Children's Home run by Crystal Care Solutions Limited in Cheshire East

Unique reference number SC460800 Inspection date 01/08/2014 Inspector Alicea Churchward Type of inspection Full Provision subtype Children's home

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Date of last inspection 19/12/2013 Website: www.ofsted.gov.uk

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Brief description of the service

This children's home is owned by a private company. It is a specialist service that provides care and accommodation for up to four young males.

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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 adequate .

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Overall effectiveness

Overall this home provides adequate quality of care with some good features, particularly improving outcomes for young people. The home is experiencing a period of change; management arrangements have been disrupted and temporary arrangements were in place at the time of this visit.

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Overall effectiveness

A new manager was appointed to the home on the first day of the inspection. This means that the staff and young people will have experience of three different managers in a fairly short space of time. That being said, the organisation have worked to ensure continuity of service and other staff have not changed.

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Overall effectiveness

Young people receive good care and support from staff and benefit from taking part in a variety of stimulating activities. They receive support and encouragement from staff to attend and engage positively in their education. Young people are making progress in their education and attainment.

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Overall effectiveness

Staff build positive relationships with young people whose behaviour, at times, can be very challenging. They actively seek and take into account young people’s wishes and feelings about how they should be cared for and in how the home is run. Overall young people are positive about the care and support they receive and make progress in their placements.

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Overall effectiveness

Feedback from stakeholders is good for example; ‘staff work in the young people’s best interests … the team are willing to listen, learn and take advice on board … they work well with young people to develop their independence and social skills … young people have fantastic relationships with key workers … I cannot fault the therapy service or the staff … I would recommend this service to colleagues … (to meet this specific area of need)’

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Overall effectiveness

Areas of development identified at this inspection include: ensuring that young people have access to a telephone on which they may make and receive calls in private; unless there are safeguarding issues which prevent this; giving young people their independent reviewing officer’s contact details; repairing or replacing misted windows in the conservatory; providing additional training for staff in meeting the complex needs of some young people; recording fully the outcome of any complaints made by young people; ensuring notifications are sent to Ofsted in a timely way and the revising the statement of purpose to make the content accessible to all parents.

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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 the home is well maintained by ensuring that damaged conservatory windows are repaired or replaced as necessary (NMS 10.3)  ensure the home only provides admission to children whose assessed needs they can reasonably expect to meet (NMS 11.2)  the staff disciplinary procedure is clear but is not being followed in practice; this refers to a staffing issue where the practice of the home was not consistent with its written procedures (NMS 17.7)  ensure that the Statement of purpose is revised in a manner which it can be understood by any parent or person with parental responsibility (NMS 13.1)  ensure that the children's guide contains information for young people about they can contact their IRO (NMS 13.5)  ensure that significant events are notified to Ofsted within 24 hours (NMS 24.1)

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Outcomes for children and young people

Young people have had good attendance at school and vocational and educational placements college which is significant progress since their admission to the home. Young people speak positively about their achievements and staff support is good.

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Outcomes for children and young people

Young people benefit from the good quality of support to promote healthy lifestyles but progress and develop at different rates with their health depending on their backgrounds and life experiences. More work is necessary to enable young people to see the importance of ensuring all of their medical appointments are attended and up to date.

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Outcomes for children and young people

Young people benefit from psychological support services to improve their emotional well-being and to reduce problematic behaviours prior to their admission. Young people also learn more about health and social issues such as smoking, substance misuse and personal safety with staff. This helps young people develop their knowledge and understanding about how to improve their lifestyles. Young people are able to develop a more positive self-view and their emotional health improves from the nurturing environment they live in.

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Outcomes for children and young people

Young people benefit from the individualised support arrangements for contact. They are able to keep in touch with people important to them despite some difficult and complex relationships with family members; this is important to their sense of identity and to their emotional well-being.

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Outcomes for children and young people

Young people acquire some good skills to support their transition to adult life. They can manage their own money, learn to budget, shop, cook and staff encourage them to care for their personal hygiene and laundry. This has been a significant development for some young people who have gained many independence skills since their admission to the home.

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Outcomes for children and young people

Young people frequently share their views and wishes about the running of the home and decisions about their care. They have a good say about what happens in their lives: this includes their education, leisure time, developing their care and behaviour support plans.

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Quality of care

Young people benefit from positive relationships with staff. They receive care from a stable and experienced staff team who work hard to promote a positive atmosphere in the home. Staff value the views and wishes of the young people and actively consult them about their care and the running of the home. Young people are aware of how to make a complaint and confirmed they can talk to staff if they have any worries or concerns. However one complaint sampled did not contain the full outcome and the views of the young person were not clear in respect of how they felt the matter had been dealt with.

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Quality of care

Young people are given information about independent sources of advocacy in the children’s guide upon admission; however they do not benefit from access to a telephone with which they could make contact with an advocate without reference to staff in the home, as they have to ask for the use of the office telephone and they do not have contact details for their independent reviewing officer.

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Quality of care

Staff are committed to improving young people's life chances and try to address any barriers to their education and training. This helps ensure any concerns or issues are dealt with quickly and has positive results for the young people. Staff make sure young people’s achievements are celebrated which helps build their self-esteem and confidence.

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Quality of care

Staff ensure the diverse needs of the young people are clearly recorded in their individual placement plans. The plans identify clear measureable outcomes for the young people and clearly outline what staff should do to meet each young person’s individual needs. Staff encourage young people to play an active role in the development and review of their plans.

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Quality of care

Staff are good at working in partnership with social workers and other professionals within the therapeutic services. This helps to ensure young people’s needs are addressed. Professionals confirmed staff work well with them. Where appropriate, staff also work constructively with families. This helps to ensure continuity of care as well as good outcomes for the young people.

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Quality of care

Staff are good at supporting and encouraging young people to develop independence skills in preparation for them leaving care. They also work constructively with young people to enable them to develop socially acceptable behaviour. Over time some young people have made good progress in this regard.

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Quality of care

Staff ensure the home is well cared for so that it continues to be comfortable, and homely. The overall presentation of the home is good and young people take responsibility for cleaning and tidying their own rooms, which are well personalised. The home benefits from a large conservatory but some of the windows are misted and require repair or replacement.

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Safeguarding children and young people

The service is adequate at keeping children and young people safe and feeling safe.

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Safeguarding children and young people

Staff protect young people’s welfare by implementing the home’s safeguarding procedures, they are clear who to report to when there are any concerns about young people’s welfare. Staff receive regular safeguarding training which helps them do this. Young people report positively about their safety saying it can be ‘too safe’ living at the home.

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Safeguarding children and young people

Discussion with the local police in the area in which the home is situated confirms good lines of communication and decision making to safeguard the welfare of the young people.

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Safeguarding children and young people

Allegations have been appropriately managed with the placing authority and the local authority designated officer. There are clear audit trails to establish appropriate decision making and actions taken. However information located in the complaints record indicated that a young person raised issues about another young person and a clear audit trail was not available to confirm a detailed investigation into these matters. The responsible individual was in the process of trying to locate a full written outcome. It is clear that any form of bullying is unacceptable. Young people said there is currently no bullying taking place.

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Safeguarding children and young people

Incidents of young people being missing are rare; this is because of levels of staff supervision and young people’s detailed risk assessments.

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Safeguarding children and young people

Staff work hard to support and encourage young people to develop positive behaviour and social skills. They ensure good behaviour is rewarded and, if they use sanctions, these are relevant and reasonable. Where possible, sanctions are agreed with the young people concerned. Staff only use physical restraint on young people to keep them or others safe. There have been few incidents involving the use of physical restraint on young people since the last inspection.

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Safeguarding children and young people

Staff recruitment files were sampled and demonstrate safe recruitment of staff; this is important in order to confirm that appropriate checks have been undertaken to ensure as far as possible that they are suitable to work with vulnerable young people.

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Leadership and management

The leadership and management of the children's home are adequate .

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Leadership and management

The Registered Manager has left the organisation. An interim manager has been appointed who had been in post for several weeks at the time of this visit. On the second day of the inspection a new manager was appointed who had previously been registered with Ofsted. The responsible individual confirmed that an application to register will be submitted.

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Leadership and management

The home has met the requirement issued at the last inspection and staff benefit from appropriate supervision. Four recommendations were issued and three have been met. These relate to young people being encouraged to have their views recorded in records of sanctions and restraint; this is important because it gives them the opportunity to have their say about the rules. The conservatory benefits from heating and the roof has been repaired. Overall there has been an improvement in records, particularly physical interventions.

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Leadership and management

One recommendation was made in relation to providing admission to children whose assessed needs can reasonably be met.This has not been fully addressed because the home has provided a placement to young people with specific needs and staff have not had sufficient training to fully equip them to work with complex needs.

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Leadership and management

The interim manager and organisation have worked to ensure the home has a clear ethos and staff work with commonly understood objectives throughout this period of change. The home has a comprehensive statement of purpose and discussions indicate that the document was revised with accessibility in mind; however it is a very wordy document which will be of benefit to professionals but may not be accessible to some parents as it references policies and procedures in the appendix and contains a lot of professional language. The management team monitor and review the quality of care provided by the service. External monitoring visits also take every month and the reports of these visits give an overview of how the home is performing. The person making these visits consults young people and staff; this means their opinions or suggestions about how the home is run are sought and considered.

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Leadership and management

Staff demonstrate a commitment to meeting the complex and diverse needs of the young people placed. The majority of staff are qualified and experienced. Staff have access to regular training opportunities in caring for children and young people which benefit their role. However specific training in working with young people with moderate or severe learning disabilities has been limited. The responsible individual confirmed that a variation application will be submitted to Ofsted to provide a service to young people in this category of registration.

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Leadership and management

Good staffing levels enable staff to spend time meeting the individual needs of the young people. Staff receive regular supervision and staff spoken to said they feel well supported. This helps them to have an understanding of young people’s needs, how to support them and how to keep them safe.

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Leadership and management

There is a clear procedure in place to notify authorities and persons of any significant events in the home, this has been used on a number of occasions. However there has been a delay in notifying Ofsted within the 24 hour timescale outlined in the standard.

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Leadership and management

There are clear disciplinary procedures in place, however informal procedures are not being adhered to. In one case information has been retained on a staff file which exceeds the timescale outlined in the policy.

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Leadership and management

The home generally keeps good records about the care and welfare of young people. These records are stored securely.

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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 and the evaluation schedule for the inspection of children's homes.

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