Children's Home run by Hertfordshire County Council in Hertfordshire

Unique reference number SC379199 Inspector Natalie Burton Type of inspection Full Provision subtype Children's home

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Registered person Hertfordshire County Council Registered person address Children, Schools and Families County Hall Hertford Hertfordshire SG13 8DF Responsible individual Lynn Knowles Registered manager Victoria Naomi Apperley Date of last inspection 05/11/2013 2 of 11 Inspection date 16/09/2014

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Previous inspection satisfactory progress Enforcement action since last inspection none

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Overall effectiveness adequate

Outcomes for children and young people good Quality of care adequate Keeping children and young people safe adequate Leadership and management good

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Overall effectiveness

Young people say they feel safe. They are positive about their care and relationships with staff. Staff seek young people’s wishes and views, which significantly improves young people’s sense of worth and control of their lives. The service provides sound quality of care that positively impacts on young people’s lives. A Strength of the service is the promotion of equality and diversity.

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Overall effectiveness

Young people have made good progress in their attendance and achievements at their educational provisions, reduction in challenging behaviour and some young people have reduced the times that they are missing from the home. Young people feel good about their progress, they feel more confident. They are provided with care that enables them to develop emotional maturity and resilience in preparation for their transition to adult life.

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Overall effectiveness

Improvements need to be made to some records held within the home, notifications to Ofsted, medication arrangements and young people’s health needs. In addition, not all staff have received supervision in line with the homes policy, and staff are not consistently pro-active in seeking young people that are missing. The Registered Manager understands the strengths and areas of further development for the home and is fully committed to improve the quality of care for young people. 3 of 11

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Information about this children’s home

This is a local authority children's home registered to accommodate seven young people with emotional or behavioural difficulties.

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

05/11/2013 Interim satisfactory progress 15/08/2013 Full good 28/01/2013 Interim good progress 19/10/2012 Full good

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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 any of the events listed in column 1 of the table in schedule 5 takes place, the registered person shall without delay notify the persons indicated in the respect of the event in column 2 of the table Regulation 30 (1) 03/11/2014

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Reg. Requirement Due date

(2001) ensure that all persons employed by him receive appropriate supervision (Regulation 27(4)(a)) 03/11/2014

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Reg. Requirement Due date

(2001) ensure the procedure under paragraph (1)(b) shall in particular provide for written records to be kept of any allegation of abuse or neglect, and of the action taken in response (Regulation 16(2)(d)) 03/11/2014

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Reg. Requirement Due date

(2001) make suitable arrangements for the recording, handling, safe keeping, safe administration and 03/11/2014 4 of 11 disposal of any medicines received into the children home (Regulation 21(1))

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Reg. Requirement Due date

(2001) shall promote and protect the physical, emotional and mental health needs of the children accommodated in a children’s home. In particular with regard to the use of illegal substances and cigarettes. (Regulation 20(1)) 03/11/2014

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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 that records are clear, up to date and contribute to an understanding of the child’s life. With particular regard to placement plans (NMS 22)  ensure children who do go missing are protected as far as possible. (NMS 5) 5 of 11

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Outcomes for children and young people good

Young people achieve good outcomes and are provided with sound quality care within a caring and supportive environment. Young people grow in confidence and develop good emotional resilience because they are treated with respect, have their needs clearly assessed, and their individuality facilitated and celebrated. Young people enjoy engaging in meaningful relationships with staff. They are provided with a caring and stable environment to grow up in and view the service as their own home. These strong and positive attachments are demonstrated by how positively young people talk about the staff.

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Outcomes for children and young people good

Young people feel valued because they are encouraged to express their views, wishes and feelings. They feel listened to because staff make time to talk about their interests and concerns, support them with family contact and escort them to appointments and sessions with other support agencies. They help make decisions about menus, group holidays and activities and in identifying their own personal interests and individual hobbies.

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Outcomes for children and young people good

Young people demonstrate some awareness of how to live a healthy life; they eat healthily and take regular daily exercise. Young people know the benefits of eating vegetables and fruit. They are encouraged to help staff prepare meals, as part of the work being completed around healthy eating. They enjoy working with staff making meals and baking various items. Young people are encouraged to develop self- awareness about the benefits of good personal hygiene. This helps to increase young people’s self-esteem. However, while some healthy lifestyle choices, such as smoking are discouraged, through link sessions and completing stop smoking packs, these has not been successful for all, young people. Young people benefit from a range of activities and trips, such as climbing Mount Snowden, partaking in the ‘race for life’, a helicopter ride, pamper nights and cooking. Choices and interests locally are regularly offered to encourage young people to take more opportunities on offer.

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Outcomes for children and young people good

The staff team work closely with young people’s educational provisions to promote the benefits and structure of daily education. As a result, young people’s attendance improves significantly from their starting points enabling young people to gain on lost time and maximise learning opportunities. Young people feel good about themselves as they are consistently congratulated and rewarded for achievements. Young people make good progress in their educational achievements.

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Outcomes for children and young people good

Young people are benefiting from appropriate contact with family, friends and others who are important to them. Staff recognise and support the importance of young people to maintain contact with their family unless it compromises the welfare of the young person. All contact arrangements are clearly set out in the young person's care plan and agreed by the placing social worker. 6 of 11 Young people prepare for independence living through opening bank accounts, cooking and laundry. These skills help a successful transition to independence and adult life.

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Quality of care adequate

Young people live in a home which is welcoming, inviting and comfortable. They enjoy positive and respectful relationships with the staff team and for the majority of the time with each other. All young people report they are happy living in the home. Staff are flexible when cover for sickness or annual leave is needed and enthusiastic, to ensure young people are cared for by staff they know well. As such young people benefit from long term relationships and attachments to key people.

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Quality of care adequate

Young people influence the running of their home in various ways, such as through day-to-day conversations with staff and young people’s meetings. These provide opportunity for feedback and discussion about different issues. In addition, the young people’s views are sought from the local authority children in care council to gain their view of their experience of the service. Young people’s views are feedback and areas of improvement identified are implemented into the service. For example, there has been an increase in personal needs money, and changes made to pictures in the home to be more age appropriate. Young people support that they feel their views are listened to and acted upon.

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Quality of care adequate

The staff’s knowledge of young people’s vulnerabilities and needs is sound. Young people develop self-esteem, confidence and positive attachments with the adults who care for them. A strength of the home is how closely staff communicate and have strong relationships with partner agencies such as social workers, the Looked After Child nurse and missing persons police coordinator to ensure that everyone involved is provided with all the required information to meet the young people’s needs. One social worker said ‘the thing I like about the service is that they will always come with a solution to an issue, and not just the problem.’

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Quality of care adequate

Staff advocate strongly and effectively for young people, for example, to prevent young people being labelled based upon assumptions or to ensure young people are not discriminated in accessing community resources. Discriminatory views are not tolerated so young people learn about respecting other people’s differences.

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Quality of care adequate

Staff promote healthy eating and menus are balanced, taking into account young people’s choices and a multi-cultural perspective. The administration of medication is sufficient; staff have a good knowledge of the medication that young people are prescribed. However, the storage and medication count is not in line with the home’s medication policy. For example, some medication was not held within the container it was prescribed in, and medication counts are not overseen weekly in line with the policy. Whilst there have been no administration errors, this does not fully ensure 7 of 11 that all precautions are taken to prevent an error from occurring. Some young people smoke and use illegal substances. Staff try to support young people to reduce or stop use of cigarettes and illegal substances through link work sessions, completing packs or engagement with external agencies. However, this is not successful for some

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Quality of care adequate

young people. As a result, young people continue to partake in the use of these substances.

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Quality of care adequate

Staff are pro-active in supporting young people to engage and attend in their educational provision. There are close working relationships with the local authority education service and local schools and colleges. Staff work hard at creative and individual programmes for those young people who are less engaged with education. A social worker said ‘the young person was supported well to complete exams’.

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Quality of care adequate

Placement planning sufficiently reflects that young people are treated as individuals; their needs are recognised and understood by staff. Young people feel valued because they are encouraged to express their views, feelings and wishes. They feel listened to because staff make time to talk to them, support them with family contact and attend appointments with them. Staff maintain positive relationships with young people while consistently implementing clear boundaries and expectations. All social workers spoken to reported that young people engage well with staff.

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Quality of care adequate

Information about how to complain is displayed in the house and contained in the young people’s guide. Young people can discuss their concerns in the weekly house meetings or link worker session. Information about the external agencies young people can contact is also on display.

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Quality of care adequate

The home is well maintained and provides young people with a good environment to meet their needs. The standard of décor inside the home is good and staff make clear efforts to make the house comfortable and homely. Young people are actively encouraged to be involved in the choice of décor. There are good levels of privacy for young people; they have their own bedroom key and privacy locks for bathrooms. There is also a choice of communal rooms for quiet or private time.

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Keeping children and young people safe adequate

Young people say they feel safe. They feel staff respect their privacy. All staff receive training related to countering bullying. In addition, the home has an anti-bullying staff member and young person as the identified representative within the home. Young people are very positive about how staff deal with bullying and the support they receive. Young people do not identify bullying as an issue in the home.

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Keeping children and young people safe adequate

Staff are trained in safeguarding and this is renewed regularly. There are policies and procedures in place and staff demonstrate a sound understanding of any action to take should they have a concerns about a young persons safety or well-being. When there have been allegations against staff members, these are generally well 8 of 11 managed, and appropriate action is taken to safeguard children. However, on occasion, there is a lack of records held within the home that demonstrates that all the required action was taken to ensure a robust investigation was conducted. As a result, it is occasionally unclear regarding the decisions made, and if the safeguarding policy was fully implemented.

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Keeping children and young people safe adequate

Young people are informed of their rights through a young persons guide and key work sessions. This ensures that young people can access the information they need. Staff focus on positive recognition and praise for young people for positive behaviour and achievements and staff are keen at seeing progress. For some young people, there has been a significant decrease in anti-social and challenging behaviour, and are now engaging well with staff. This is because management have reflected on incidents reports, looking for trends and patterns and how practice can be improved to fully support young people. As a result, staff are positive about young people’s efforts and progress, no matter how small. This increases young people’s self-esteem and confidence, and help them to understand how to change negative behaviour. Young people understand and accept the rules and the incentives in place to support their behaviour. Staff are trained in behaviour management, including physical

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Keeping children and young people safe adequate

intervention and maintain good and accountable records.

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Keeping children and young people safe adequate

Some young people do not go missing from the home. Other young people have reduced their frequency of missing episodes, in comparison with their previous placement. One social worker said ‘since placed at the home, her absconding has reduced significantly’. The home adheres to effective working partnerships with the police and social workers, and when needed there have been professional meetings to identify further strategies that could be taken to further reduce the risks. Staff follow young people when they leave without permission, contact family, and search local known areas. However, further action is needed to ensure that young people are safeguarded as much as possible. For example, when young people are missing overnight, there is little action taken once the young person has been reported as missing to the police. This does not ensure that staff take all action possible to locate the young person.

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Keeping children and young people safe adequate

Young people’s risk taking behaviours are well monitored by staff. Safeguarding strategies focus on good risk assessments, with practical risk management strategies having a positive impact on individual behaviour. Behaviours improve because staff spend quality time with young people; staff implement behaviour plans, promote clear expectations and positively reinforce and reward positive behaviours and achievements. Staff have sound knowledge of how young people’s experiences impact on and influence current behaviour. Some young people feel safer and have better self-esteem because they are supported to develop patterns of making positive choices and leading safer and more fulfilling lifestyles.

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Keeping children and young people safe adequate

Young people live in a safe and stable environment. They are protected by an effective and robust recruitment process that includes comprehensive checks on all staff. This ensures young people are cared for by staff that are robustly vetted. 9 of 11 Health and safety is well managed. Safety is promoted with regular servicing checks, including fire safety equipment. Regular fire drills ensure young people and staff know what to do in the event of a fire. This promotes and protects their welfare.

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Leadership and management good

Since the last inspection there have been changes within the management team, including a temporary manager registered with Ofsted. This has helped to provide stability for the staff team and young people. The service has recently appointed a permanent manager, who registered with Ofsted at the time of the inspection. The manager has over fourteen years’ experience of working with children and young people, and has an NVQ 5 in leadership and management. The manager is committed to complete the Level 5 Diploma in Leadership for Health and Social Care. While the manager has only recently been in post, they have identified many of the shortfalls within this report, and while some improvements have been made, there has been a limited timescale to address all the shortfalls. The manager has a clear plan to improve the quality of care and outcomes for young people, and has strengthened the services safeguarding of young people. For example, responses to

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Leadership and management good

behaviour management strategies have decreased challenging behaviour and training is identified and implemented when needed. As a result, the home is effectively and efficiently managed.

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Leadership and management good

The provider meets the aims and objectives in the Statement of Purpose. In addition, a young person has helped management to update the children’s guide, to make it more relevant to the information young people require about the service. As a result, young people, staff and any other interested party are clear about the aims and objectives of the home and what services and facilities it provides.

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Leadership and management good

All members of staff spoken with gave positive comments about the managers strong and supportive leadership of the service. Staff feel supported and well developed. Some are provided with regular supervision, and given good opportunities to formally discuss their role, professional development and the impact on working with young people with challenging needs. However, some staff have not always received supervision in line with the homes policy. This does not ensure that all staff are provided with the formal support needed to develop their role.

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Leadership and management good

Leaders and managers understand the strengths and weaknesses of the home. The home has met two of the three recommendations made at the last inspection. Young people do not identify bullying as an issue at the home, this is because the staff have improved significantly their supervision and awareness of bullying. The home is now well maintained, providing young people with a homely and comfortable living environment. the service has not met one recommendation regarding staff pro- actively addressing young people’s use of illegal substances. This is now a requirement. The home has a development plan that looks to improve the quality of 10 of 11 care provided to young people. For example, all children will have a comprehensive needs assessment and support plan with clearly defined targets which are measured monthly and analysed via internal monitoring.

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Leadership and management good

Young people receive an adequate level of care because the home employs sufficient number of staff who are appropriately trained; and the majority of staff are qualified. Staff receive good training to enhance their individual skills and to keep them up to date with professional and legal developments. For example, on the day of the inspection, staff received child sexual exploitation training.

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Leadership and management good

Internal and external monitoring of the service identified good practice, shortfalls and further areas for development. The management places emphasis on improvement with a clear focus on systems to track patterns and trends and looking at measuring progress. There is a clear commitment and energy and motivation to provide a care framework that enables young people to explore positive opportunities break negative cycles and difficulties so they can achieve their full potential.

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Leadership and management good

Staff keep sufficient home records about young people and these records are stored securely. However, some records, such as placement plans are not all up –to-date. This does not ensure that information accessed by young people now would contribute to their understanding of the life.

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Leadership and management good

Significant events relating to the protection of young people are generally notified to the appropriate authorities. However, on occasion, the service did not inform Ofsted. While there was minimal impact on young people, this does not ensure that all appropriate authorities are informed to ensure the required processes are followed. Website: www.ofsted.gov.uk

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Leadership and management good

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Judgement Description

Outstanding A service of exceptional quality that significantly exceeds minimum requirements.

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Judgement Description

Good A service of high quality that exceeds minimum requirements.

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Judgement Description

Adequate A service that only meets minimum requirements.

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Judgement Description

Inadequate A service that does not meet minimum requirements.

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Information 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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Information 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 framework of inspection for children's homes.

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