Children's Home run by Lancashire County Council in Lancashire

Unique reference number SC440309 Inspection date 12/03/2014 Inspector Lynn O'Driscoll Type of inspection Interim Provision subtype Children's home

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Date of last inspection 15/08/2013 Website: www.ofsted.gov.uk

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Brief description of the service

This local authority children's home provides care and accommodation for up to six young people of either sex aged from 11 to 17 years with emotional and behavioural difficulties. This home can take emergency placements.

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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

Overall, this home was judged to be good at the full inspection on 15 August 2013. The quality of care provided was outstanding. Since that time the home has continued to make good progress and clearly demonstrates a good capacity for continued improvement. Recent developments include: ascertaining young people's views as part of annual staff appraisals; new monthly action plans which are discussed with staff in individual supervision sessions and team meetings. This ensures they fully understand why changes are being made; and, a revised supervision format to ensure the actions from previous session have been efficiently addressed.

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Progress

The one requirement and one recommendation made at the last inspection have been satisfactorily addressed. Consequently, the admission and discharge register is now well maintained. Also, missing from home records now clearly demonstrate young people's discussions with social workers. This ensures there are no safeguarding concerns following their safe return.

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Progress

Young people confirm they feel safe, happy and settled at this home and have established excellent relationships with the staff and their peers. Consequently, they enjoy spending time together. They say the homemade meals are, 'Really nice.' All the staff and young people sit down and eat together. They all thoroughly enjoy this relaxing, social occasion.

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Progress

Young people benefit from the clear and consistent boundaries in place at this home and a supportive and nurturing environment. Comments from young person include, 'It's great here', 'My keyworker keeps me safe, listens to me and treats me with respect', 'I am happy here' and, 'Staff are very kind to me.'

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Progress

A specific strength of this team is the ability to improve cultural and language barriers to work more effectively with young people's families. This has resulted in young people successfully returning home. Other young people have been well prepared to ensure they have the practical and emotional skills to live independently.

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Progress

The staff are strong and successful advocates in ensuring all the young people receive education appropriate to their needs and abilities. Staff are also particularly skilled at building up young people's emotional resilience and self-esteem. Consequently, young people now have positive future ambitions. Moreover, they are noticeably maturing and can better understand and express their emotions without resorting to challenging behaviours. Consequently, restraints are rare.

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Progress

In line with the home's development plan, staff have recently received more advanced, specialist courses to meet young people's more complex needs. The manager has also been incredibly supportive of her team during a difficult restructure of the local authority and has ensured a smooth transition. Consequently, good morale, commitment and motivation has been successfully maintained.

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Progress

Significant events are forwarded to Ofsted in a timely manner. These demonstrate appropriate action is taken to safeguard and protect the welfare of the young people and strategies are put in place to try to prevent re-occurrence. Some significant risk taking behaviours have ceased in this placement including offending, bullying, self- harm, alcohol and drug misuse. The excellent progress made by one young person and the support of the staff was formally acknowledged in court recently and successfully prevented a custodial sentence. This has motivated the young person to return to college and actively seek part-time employment. One young person proudly announced, 'I have stopped drinking since I came here. I didn’t like how I treated the people I cared about when I was drunk.'

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Progress

Monthly visits are undertaken and reports forwarded to Ofsted about the standard of care provided in the home. However, these do not include consultations with parents or families.

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Progress

Professionals are consistently complimentary about the quality of care provided at this home and the positive outcomes for young people. For example, a missing from home co-ordinator highlighted the reduction in missing from home incidents in respect to one young person since moving to this home. Comments from social workers include, 'This is an ideal placement because it provides clear structure and boundaries which my young person needs' and, 'There is good communication with this staff team who are proficient at keeping young people safe.'

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Progress

This home offers a high standard of accommodation and young people like their bedrooms. They said, 'We helped decorate at Christmas. It looked beautiful. We had a lovely time.'

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Progress

This home demonstrates outstanding practice in meeting a diverse range of young people's needs and personal preferences from both genders, different cultures, ages and abilities. Excellent leadership, a very experienced staff team, good staffing ratios and the provision of a wide range of specialist services enables all the young people to realise their full potentials. They are, therefore, making very good progress behaviourally, emotionally, socially and educationally despite some difficult past experiences.

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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 monthly Regulation 33 reports include interviews with young people's parents and relatives. (Regulation 33(4)(a)) 31/03/2014

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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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