Children's Home run by South Tyneside Council in South Tyneside

Unique reference number SC032697 Inspector Vicky Johnson Type of inspection Interim Provision subtype Children's home

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Registered person South Tyneside Metropolitan Borough Council Registered person address South Tyneside Council, Town Hall Westoe Road SOUTH SHIELDS Tyne and Wear NE33 2RL Responsible individual Jill McGregor Registered manager Kathleen Ann Rooney Date of last inspection 15/10/2014 2 of 6 Inspection date 11/02/2015

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Previous inspection adequate Enforcement action since last inspection none

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This inspection

This home was judged adequate at the last full inspection. At this interim inspection Ofsted judge that it has sustained effectiveness .

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This inspection

At the home’s full inspection in October 2014, eight requirements and four recommendations were made. The Registered Manager has taken effective action to address six of these requirements. Further improvement is still required to ensure that information from placing social workers is kept up to date and that notifications are always promptly made to Ofsted. Three of the recommendations are met. However, the Registered Manager’s monitoring of the home continues to be incomplete. For example, it failed to report or evaluate a young person’s complaint.

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This inspection

Young people continue to make progress but this is variable and inconsistent. Some young people are not engaging in education, or only attending erratically. Other young people are attending consistently and accepting the support from the home to meet their educational needs. Other young people continue to take drugs and engage in other risk taking behaviours. These young people find it difficult to respond positively to staff and professionals’ attempts to work with them to achieve change. They continue to go missing from home but recently the frequency of this is reducing.

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This inspection

The health needs of young people are generally well met. Young people describe the staff as ‘kind’ and ‘nice’. They say the staff give them helpful advice on making healthy lifestyle choices. Some young people also have access to advocates. Young people say they feel safe in the home, that they can talk to staff and they take their complaints seriously. They report that bullying does not occur in the home. Young people can exercise choice in the home and, for example, have a say in the home’s menus and activities. Staff have a good awareness of the individual needs of young people and ensure those needs are addressed. For example, the home provides good emotional support to those young people involved in lengthy legal proceedings. This support helps young people to express their feelings and anxieties and to manage their behaviour. 3 of 6 The home has good working relationships with other professionals involved with

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This inspection

young people. A social worker stated they felt staff do ‘all they can’ to keep young people safe. They say the home the home communicates well with them, promptly informing them of any significant event concerning the young people. One social care professional commented on the good practical and emotional support provided to young people and its positive impact. They said the young person, ‘always felt really comfortable, safe here and well supported’.

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This inspection

A particular strength of the home is their ability to promote young people’s rights and their transition to independence. The professional said that staff give the message, ‘if you’re not happy with something we will support you’. They also stated that planning for independence, ‘seems to be really thought out well, at her pace’. The home establishes a partnership with the young person to ensure they acquire the basic life skills they need. This approach prepares them well for the responsibilities of adulthood, making the transition to living independently more likely to succeed.

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This inspection

The Registered Manager has made positive changes to the way the home addresses young people’s needs and tries to keep them safe. For example, they have reviewed the way they record significant incidents to ensure they detail actions and the debriefing of staff. The home’s risk assessments have been revised to include risk ratings. This makes sure that specific control measures to reduce the level of risk to the young person are clear. However, the ratings are not always consistent with the behaviours of the young person and the assessments completed by placing social workers. As a result, the home may not always act promptly and consistently to minimise the risk of harm to young people. There is also a lack of evidence that individual key working sessions to address some young people’s aggressive behaviours are taking place regularly. This shortfall means it is not possible to be confident that staff are always fully addressing all young people’s needs.

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This inspection

The incidence of young people going missing has recently decreased. One social care professional commented that staff keep young people safe by ‘ringing police and doing what they need to do’. They report staff attend young people’s statutory reviews and act on advice provided in risk management meetings. Practice in this area is therefore generally responsible and proportionate. However, not all the home’s risk assessments clearly detail the triggers and timescales for reporting individual young people as missing. The recording of staff’s actions when young people go missing is also variable in detail. It is therefore difficult to be confident that staff are responding consistently. Additionally, the Registered Manager does not always ensure that the sharing of information with staff and agreed actions following incidents are reliably recorded. This means that staff may not respond in the agreed way to young people’s particular circumstances and needs.

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Information about this children’s home

This children's home is registered to offer care and accommodation for six children who experience emotional and behavioural difficulties. The home is operated by the local authority.

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

15/10/2014 Full adequate 24/01/2014 Interim satisfactory progress 26/06/2013 Full good 12/02/2013 Interim good 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

(2001) maintain in respect of each child who is accommodated in the children’s home a record in permanent form which includes the information, documents and records specified in Schedule 3, in particular the placement information record, up to date care plan, and minutes of statutory reviews (Regulation 28 (1)(Schedule 3)) 30/03/2015

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Reg. Requirement Due date

(2001) ensure without delay that Ofsted is notified of any significant incident affecting a child’s welfare (Regulation 30 (1)) 30/03/2015

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Reg. Requirement Due date

(2001) promote and make proper provision for the safeguarding and welfare of children accommodated there; specifically that risk assessments are individualised to reflect the presenting risks to young people. (Regulation 11 30/03/2015 5 of 6 (a))

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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 there are clear and effective procedures for monitoring and controlling the activities of the home, specifically that significant incidents such as complaints made by young people are included in the manager’s review of the quality of care. (NMS 21.1)  encourage children to take responsibility for their behaviour, specifically to complete key working sessions in line with individual risk assessments (NMS 3.6)  ensure that staff working within the home know and implement the local authority and home’s policy in relation to children going missing and their role in implementing that policy, specifically that risk assessments clearly describe the criteria and timescales for reporting young people as missing (NMS 5.2)  ensure that the written records kept by the home when a child goes missing are consistent and detail the action taken by staff, the circumstances of the child’s return, any reasons for running way from the

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Recommendations

home, and any actions taken in light of these reasons (NMS 5.10) Website: www.ofsted.gov.uk

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Recommendations

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What inspection judgements mean

At the interim inspections we make a judgement on whether the home has improved in effectiveness, sustained effectiveness, or declined in effectiveness since the previous full inspection. This is in line with the Inspection of children’s homes: framework for inspection.

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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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