid future visits. Young people recognise the carefully controlled progress they have made in their family contacts and use key woking sessions and discussions with their social workers to plan future contacts and decrease supervision levels.

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Quality of care

Young people attend all health appointments including dental, ophthalmic and medical. Young people benefit from staff support with all aspects of their health care, including where necessary involvement with the Child and Adolescents Mental Health Services. Young people also attend regular appointments with the home’s own therapist assisting them in their personal development and supporting the work of other professionals.

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Quality of care

Young people use their meetings to engage positively in the running of the home. This includes identifying any remedial work to the building, personal requests about their own rooms, choice of food and reinforcement of key issues of respect for one another and personal and home safety. Young people use the complaints procedure to address issues which they cannot resolve directly with staff and confirm that the manager treats their complaints seriously and responds to them promptly and to their satisfaction. The manager included her analysis of complaints in her regular monitoring reports to advise future interventions.

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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

All young people say they feel safe in the home and are well looked after by staff they describe as, ‘nice, kind, caring people.’ Young people experience safe care from staff trained in safeguarding and confident in how to apply this to keep young people safe. The home has detailed policies and procedures in child protection which staff use in their everyday work to keep young people safe. The home is working closely with the Local Authority Designated Officer to ensure these policies and procedures are consistent with the local ones agreed by the Local Safeguarding Children’s Board. Staff maintain detailed risk assessments which support the safe care of the young people whilst encouraging them to safely and incrementally take responsibility for themselves.

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Safeguarding children and young people

Young people rarely go missing and none of those currently living in the home have been missing since the last inspection. Staff utilise high staffing levels, key working and early interventions to support young people in safely addressing concerns without recourse to leaving the home without permission. Young people say that staff follow them, if they ever leave the home without permission and are persistent in successfully persuading them to return. Staff successfully work with very high risk behaviours keeping young people safe from going missing.

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Safeguarding children and young people

Staff employ positive interventions with the young people engaging them in dialogue about any concerns they have resulting in low use of restraint. None of the current residents have been involved in a restraint situation since the last inspection. Where staff have intervened physically with any young people it has been in appropriate circumstances. Staff experienced a number of assaults in the past and some sustained injury when intervening to stop extreme behaviours. Staff detailed good management support including therapeutic input with young people, therapist’s advice to staff, additional training and revised programmes to aid them in safely working with the young people. Staff make detailed records of restraint including all attempts at de-escalation. Staff do not however record the offer to young people of examination by a registered nurse or medical practitioner.

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Safeguarding children and young people

Young people say there is no bullying in the home and staff support them in a respect agenda with each other. Staff encourage young people to respect difference in others recently challenging examples of racism. Staff work closely with young people ensuring that their placement plans clearly identify risks and protective factors. The risk assessments contain helpful advice for staff to advise interactions with young people in a carefully staged way, from minimal to intensive engagement. The risk assessments are supported by the detailed placement plans and emotional needs assessments. Key workers complete these with young people, their social workers and other professionals using them, to reinforce positive behaviours and reduce difficult behaviours.

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Safeguarding children and young people

The home employs safe recruitment practices, improving their selection of appropriate people to work with the young people. The staff also enhance the safety of the building by careful identity checks and close supervision of visitors or contract workers. The manager addresses all allegations or suspicions of harm appropriately, ensuring good support for all involved and providing effective protection for all young people.

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Leadership and management

The leadership and management of the children's home are adequate . Young people benefit from the management of the home which ensures it meets its aims and objectives. The Registered Manager has updated the statement of purpose, detailing the current staffing and the service provided to young people. Young people experience a well structured care service which is subject to rigorous internal and external quality assurance processes. The manager makes excellent use of this monitoring information identifying trends and patterns in young people and in the operation of the home. Young people experience appropriate interventions by staff guided by the manager’s analysis of this information. The manager brings this information to staff meetings, highlighting good practice and adjusting programmes or interventions where necessary. This approach promotes consistency in care from the staff team and allows them to identify additional resources and training to deal

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Leadership and management

with any deteriorating behaviours. Young people gain from this early intervention aiding them to successfully address their high risk behaviours and resolve any difficulties positively.

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Leadership and management

The home has successfully addressed two of the three previous recommendations but is not yet involving young people in commenting on staff performance, as part of their appraisal. The manager has identified all staff training needs but the home is not meeting all of these, in particular in relation to acquiring the level 3 Children and Young people’s Workforce Diploma. Staff describe the manager as fantastic and say that supervision is regular and aids them in interacting appropriately to the benefit of the young people. Through the engagement with local services the home have access to training in sexual health matters which will enhance the service to young people and address a gap in the staff training programme.

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Leadership and management

Young people live in a well maintained home which is subject to rigorous health and safety checks. Fire drills are regular and all staff and young people are knowledgeable about evacuation procedures. Young people use their weekly meetings to review these procedures and to comment on any health and safety issues. This engagement of young people in the management of the home successfully encourages them in taking responsibility for their environment. The manager has further strengthened young people’s safety by improving relationships with neighbours.

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Leadership and management

The young people enjoy high staffing levels and receive care from a highly committed staff team. They and staff, comment on the frequent changes to staffing, which have occurred in the past, disrupting the stability of the team and the relationships with the young people. Staff rotas are improving with increased staff employed and the manager plans to introduce a rolling rota to improve the predictability of care for young people. Young people receive a well planned service, coordinated through shift handover meetings and additional guidance from the manager.

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Leadership and management

Staff maintain excellent records, in relation to the young people, which contribute to a clear understanding of the young person’s life and how to engage successfully in aiding them plan for their future and experience success in the present. The manger provides safe storage for the files and encourages young people to contribute to these. The young people aid staff in identifying how to meet all of their personal, cultural, health and religious needs.

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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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