Children's Home run by Hillcrest Children‟s Services (2) Limited in Staffordshire

Unique reference number SC398481 Inspection date 21/03/2013 Inspector Trevor Hall Type of inspection Interim Provision subtype Children's home

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Date of last inspection 23/08/2012 Website: www.ofsted.gov.uk

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Brief description of the service

This home is part of a range of children's services within a private care organisation. It is registered to accommodate four young people with emotional and behavioural difficulties.

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The inspection judgements and what they mean

Good progress The children’s home has demonstrated continued improvement in quality of care and outcomes for children and young people and where appropriate has addressed all requirements and the large majority of recommendations that were raised at the previous inspection. Satisfactory progress The children’s home has maintained quality of care and outcomes for children and young people and where appropriate has addressed all requirements and the majority of recommendations that were raised at the previous inspection. Inadequate progress The children’s home has failed to address one or more requirements and/or has not met the majority of recommendations and/or the quality of care and outcomes for children and young people have declined since the last full inspection.

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Progress

Since their previous inspection the service is judged to be making good progress .

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Progress

At the last full inspection, carried out on 23 August 2012, the home was judged as outstanding, there were no requirements or recommendations for improvement made. The home continues to provide an excellent level of care to its residents who continue to make good progress, no statutory requirements were identified on this latest inspection, however, one recommendation for improvement has been made.

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Progress

Young people make significant progress while in the home.Educational attendance and attainment has improved, serious incidents have been reduced significantly as have instances of young people being missing from care. Staff provide continuous encouragement to young people, providing structure in their lives and increasing their understanding of how to successfully engage with others. Staff were observed to have good relationships with the young people in their care and they were able to demonstrate a good understanding of each young person's care plan.

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Progress

Young people benefit from living in a home where conflict and challenging behaviours are promptly dealt with by skilful staff intervention. Consequently relationships are on the whole very good and physical interventions for most young people are infrequent and declining in frequency. Individualised behaviour management plans for each young person ensure that staff are aware of each young person's identified issues and promotes agreed strategies to deal with them. Positive reward and encouragement clearly outweigh sanctions to encourage possitive behaviour. Recording of all such staff interventions are detailed; robust monitoring by the home's manager ensures that these interventions are appropriate and properly applied.

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Progress

Young people where aware of the home's complaints procedures and expressed confidence that any complaints made would be properly dealt with by the home's manager and staff group. Only one complaint has been logged since the home's last inspection, this was appropriately recorded and processed with a clear outcome, which had been effectively communicated back to the young person.

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Progress

The home is warm, clean and welcoming and is generally well maintained. Bedrooms are comfortable and young people say they are happy with them and feel safe in the home. Some of the communal areas and in particular the bathroom/toilet areas, however, are in need of some redecoration and refurbishment to ensure they retain their homely feel.

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Progress

The home has a vigorous health and safety regime, which ensures that all fire precautions, drills and equipment servicing are conducted routinely, consistently and within timescales set by the relevant requirements. Good staffing levels further help to keep young people safe and reduce any risk of harm.

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Progress

Staff receive regular and wide-ranging training in safeguarding. As a result, they demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of the action they should take should they have any concerns about a young person's safety or well-being. Effective working with external partners, such as the Local Authority Designated Officer, ensures the continued development of staff’s knowledge and understanding of child protection practice.

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Progress

The organisation’s effective recruitment procedures ensure the careful selection, recruitment and retention of staff. This ensures young people are safe and have a staff team who know them well. New staff are comprehensively vetted prior to their deployment in the home and before having unsupervised access to any young person. This ensures young people are safe and have a staff team who know them well.

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Progress

The home continues to be very effectively managed. The home demonstrates continued improvement in the quality of care provided with a clear and focused commitment to service development and achieving positive outcomes for young people. This includes evaluating and enhancing the level of service provided and demonstrating a strong commitment to implementing the home's development plan. The provider and manager effectively review and monitor the running of the home and take action to improve the quality of the service provided, routinely seeking the views of young people about their care. The manager has a clear and realistic understanding of the strengths of the service and the areas for further development based on clear evidence. Staff work closely with external professionals to ensure young people’s individual needs and views are heard.

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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 the home provides a comfortable and homely environment and is well maintained and decorated and avoidable hazards are removed as is consistent with a domestic setting. Specifically this refers to improving the decoration of the bathroom/toilet areas (NMS 10.3)

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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 progress made by the provider since the last full inspection, identifies any further strengths, any areas for improvement and makes judgements as outlined in the Inspection of children’s homes – framework for inspection.

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