Children's Home run by East Sussex County Council in East Sussex

Unique reference number SC373941 Inspection date 23/01/2014 Inspector Liz Driver Type of inspection Interim Provision subtype Children's home

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Date of last inspection 28/10/2013 Website: www.ofsted.gov.uk

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Brief description of the service

This home is run by the local authority. It is registered to provide care and accommodation for up to 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 inspection carried out in October 2013 the service was judged to be good. No requirements or recommendations were made.

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Progress

The home continues to achieve good outcomes for young people. In particular the home has worked hard to ensure all young people attend appropriate educational establishments. Young people who have previously been non school attenders now engage in education within school or staff from the school come to the home. Relationships between the home and schools are excellent resulting in joint working and joint aspirations. Overall attendance at school is positively promoted with very good attendance levels.

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Progress

There is excellent progress in regards to managing missing young people. The number of missing incidents has decreased significantly as a result of staff building trusting relationships with young people and maintaining contact when they are missing. As a result of the trusting relationships built between staff and young people, young people now rarely go missing. Young people are interviewed on their return following being missing and asked to complete a form titled `because we care`, which assists in teaching young people the impact going missing can have and promotes the message that staff do care.

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Progress

Young people's health needs are carefully and sensitively addressed. Professionals such as the child and adolescent mental health team, the substance misuse team and the looked after children nurses have an important input into the lives of the young people at the home. Staff work closely with parents and carers to ensure consistency of care.

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Progress

Since the last inspection the home has benefited from a grant which has enabled staff to provide a `let's get cooking` course that gives young people basic cooking skills. The staff trained to deliver the course have had very good results in delivery and seen good outcomes for young people especially in regards to independence skills learnt.

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Progress

Staff have worked hard to forge good relationships between young people which enables them to live together happily. After a slow start young people regularly join together to do activities such as arts and crafts. From initially only being able to work together for 15 minutes they now can complete activities for one and half hours together.

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Progress

Records are of a high quality overall. All records relating to child protection and safeguarding are in place; however they do not provide for ease when carrying out effective auditing and need to be better organised to ensure a high standard and effective monitoring.

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Progress

Staff provide young people with a homely experience. Young people continue to receive consistent and clear boundaries and high quality care and support. Relationships between young people and staff remain strong and nurturing.

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Progress

Young people live in a home that is subject to robust health and safety procedures that ensure all parts of the home are free from risks and, where maintenance issues are addressed swiftly.

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Progress

Since the last inspection the registered manager has left. The home currently has a manager who is employed on a part time basis and who is not yet registered. He has a wealth of experience of working with young people and challenging behaviour and he is supported by a very strong deputy manager and a very stable staff team. High standard quality assurance procedures enable the home to make continued improvements; however, the resulting quality of care reports are not always submitted to Ofsted. This does not impact on the 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):  ensure records kept are well maintained and better organised; specifically the child protection and safeguarding records (NMS 22)  ensure all quality of care reports, as stipulated in Regulation 34, are submitted to Ofsted; currently twice a year. (NMS 21 and Volume 5 Statutory Guidance, paragraph 3.14)

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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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