Children's Home run by Benjamin UK Ltd in Bedford

Requires Improvement

The children's home is not yet delivering good help and care for children and young people. However, there are no serious or widespread failures that result in their welfare not being safeguarded or promoted.

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The children's home provision requires improvement because:

 Many of the current staff team are new and have limited past experience of this setting; as a result, care is characterised by indefinite boundaries and a lack of a predictable routine.

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The children's home provision requires improvement because:

 Some staff do not yet have the skills to fully comprehend the impact of the life experiences of the young people in the home, this leads to inconsistent identification of risk and responses to it.

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The children's home provision requires improvement because:

 Staff recently failed to make appropriate provision for one young person who attended school on his first day without school shoes.

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The children's home provision requires improvement because:

 Educational progress and attainment is not prioritised by staff in line with young people’s care plans. This results in limited educational opportunities.

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The children's home provision requires improvement because:

 In the main, young people do not engage in structured activities during school hours and staff do not creatively use everyday situations as opportunities for learning.

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The children's home provision requires improvement because:

 Record keeping in the home is of a variable quality and does not consistently explore the young people’s wishes and views. This means their level of contribution to decision making is unclear.

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The children's home provision requires improvement because:

 There is no workforce plan in place and as a result, the home lacks a central record identifying the staffing structure, experience, and qualifications of staff including responsibilities and arrangements for supervision.

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The children's home provision requires improvement because:

 Policies in the home require review, in particular the safeguarding policy, which refers to out dated regulations.

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The children's home strengths

 The manager shares her experience and knowledge with staff to enhance their learning. She is knowledgeable of the young people’s needs and the service provision.  The number of episodes that young people are missing from care reduces significantly from their point of moving into this home.  Incidents of offending behaviour decline when young people move into this home.  Diversionary activities offer young people the opportunity to occupy some of their time in a positive way.  Staff now identify and respond to bullying in a timely manner and bullying panels are held if an issue of bullying is ongoing.  Young people are involved in planning, preparing, cooking, and serving meals for staff and their peers.  Therapeutic intervention and support is available to young people, their family members, and staff. This means that there is a unified approach to care.

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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 (England) Regulations 2015 and the Guide to the children's homes regulations including the quality standards. The registered person(s) must comply with the given timescales.

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Requirement Due date

7: The children's views, wishes and feelings standard To meet the children’s wishes and feelings standard the registered person must ensure children receive care from staff who: (2) (a) (iv) regularly consult children, and seek their feedback, about the quality of the home's care 15/08/2015

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Requirement Due date

8: The education standard To meet the education standard the registered person must ensure that staff: (2) (a) (i) help each child to achieve the child’s education and training targets, as recorded in the child’s relevant plans 15/08/2015

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Requirement Due date

11: The positive relationships standard In order to meet the positive relationship standard the registered provider must ensure that staff: (1) (a) (ix) understand how children’s previous experiences and present emotions can be communicated through behaviour and have the competence and skills to interpret these and develop positive relationships with children 15/08/2015

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Requirement Due date

12: The protection of children standard To meet the protection of children standard the registered person must ensure that staff (2) (a) (i) assess whether each child is at risk of harm, taking into account information in the child’s relevant plans, and, if necessary, make arrangements to reduce the risk of any harm to the child; (ii) help each child to understand how to keep safe; (iii) have the skills to identify and act upon signs that a child is at risk of harm 27/7/2015

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must prepare and implement a policy that is intended to safeguard children accommodated in the children’s home from abuse and neglect and sets out the procedure to be 27/7/15 followed in the event of an allegation of abuse or neglect. (Regulation 34 (1) (a) and (b))

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Recommendations

To improve the quality and standards of care further the service should take account of the following recommendation(s): Ensure staff provide a nurturing environment that is welcoming, supportive, and which provides appropriate boundaries in relation to young people’s behaviour. Staff should seek to meet the child's basic needs in the way that a good parent would, recognising that many children in residential care have experienced environments where these needs have not been consistently met – doing so is an important aspect of demonstrating that the staff care for the child and value them as an individual. (The Guide to the Quality Standards, page 15, paragraph 3.7)

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Recommendations

Ensure there is a workforce plan which can fulfil the workforce related requirements of regulation 16, schedule 1 (paragraphs19 and 20). (The Guide to the Quality Standards, page 53, paragraph 10.8)

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Recommendations

Ensure staff are familiar with the home's policies on record keeping and understand the importance of careful, objective, and clear recording. Information about the child must always be recorded in a way that will be helpful to the child. (The Guide to the Quality Standards, page 62, paragraph 14.4)

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Recommendations

Ensure the home's policies and procedures around the protection of children reflect the requirements of the Quality Standards and all other relevant legislation. (The Guide to the Quality Standards, page 44, paragraph 9.22)

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Information about this children's home

The home is owned by a private company. It provides therapeutic care for up to four young people between the ages of eleven and eighteen who have emotional and behavioural difficulties. Education is available in the college operated by the managing organisation.

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Requires Improvement

One young person has a place at a local school; he has only attended four times. On his first day in his new school, staff failed to make appropriate provision for him, which meant he attended without school shoes. As a looked after child, he is identified as different to his new peers and is already vulnerable by virtue of this. An independent reviewing officer said: ‘This young person is ruling the roost. He is not in school. They dropped him off without correct shoes.’

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Requires Improvement

Education is available in the linked school provision and a teaching assistant delivers education on site. One young person receives education in this way. There is little structure to the provision, and the manager reports that the young person receives between six and eight hours of education a week. A music teacher visits the home weekly and all three young people engage in this. He said: ‘We do recordings and it is something for them to be proud of doing, it is a great way to let out their feelings, they write lyrics and it is a release for them.’

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Requires Improvement

Staff do not deliver education during statutory education hours or use this time creatively to enhance young people’s basic skills. Young people choose the activities they wish to undertake when they get up in the morning; this is unstructured and does not prepare young people for education outside of the home. Levels of attainment in literacy and numeracy are unclear and none of the young people have made measureable educational progress since moving into this home.

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Requires Improvement

Staff have identified an angling course; this can lead to young people gaining access to a recognised qualification in angling. Young people are drawn to this to the detriment of more formal education. A parent describes his child as someone who could do well at school but for whom things are not progressing the way he would wish. He said: ‘Last time I was here things were okay, I had reports. This time it is all going wrong, I don’t know what is happening each time I speak to someone different and they don’t know what each other is doing.’

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Requires Improvement

Physical activity is an important element of the young people’s lives in this home and this is positive in respect of their physical health but overrides the time for basic education skills. One young person said: ‘They do not make us go to school, we get to go out and do stuff, we go fishing or go karting, it is brilliant.’

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Requires Improvement

One young person has had an unplanned moved from the home following a series of incidents that involved him. These incidents affected the other young people in the home and continue to do so, for example, where items were stolen from the home. One young person said: ‘They are reckless kids, someone is always trying to be the alpha male, staff have got better at managing it but it depends which staff, some can, some can’t.’

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Requires Improvement

Since the departure of this young person, the young people who remain are upset about not having access to a communal television and describe being forced to be on their own in their rooms if they want to watch television. One said: ‘Not having a television is really affecting me, I didn’t realise how much I watched it. I do not know if they are going to replace the television. They don’t know where the television went.’ This is concerning as this was a large communal television set in the lounge of the home.

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Requires Improvement

The use of cannabis is an issue in this home. Young people continue to use it and at times are taking themselves off the site to do this. Staff have responded to the issues and a local drug support agency has undertaken a session in the home. Staff apply sanctions in respect of these behaviours however, these are inconsistent and young people are unresponsive to them.

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Requires Improvement

The manager promotes family contact in line with young people’s care plans; contact is arranged for some young people in the home. Where appropriate, family members are offered family therapy with the in house therapist. This aims to promote positive returns home in line with some young people’s care plans.

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Requires Improvement

Young people are involved in planning, preparing, cooking, and serving meals for staff and their peers. They are enthusiastic about building key skills for independence. One young person said: ‘I cooked a full roast dinner here, I had never done that before.’

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Requires Improvement

The home is a warm and welcoming environment. Young people are encouraged to personalise their room and other areas of the home.

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Requires Improvement

Staff offer a variety of activities to young people, some of these are underpinned with the therapeutic ethos of the home and are used to develop social skills and trusting relationships. Records of these include photographs and a brief description of who was there and what is happening. This includes feelings about the activity, for example competing with peers and staff during go karting. Judgement grade

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Requires Improvement

Staff do not consistently identify risk and responses to risk vary dependent on the staff member who is working with the young person at the time. As a result, risk assessments do not always accurately reflect the risk and identify mitigating actions. Some staff do not yet have the skills to fully comprehend the impact of the life experiences of the young people in the home on their perception of risk and sense of self-value. This leads to a more reactive than proactive approach by some staff.

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Requires Improvement

Staff, some young people, and family members access the in house therapist for advice and support focused on achieving longer-term change. Therapeutic knowledge and understanding is evident in some staff practice but not all; this leads to added confusion and limits young people’s progress.

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Requires Improvement

An incident of ongoing bullying recently occurred in the home. This resulted in a young person being moved temporarily to another home for his own safety. Staff did not identify this quickly enough and the young person was at risk of harm because of his peer behaviour. Since this time, staff have been trained and are more familiar with the processes they need to follow if they identify bullying behaviour. One young person said: ‘Any bullying issue that starts, the staff stop it straight away now. I am happier here than the other home I went to.’ Episodes of missing and offending behaviour reduce significantly from the point of young people moving into this home. Young people are more safely contained in this home than in previous placements; one young person had previously been missing for eight weeks and has not been missing since moving in. A social worker said: ‘This is the best home the young person has been in, he is looked after here

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Requires Improvement

The home has a permanent manager who has made an application to become the Registered Manager. The manager has a degree in psychology and criminology and the relevant experience to fulfil the role. She is an enthusiastic and knowledgeable leader but has recently been unable to focus on this role due to the lack of robust support in the form of senior staff to delegate responsibilities to. The manager has also taken on shifts in the home to cover absence in her staff team. One member of staff said: ‘The manager is fantastic but she is really busy and has had to pick up shifts, it is too much for one person.’

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Requires Improvement

Ofsted visited the home in June 2015; six requirements were raised following this visit. The manager and organisation have addressed all but one of these; this relates to the preparation and implementation of a safeguarding policy, which remains a requirement. All policies require updating to ensure that staff are knowledgeable of the requirements of the 2015 Quality Standards.

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Requires Improvement

The manager reviews and monitors practice in the home and supervision is of a good quality, covering a broad spectrum of issues. She identifies a number of areas of improvement but does not have a development plan in place. The staff team are new to this home and many have limited experience in caring for young people with emotional and behavioural difficulties. They are committed to the care of the young people but identify areas where they need to further their professional development to fulfil their role. Staff receive basic training but lack the specialist training and experiential learning to fully respond to young people’s needs. A member of staff said: ‘The home needs more experienced senior members of staff, only some of the staff here are receptive to the therapeutic way of working.’

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Requires Improvement

Staff have confidence in the manager and describe her as dependable and approachable. She understands the young people in the home, and uses this knowledge to inform improvements. A staff member said: ‘The manager really knows the young people, she works really hard, we are learning from her all of the time.’

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Requires Improvement

The degree to which the home’s Statement of Purpose is delivered in the home is dependent on the staffing at any given time, this leads to a lack of clarity about the actual ethos of the home.

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Requires Improvement

There is a definite disparity in staff experience. This, combined with a short period of planned absence by the manager, led to a decline in the provision. A staff member said: ‘It went a bit crazy here and felt a bit chaotic, it has calmed down a lot. One young person’s influence was massive on other young people. It went from being a positive environment to being negative to being a more positive one again.’

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Requires Improvement

In the main, inter-agency links are evolving and the manager continues to develop relationships with key people to encourage a cohesive approach to care management.

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Requires Improvement

The quality of record keeping in the home is inconsistent, the decision making process is not always obvious and records in the home do not always reflect the young people’s views, wishes and feelings. Records will not be easily interpretable by young people now or in the future. The home does not have a workforce development plan, this impacts on staff’s understanding of organisational accountability; it also has the potential to affect recruitment, as there is no central point of reference in the home from which to analyse the skill set of the current staff team.

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What the inspection judgements mean

The experiences and progress of children and young people are at the centre of the inspection. Inspectors will use their professional judgement to determine the weight and significance of their findings in this respect. The judgements included in the report are made against Inspection of children's homes: framework for inspection. In a children's home that requires improvement , there are no widespread or serious failures that create or leave children being harmed or at risk of harm. The welfare of looked after children is safeguarded and promoted. Minimum requirements are in place, however, the children's home is not yet delivering good protection, help and care for children and young people.

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Information about this inspection

Inspectors have looked closely at the experiences and progress of children and young people living in the children's home. Inspectors considered the quality of work and the difference adults make to the lives of children and young people. They read case files, watched how professional staff work with children, young people, and each other, and discussed the effectiveness of help and care given to children and young people. Wherever possible, they talked to children, young people, and their families. In addition the inspectors have tried to understand what the children's home knows about how well it is performing, how well it is doing and what difference it is making for the children and young people who it is trying to help, protect and look after. This 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 Children's

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Information about this inspection

Homes (England) Regulations 2015 and the Guide to the children's homes regulations including the quality standards. the guidance raising concerns and making complaints about Ofsted, which is available from Ofsted's website: www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ofsted . If you would like Ofsted to send you a copy of the guidance, please telephone 0300123 4234, or email enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk .

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Information about this inspection

to achieve excellence in the care of children and young people, and in education and skills for learners of all ages. It regulates and inspects childcare and children's social care, and inspects the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass), schools, colleges, initial teacher training, workbased learning and skills training, adult and community learning, and education and training in prisons and other secure establishments. It inspects services for looked after children and child protection. If you would like a copy of this document in a different format, such as large print or Braille, please telephone 0300 123 4234, or email enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk . You may reuse this information (not including logos) free of charge in any format or medium, under the terms of the Open Government Licence. To view this licence, visit www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence , write to the Information Policy Team,

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Information about this inspection

The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: psi@nationalarchives.gsi.gov.uk .

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Information about this inspection

Interested in our work? You can subscribe to our monthly newsletter for more information and updates: http://eepurl.com/iTrDn .

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Information about this inspection

Store Street Manchester M1 2WD T: 0300 123 1231 Textphone: 0161 618 8524 E: enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk W: www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ofsted

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