Children's Home run by Leeds City Council in Leeds

Unique reference number SC066120 Inspection date 30/12/2013 Inspector Simon Morley Type of inspection Interim Provision subtype Children's home

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Date of last inspection 16/05/2013 Website: www.ofsted.gov.uk

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Brief description of the service

This home is operated by a local authority and registered to provide care and accommodation for up to five children of either sex. Children and young people who use the home have special educational needs, physical disabilities and associated emotional and behavioural difficulties. Care is mainly organised on a shared basis, with children and young people staying in the children's home for part of the week. Occasionally children and young people can stay for longer depending on their needs.

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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

The last full inspection of the home was on 16 May 2013. At that time, the overall effectiveness was judged to be good with good judgements in outcomes for children and young people, quality of care, safeguarding, and leadership and management. No requirements or recommendations for improvement were made at that inspection. The purpose of this interim inspection is to assess the progress made since the last inspection.

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Progress

The manager of the home at the last inspection has successfully registered with Ofsted and started to make some improvements to the quality of care. Not all of these are fully detailed in the development plan for the home. Along with unclear timescales for achieving development objectives this compromises the ability to drive improvements successfully. For example while children and young people's care plans and evaluation reports of their progress has improved there remains inconsistency in the quality of these documents.

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Progress

Despite this children and young people do make good progress in various aspects of their lives. Staff work hard to develop relationships with individual children and young people and support is focussed on their diverse needs. Parents value the service and commented positively about the improvements children and young people make and how they like coming to stay at the home. Children and young people reduce the amount of self-harming and aggressive behaviour and develop positive relationships. Their personal care, independent life skills and confidence all improve.

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Progress

There have been improvements to the way children and young people are included in decision making and running of the home. There is a strong focus on giving children and young people choices in their day to day lives, about what they do, wear, eat, shopping and leisure activities. Further work is in progress with a local advocacy agency to improve consultation with children and young people and their participation in the service. Communication with parents has improved with the use of photographs and DVDs of the experiences children and young people benefit from at the home.

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Progress

Monitoring of the management of the home is undertaken regularly by the registered provider, aimed at improving the service. Reports of these quality assurance visits are not well developed and lack focus on how the service impacts on outcomes for children and young people. This compromises the overall management and leadership arrangements particularly in regard to how well outcomes for children and young people can be improved. Additionally, copies of these reports have not been sent routinely to Ofsted as required.

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Progress

One requirement and two recommendations for improvement are made as a result of this inspection. This is to improve the quality of monitoring and development plan for the home and ensure monitoring reports are sent to Ofsted as required.

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Statutory Requirements

This section sets out the actions which must be taken so that the registered person/s meets the Care Standards Act 2000, Children's Homes Regulations 2001 and the National Minimum Standards. The registered person(s) must comply with the given timescales.

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Reg. Requirement Due date

(2001) ensure copies of reports required to be made under this regulation are sent to Ofsted on a monthly basis (Regulation 33 (1), (2), (3) (4) & (5)) 28/03/2014

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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 development plan for the home clearly identifies all planned changes in the operation or resources of the home (NMS 15.2)  ensure that visits to the home carried out under Regulation 33 scrutinise how the home is supporting children to enjoy and achieve. (Statutory Guidance, Volume 5, Paragraph 3.12)

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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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