Children's Home run by Future In Mind Limited in Staffordshire

Good

The children's home provides effective services that meet the requirements for good.

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The children's home provision is good because:

 The home is successful in providing placement stability and staff continuity that helps young people develop their emotional, physical and psychological well-being.  Development plans for the home are unique in their representation of how the service will continue to develop. The child centred approach is at the forefront of the plan.  Strong leaders and a stable staff team provide a holistic care package that offers a clear therapeutic and nurturing approach where young people thrive.  Staff are skilled and knowledgeable in the needs of young people in their care.  Partnership working is strong, ensuring young people receive the support and services they need.  Staff are creative and innovative to achieve the best possible outcomes from young people.  Staff are well supported to be competent and confident in their work.  There are areas identified for improvement: these relate to record keeping and hazards in the garden.

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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

In order to meet the protection of children standard the registered person must ensure –

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Requirement Due date

(2)(d) that the premises used for the purpose of the home is maintained so as to protect each child from avoidable hazards. In relation to the garden. 18/03/2016

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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 are familiar with the home's policies on record keeping and understand the importance of careful, objective and clear recording. (The Guide to the Quality Standards, page 62, paragraph 14.4)

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Information about this children's home

This home is owned by a private company, and provides care and accommodation for up to two young people with emotional and/or behavioural difficulties. The service provides a specialist therapeutic programme and staff practice therapeutic techniques under supervision of a qualified therapist.

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Recent inspection history

Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

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Recent inspection history

05/02/2015 CH - Interim Sustained effectiveness

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good

Relationships between staff and young people are good. A staff member said, ‘He has changed towards people, this has really improved by sharing love and care with him. He does feel cared for here and gets on well with staff’. Staff provide opportunities for young people who struggle with socializing. This has helped in initiating conversations with peers that before were difficult.

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good

Young people benefit from a long-standing, stable staff group who know their needs well. This has helped young people to form strong bonds, feel relaxed and gain trust with those who care for them. A staff member said, ‘we have a good stable staff group; this helps them to blossom’.

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good

Young people make significant improvement due to the care of skilled and knowledgeable staff. Staffs clear understanding and partnership working enables young people to develop skills that before were difficult. A staff member said, ‘he can now hold conversations and his speech has blossomed’.

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good

Staff support young people to get the best out of their education. This helps young people to achieve their full potential. A staff member said, ‘he has extra time on his laptop when he has positive days at school’. Staffs maintain and encourage education attainment. An Independent Reviewing Officer said, ‘staff are going the extra mile to support education’.

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good

The manager and staff team work exceptionally well in gaining the view, wishes and feelings of young people. They are innovative in creating ways that capture and feedback information about young people. Examples of this are demonstrated in the young people’s guide and the home’s development plan. Consultation takes place daily and feedback from young people informs and shapes the care they receive. Young people attend their reviews and staff support them to contribute to their care plans through key work meetings. This keeps them informed on progress of their future plans. Young people make additional contribution to consultation by attending a forum that gathers the thoughts of children in care. They are asked questions about what could be done better when looking at finding placements for them. This helps social workers to understand what really matters to children.

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good

Young people benefit from daily activities that promote their emotional, physical and psychological well-being. Staff provide opportunities for young people to experience outdoor pursuits of their preference that enhance their fitness. For example, bike riding, scouts and parks. Activities are age appropriate and tailored to meet the individual needs of young people. Photographs taken by staff capture moments of enjoyment that provide a life story of the time spent at the home. Achievements are celebrated and rewarded. Staff proudly place certificates and reward charts on show to acknowledge hard work and good behaviour. This values young people’s hard work.

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good

Staff support the young people’s relationships with family and friends. This in turn, helps them form bonds with family members through well-planned contact.

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good

Young people are safe and protected by sufficient staffing that provides 1:1 care. Staff encourage young people to respect boundaries that help keep them safe. Robust behaviour management plans support staff in managing appropriate behaviour.

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good

All staff are trained in the use of physical intervention and de-escalation. Staff manage behaviour well and young people abide by the house rules. As a result, the need to use physical intervention is minimal. Staff use reward charts that offer incentives to encourage positive behaviour. This provides a visual aide that helps young people recognise the changes they are making.

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good

Staff respect young people’s privacy. They are courteous and knock before entering their bedrooms. Young people have a key to their bedroom to keep belongings safe.

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good

The use of laptops is safe because privacy settings and restrictions protect them from unauthorised sites. This keeps them safe.

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good

Young people do not go missing from care. The staff ensure they are supervised around the clock. There have been no allegations or complaints since the last inspection. The manager reports any significant events and notifies Ofsted in line with regulation.

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good

The manager maintains the home to a good standard. The young people take part in routine fire drills. This ensures they know how to react in the event of a fire. The staff monitor the health and safety of the environment.

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good

The garden area has bramble bushes that trail across the garden paths and overhang into the garden space. This presents a hazard to anyone playing or accessing the garden. Although young people do not use the garden unattended, a risk assessment was not in place to safeguard against the hazard. Judgement grade

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good

The Registered Manager is a competent and dedicated leader. She is undertaking the Diploma level 5 and has NVQ 4 leadership and manager award. The manager has managed the service for five years. Additionally, the service benefits from a stable staff team. The manager ensures that the team provide a consistent approach in delivering care. This has improved progress for young people. A staff member said, ‘the manager gives staff a lot of support that helps to prioritise the needs of the young people’.

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good

The manager and the team are a testament to the progress young people make. They recognise the difficulties young people face and challenge them to succeed. Staff receive supervision, including therapeutic supervision from the director of therapy and annual appraisals. This helps the manager and staff to, reflect on practice, stay up to date with progress, highlights training needs and plans for further professional development. As a result, young people’s success can be tracked and monitored. The director of care confirms the manager invests well in developing staff and comments, ‘appraisals give staff the opportunity to advance into roles they wish to pursue. We always promote staff to work above their roles’.

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good

The home development plan is in place. It is a lovely example that is totally child centred. It tells a story about the plans for the home to the children in a child friendly manner. The uniqueness makes it stand alone in the respect of how it is developed and implemented. The innovation into creating it is inspiring. Young people are centrally involved in providing their view and the speech bubbles and pictures make it much more user friendly for the reader.

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good

Staff know and understand the aims and objectives of statement of purpose. They work hard to promote and enjoy a mutually respectful culture and ethos of the home. Staff have innovatively provided a secondary young people’s guide tailored to the individual learning of young people. This provides a more personal and user friendly document that is easily understood. For example, favourite cartoon characters that young people recognise are used by having speech bubbles giving the effect the character is talking to the young person.

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good

The manager and staff work exceptionally well with other services. The manager continually challenges services where they are not effective. For example, by working with the education officer to promote the rights of a young person, the staff were able to secure additional teaching support. This has helped strengthen the relationship between home and education staff. By working in partnership and sharing the model of therapy the home uses has given the school a better understanding of young people’s needs.

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good

Records are not always consistent. Cross-referencing sometimes does not match from one record to the next. This makes monitoring of the records difficult to evaluate.

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good

The manager has met the recommendation made at the last inspection. The staff roster now clearly identifies who is on duty each day and which shits require cover.

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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.

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What the inspection judgements mean

An outstanding children's home provides highly effective services that contribute to significantly improved outcomes for children and young people who need help and protection and care. Their progress exceeds expectations and is sustained over time. A good children's home provides effective services that help, protect and care for children and young people and have their welfare safeguarded and promoted. 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. A children's home that is inadequate is providing services where there are widespread or serious failures that create or leave children and young people being

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What the inspection judgements mean

harmed or at risk of harm or result in children looked after not having their welfare safeguarded and promoted.

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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

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

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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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