Children's Home run by Oakley House Children’s Home Limited in Staffordshire

Unique reference number SC447457 Inspector Michelle Moss Type of inspection Full Provision subtype Children's home

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Registered manager POST VACANT / Linda Elizabeth Oakley Date of last inspection 24/01/2014 2 of 12 Inspection date 11/11/2014

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Previous inspection good progress Enforcement action since last inspection The home had a monitoring visit on 13/02/2014. This resulted in a compliance notice being issued on 21/02/2014. A further monitoring visit took place on 19/03/2014 and the compliance notice had been complied with.

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Overall effectiveness adequate

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

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Overall effectiveness

The leadership and management are yet to fully embed the appropriate range of plans and procedures to ensure they are delivering the best possible outcomes for young people. This extends to an absence of having an up to date development plan, safe area assessments and ensuring the home operates in line with its conditions of registration.

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Overall effectiveness

There are a number of areas that require improvement. These include self- evaluation, the care of medicines, staff recruitment, record keeping, young people’s education, care planning including health plans, training and the quality of sanctions and physical restraints records. As a result of these shortfalls, the values and principles set by leadership and management to get everything right for every child is not significantly robust at this time. The impact of these shortfalls on young people is reduced by the fact that they feel safe, protected and valued and have formed strong, sustained positive relationships with staff they have grown to trust 3 of 12 and respect. They live in an environment that promotes their well-being and gives them a sense of belonging and identity. They use the individualised support they receive from staff to take more responsibilities for their behaviour and learn ways to

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Overall effectiveness

solve problems when things get tough. As a consequence of this support, previous high risk behaviours have significantly reduced. From the starting point of placement, every young person has made measurable progress and this is supported by professionals that comment some young people have made ‘amazing progress’. 4 of 12

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Information about this children’s home

This is a children's home for up to 3 young people, aged between 10 and 17 years, with emotional and/or behavioural difficulties. The home is operated by a private company.

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

24/01/2014 Interim good progress 16/05/2013 Full adequate 21/11/2012 Interim satisfactory progress

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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

4 (2001) ensure that in meeting paragraph (6) the registered person complies with the conditions for the time being in force in relation to the registration of the registered person under Part 11 of the Act (Regulation 4 (6 & 7b) 28/11/2014

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Reg. Requirement Due date

(2001) ensure that within 24 hours of the use of any measure of control, restraint or discipline in a children’s home, a written record is made in a volume which includes the details listed under Regulation 17 (Regulation 17B ) 28/11/2014

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Reg. Requirement Due date

12B (2001) ensure the registered person notifies in writing the local authority for the area in which the children’s home is located without delay of the admission of a 28/11/2014 5 of 12 child into and the discharge of a child from the children’s home (Regulation 12B(1))

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Reg. Requirement Due date

(2001) ensure suitable arrangements for the recording, handling, safekeeping, safe administration of any medicines received into the children’s home (Regulation 21 (1)) 28/11/2014

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Reg. Requirement Due date

(2001) ensure full and satisfactory information is available in relation to the employment of staff as listed under schedule 2 (Regulation 26.2(d) and Schedule 2) 28/11/2014

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Reg. Requirement Due date

(2001) ensure all staff receive appropriate training, in particular working with children with learning disabilities and e-safety (Regulation 27 (4)(b)) 19/12/2014

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Reg. Requirement Due date

(2001) ensure a record in the form of a register in respect of each child accommodated in the children’s home has a date of their admission (Regulation 29(1) Schedule 4) 28/11/2014

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Reg. Requirement Due date

(2001) ensure a review of the appropriateness and suitability of the location of those premises at least once in each calendar year. When conducting a review consult and take account of the views of local bodies (Regulation (31 (1Ab & 1B)) 28/11/2014

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Reg. Requirement Due date

(2001) ensure consultation with young people, their parents and placing authorities forms part of the review on the quality of care and make a copy of the report available to HMCI (Regulation 34 (1, 2 & 3)) 28/11/2014

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Reg. Requirement Due date

(2001) ensure in respect of each child who is accommodated in a children’s home a record in permanent form which includes the information, documents and records specified in schedule 3. (Regulation 28(1)) 19/12/2014

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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 staff engage and work with schools, colleges, others organisations, and the placing local authority to support children’s education including advocating to help overcome any problems the a child may be experiencing in their educational setting (NMS 8.7)  ensure there is a written development plan, reviewed annually for the future of the home, either identifying and planned changes in the operation or resources of the service, or confirming the continuation of the 6 of 12 home’s current operation and resource (NMS 15.2)  ensure that where there has been a physical restraint, children are always given the opportunity to be examined by a registered nurse or medical practitioner (NMS 3.16)  ensure information about the young person is recorded clearly and in a way which will be helpful to the young person when they access their files now or in the future. In particular, evidencing the progress, achievements

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Recommendations

and attainment over time (NMS 22.5)  ensure the specific responsible of the home on health matters are set out in a child’s health plan. (Children Act 1989 Guidance Volume 5. Chapter 2.46) 7 of 12

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Outcomes for children and young people adequate

Young people have a strong identity with the home and are polite and courteous. They develop independence of mind and co-operate well with staff and each other. Their behaviour and social relations show genuine concern for others, especially other young people. This helps to develop a sense of belonging and identity.

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Outcomes for children and young people adequate

Young people use the support they receive from staff to develop a sense of self- worth. They make informed choices that help them face everyday challenges. This in turn helps them to make the right decisions, especially about keeping themselves safe.

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Outcomes for children and young people adequate

Young people embrace the opportunities afforded to them to develop personal and social skills, talents and abilities. They spend time in chosen leisure activities to improve social and physical well-being. For example, young people attend a range of clubs and will often engage in bike rides to access local facilities.

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Outcomes for children and young people adequate

Young people use the opportunities afforded to them to build life skills. This in turn enables them to prepare for making the transition from being a young person to becoming a young adult.

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Outcomes for children and young people adequate

Young people feel valued and respected and their self-esteem is promoted. This is due to engaging in meaningful conversation with their keyworkers. Throughout arranged sessions, young people openly talk about their emotions and feelings. This helps them to overcome difficulties in their past and build resilience to move forward.

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Outcomes for children and young people adequate

Young people do not always maintain healthy lifestyles by choosing to smoke. Their lack of willingness to take on-board advice means their health is impaired. Other young people equally pick up on smoking and will also attempt to smoke despite their younger age. The structured support from staff around discouraging smoking is not well developed to ensure young people are given the right help to reduce their dependency.

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Outcomes for children and young people adequate

Young people engage in learning by taking responsibility for their college attendance or by participating in lessons arranged at the home. Some young people do not have a full time education placement secure. This limits their achievements by not being able to experience all aspects of learning through being a pupil of a school.

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Quality of care adequate

8 of 12 Staff play a significant role in fostering a good atmosphere. Relationships among staff and young people are positive, with praise integral of everyday practice.

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Quality of care adequate

Young people talk fondly about the home and view staff as caring, interested in them as individuals and try to make things better. Professionals that regularly visit the home equally talk positively about the quality of care and recongise the commitment of the staff to improve outcomes for young people.

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Quality of care adequate

Social workers comment on young people making ‘fantastic progress’ since starting their placement. They are ‘amazed’ by the turn around young people have made and view this success being down to the nurturing care.

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Quality of care adequate

Young people are given every encouragement to keep in contact with family and friends. This includes staff giving practical support to make this contact possible. In some cases this extends to enabling siblings to stay overnight.

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Quality of care adequate

Care is focused on securing a nurturing and stable environment in which young people can thrive. Staff listen carefully to young people and value their views, wishes and expectations. These are best illustrated in high numbers of key working sessions that take place. These sessions help young people to have meaningful engagement in decision making, especially about things that directly affect them.

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Quality of care adequate

Care plans are prepared for each young person but the quality is variable. There are often different plans that fail to connect. The plans are not explicit enough about what needs to change to improve a young person’s circumstances and well-being, including recognising heritage to enhance identity. This leaves young people without structured planning so that their progress and achievements can be formally captured. The plans also fail to ensure young people play a key role in drawing up their own plan of care to reflect aspirational goals.

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Quality of care adequate

Young people are aware of how they can complain and feel assured their views matter. Information is provided to help them know about the people they can contact outside the home including the children’s commissioner and ChildLine. The complaints procedure is clear, effective, user friendly and readily accessible to young people, including young people with additional needs. This ensures they are able to practice their rights regardless of age or ability.

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Quality of care adequate

The care of medication is weak. Recording is inconsistent and makes the auditing of administered medication poor. For example, what is administered is not matched against the instructions provided by a doctor. Health needs are only partly covered in a placement plan. This leaves more specific health needs not formally identified. This extends to not holding evidence about how specific health needs will be addressed by the home. For instance, information is absent on how the home will discourage smoking to improve young people’s health.

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Quality of care adequate

Young people are encouraged to take part in leisure activities both inside the home 9 of 12 and in their community. By taking part in these opportunities they are developing talent and building their circle of friends.

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Quality of care adequate

Some young people have experienced difficulties in securing an educational provision. The home has brought in the practical and emotional support to help young people during these periods. This includes young people being home educated so that their educational needs can be partly met. Despite on-going communication from the manager, a full time education provision has not come to fruition. This has left young people without full time learning opportunities for several months. This in turn has limited levels of attainment and progress. Other young people have made good progress in their learning and attend college. In these instances, young people have clear career pathways in mind and staff help them to achieve their goals through praise and encouragement. School reports including individual education plans and Statement of Special of Education Needs (SEN) are obtained. This is not the case for young people’s Personal Education Plans (PEP). The failure to gain these

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Quality of care adequate

specific reports mean staff have limited insight into the levels of progress and future planning to enhance young people’s learning.

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Quality of care adequate

The accommodation is homely. It is decorated, maintained and furnished to a high standard. Young people show pride in the quality of accommodation and are particularly proud of their personalised bedrooms.

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Keeping children and young people safe adequate

Young people feel safe and know staff have the best interest in mind when supporting them. Staff have a clear understanding of the importance of safeguarding and the need for vigilance. Risk assessments are regularly reviewed to ensure the measures of control remain appropriate. Young people are helped to understand how to keep themselves safe through key working sessions. They then use this knowledge to make safer decisions. For example, young people are helped to recognise the risks in the wider community if they were to go missing from care.

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Keeping children and young people safe adequate

There is a consistent approach to behaviour management and as a result, there have been no physical interventions for a long period of time. The reporting process required if physical intervention is necessary is not sufficiently robust. There is failure to have a secure format maintained. The detail in recordings fails to demonstrate staff involved receive a debriefing session. There is also a failure to show young people are afforded the opportunity to seek medical advice after a physical intervention. There are similar shortfalls in the recording process for the use of sanctions. These shortfalls result in a failure to hold secure records and demonstrating young people rights upheld.

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Keeping children and young people safe adequate

Incidents of bullying are rare and staff have good awareness of the triggers of bullying and take active steps to ensure early warning are addressed to stop bullying occurring. 10 of 12 Recruitment is largely good with recent recruitment being particularly meticulous in level of checks completed. The recruitment in previous months was more variable and failed to ensure full employment histories were always confirmed. Also in the same period there was an absence of verifying previous positions where staff had worked with children or vulnerable adults.

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Keeping children and young people safe adequate

Partnership working is common place, with links made with local police and other services. This collaborative working pulls on resources that ensure early intervention and prevention is in place to safeguard young people, especially those with individual levels of vulnerability and presenting risks. As a result of this coordinated approach, the home has not had any missing from care.

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Keeping children and young people safe adequate

Local safe assessment that helps to inform the home about potential additional risks to young people by the community are not developed and then used against impact assessments at the point of admission. This leaves gaps in securing a robust approach to safeguarding young people.

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Keeping children and young people safe adequate

The physical environment is safe and takes into account the needs and characteristics of young people. The home has effective arrangements in place to ensure all health and safety issues relating to the accommodation are identified and addressed. These measures are enabling young people to live in an environment that promotes their health and well-being.

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Leadership and management inadequate

The manager fosters a culture of collaborative working in which staff are given levels of responsibility to deliver high quality care for young people. This starts by having a range of professionals including counsellors, social workers and psychologists who work alongside staff to carefully identify young people’s needs. This helps staff to be increasingly alert to early warning signs that something may be getting in the way of a young person making safe decisions which can impact on their behaviour and well- being.

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Leadership and management inadequate

Staff receive regular supervision and group meetings to enable them to reflect on practice and ensure the needs of young people are met.

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Leadership and management inadequate

The absence of an updated development plan results in the delivery of improvement not being formally captured. This absence of information means mapping progression of the service is a missed opportunity; both in celebrating success and evidencing further planning to improve outcomes for young people.

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Leadership and management inadequate

The process of reporting new admissions and discharges to the hosting authority is not robust. The failure to ensure the hosting authority is given written key information means they are not alert to potential vulnerabilities of new young people 11 of 12 in their area.

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Leadership and management inadequate

Systems for self–evaluation from the manger and independent visitor are established and used to help inform on improvement actions. Timelines for completing reports are met, but are not forwarded promptly to Ofsted. Consultation is not always captured in reports. This leaves gaps in measuring the progress young people have made, especially from people important to them.

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Leadership and management inadequate

The use of an admission and discharge book is maintained. This helps to capture the information about the young people to home supports over time. The accuracy of records is poor and creates misleading information, especially over the dates of admissions and discharges.

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Leadership and management inadequate

Care staff undertake a range of training to develop their skills. Despite this training some gaps in knowledge exist. This is mostly noticeable in areas of learning disabilities and being familiar with e-safety. A small number of staff hold a National Vocational Qualification or Diploma in working with children and young people. The remainder of staff are at earlier stages of gaining their qualification. This means that young people do not always have sufficient skilled and qualified staff working alongside them. The retention of staff are been an area of concern acknowledged by leadership. Increased rigour in the recruitment process has taken place to improve this deficit. Young people have not felt any negative impact as a consequence of staff changes and report having core staff they grow to trust and respect.

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Leadership and management inadequate

Young people’s individual case files are confidentially stored and are arranged in a manner that makes them readily useable by staff. These records hold various reports relating to health, welfare to education. Personal Education Plans are absent.

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Leadership and management inadequate

The home’s Statement of Purpose holds information that is inconsistent with their conditions of registration. In particular, the home indicates they care for young people with learning disabilities, whereby this category is missing from the home’s conditions of registration. This misleads professionals and placing authorities over the skills the home has in meeting more diverse needs.

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Leadership and management inadequate

The home had taken action to address previously raised recommendations. For example the home has forwarded their safeguarding policy to the Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO) and the Local Safeguarding Children Board for comment and consideration. More rigour safe recruitment practice has been introduced and the Children’s Guide holds more information for young people on how they can contact their Independent Reviewing Officer. (IRO). Website: www.ofsted.gov.uk

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Leadership and management inadequate

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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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