Children's home in Birmingham

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:

 Children with complex needs, autism and learning disabilities live in a very supportive environment. They enjoy warm and trusting relationships with friendly staff, and positive and rewarding experiences. The very good standard of personal care they receive is enabling them to make notable and continuous progress in all aspects of their development.

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The children's home provision is good because:

 Children live in a safe home where their welfare and happiness are the highest priorities. They are consistently treated with dignity and respect, feel and safe and have a strong sense of belonging. The manager and staff clearly understand how individual children’s disabilities impact on their daily lives, how they experience and understand the world. They identify when the children are unhappy or worried and work in a well-coordinated way to keep them safe from harm and ensure they consistently get the right support. Incidents of aggressive or self-harming behaviour has reduced significantly.

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The children's home provision is good because:

 The manager and staff have strong working relationships with the children’s families, social workers, teachers and health workers. Everyone works together effectively to keep up to date, understand each child’s needs, deliver the best possible individualised support and plan effectively for their futures.

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The children's home provision is good because:

 The day-to-day management of the home is effective at meeting the full range of children’s needs. However, the manager does not have sufficient capacity and management resources to effectively complete all the required management tasks. This is hampering the effective oversight of the running of the home, understanding of how they are making a different to children’s lives, and the systematic development of the workforce and the quality of the care provided. Also, the recommendations for improvements made at the last inspection relating to the quality of risk assessments, written records and the supervision of staff have not been achieved. The management shortfalls potentially will impact on children’s welfare unless they are successfully addressed.

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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

13: The leadership and management standard:

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Requirement Due date

In order to meet the leadership and management standard the registered person must:

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Requirement Due date

13(2)(f) understand the impact that the quality of care provided in the home is having on the progress and experiences of each child and use this understanding to inform the development of the quality of care provided in the home.

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Requirement Due date

In particular ensure that the registered manager has sufficient capacity to routinely complete all the required management tasks, including reviewing the quality of care provided to ensure that the quality standards are being met for each child, the development of a workforce plan, and an audit of children's case records. 29/02/2016

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must notify HMCI of any revisions to the home's statement of purpose and send HMCI a copy of the revised statement within 28 days of its revision. (Regulation 16(3)(b)) 29/02/2016

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must complete a review of the quality of care provided for children at least every 6 months and supply to HMCI a copy of the quality of care review report within 28 days of the date on which the quality of care review is completed.(Regulation 45(1) & (4)(a)) 29/02/2016

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must ensure that all employees receive practice-related supervision by a person with appropriate experience. In particular that all staff receive this supervision at least once a month as outlined in the home's statement of purpose. (Regulation 33(4)(b)) 29/02/2016 The registered person must maintain records for each child which include the information listed in Schedule 3 in relation to each child, in particular the result of any review of the placing authority's plan for the care of the child. In addition, the records are kept up to date and are signed and dated by the author of each entry. (Regulation 36(1)(a)(b)(c)) 29/02/2016

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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 that the use of wheelchairs to promote children's safety should follow a rigorous assessment process and be necessary and proportionate. It should be identified within a broad ranging, robust risk assessment and behaviour support plan which aims to bring about the circumstances where its continued use will no longer be required (The Guide to the Quality Standards, page 47, paragraph 9.45)

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Recommendations

 Ensure the home's records on each child represent a significant contribution to their life history. In particular key worker reports and daily written records provide a detailed and evaluative narrative of the events of the day, the work carried out with the child, the child's views, experiences and progress. (The Guide to the Quality Standards, page 62, paragraph 14.5)

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Recommendations

 Ensure there are clear arrangements in place to maintain effective management when the manager is absent, off duty or on leave. Any staff member in a deputy or supervisory role such as shift leader must have substantial relevant experience of working in a children's home and have successfully completed their induction for the home in which they are employed. (The Guide to the Quality Standards, page 54 paragraphs 10.20 & 10.21)

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Information about this children's home

This is a privately owned children's home for up to three children and young people with learning disabilities including autism.

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Recent inspection history

Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

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Recent inspection history

14/07/2015 Interim Sustained effectiveness

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Recent inspection history

30/07/2014 Interim Improved effectiveness

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good

This children’s home makes a positive difference to the lives of children with complex needs, autism and learning disabilities. They live in a warm and supportive environment. They enjoy trusting relationships with friendly staff, who provide them with a very good standard of care. A social worker said: ‘He likes living where he does, he gets on well with staff members and the other young people living there.’ Children benefit from clear and consistent routines tailored to meeting their individual needs and circumstances. Consequently they are settled, feel safe and making significant and sustained progress in all aspects of their development. They are happy, more sociable, less anxious and less likely to show their feelings through difficult behaviour, and more independent.

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good

The manager and staff are caring, skilled, and positive about the children as individuals and their progress. The staff clearly enjoy spending time with them and are committed to helping them to do well, regardless of the complexity of their needs and the challenges of their disability. They have a detailed understanding of each child’s specific needs. They are suitably experienced, qualified, and have good opportunities to develop their knowledge and skills relevant to the children they look after; including in-depth training and support in understanding autism, attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder, and epilepsy. They work in a well- coordinated way to ensure that children consistently get the right support to develop, achieve and improve the quality of their lives. They effectively improve children’s ability to express their wishes and feelings. The children make meaningful choices about what they have to eat, their clothes, and what they do in

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good

their spare time. The people working with the children are extremely positive about the quality of care they receive. For example, a social worker said: ‘The care he receives is of a high standard. I am very impressed with the staff and they are fully aware of his needs.’ And an independent reviewing officer commented: ‘He remains very well settled and happy at the home where his needs are met to a high standard. He is very much valued and respected as an individual. The genuine fondness staff feel for him and the efforts to ensure he is reaching his potential in every way.’

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good

The staff actively promote children’s physical health and emotional well-being. The children enjoy healthy diets and get plenty of exercise. They have easy access to community and specialist health services. The staff ensure they get suitable and immediate medical advice and treatment when there are concerns about their health or well-being, for example, when a child experienced a series of seizures. The manager and staff work closely with health professionals to gain a better understanding of the child’s current health needs and how best to support them. This includes making sure that treatment plans and medication continue to meet children’s individual health needs.

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good

The manager and staff promote children’s learning and development. They ensure that the daily routine effectively supports participation in education and excellent school attendance. They have a good understanding of children’s educational needs, plans, progress and achievements. They support children’s education and learning, including helping children to meet their targets; for example, to improve their communication skills and use of language, encouraging them to making independent choices, and supporting them to build positive relationships with other children. A school report said: ‘He has made fantastic progress and is working really hard in lessons.’ The manager and staff have established strong links with schools and work well with teachers to tackle any obstacles to children’s education. A social worker confirmed: ‘The manager has effective communication with the young person’s school regarding any issues that have arisen in the placement.’

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good

The children also have every opportunity to develop their interests and talents, including listening to music, dancing and playing sport. They play an active part in the local community and enjoy good social lives. They love going to the cinema and for meals at different restaurants. One young person is passionate about football, plays for a local team and in a football tournament. They have completed a sponsored walk and raised £128 for a local children’s hospital. They are able to maintain and develop their cultural and religious beliefs by celebrating festivals, gift-giving and observing religious requirements around food. The staff ensure that they have the chance to have the same experiences as other children, including going on holiday. These activities have helped them feel more confident and comfortable around other people, including on busy trains and in crowds.

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good

The staff encourage and support the children to young people to develop their life skills and to become more independent. The children are increasingly more able to carry out their own personal care and do more jobs around the house, including; making a cold drink, clearing the table and keeping their rooms tidy. They help staff with cooking, one child especially loves stirring stews and curries, and shopping. They go shopping for food with staff, push the trolley, choose what they buy and use the self-service till. The staff help them to understand about money and ensure that they receive their entitlements to personal independence payments. The manager and staff work ensure that children are well-prepared for their futures. They work collaboratively with parents and social workers to sensitively plan and manage children’s move into their own accommodation when they become adults. They contribute to the assessment of the children’s needs and

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good

to identify the right support that they will need in the future. A social worker said: ‘The manager is very co-operative with this and are making plans to help with the transition.’ The manager and staff think carefully and creatively about how best help children move without becoming confused and anxious. This includes developing social stories for individual children and making films of the new accommodation to help them understand what is going to happen and become familiar with their new home and the people who will be supporting them. The manager and staff have strong professional relationships with the children’s families, social workers, school and health services to ensure each child gets the best possible support. The communication between staff and the important people in children’s lives is excellent, so everyone knows about their progress or any problems. The manager and staff have successfully built supportive and trusting

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good

relationships with the children’s families. They very much work together to ensure that the children can maintain and improve meaningful relationships with their parents and relatives. A social worker said: ‘The staff always promote contact and understand the importance of contact.’ As a result see their families frequently, in many cases two or three times a week. The children look forward to seeing their family and spending time with them. The staff work really hard to ensure seeing their families is a safe, positive and enjoyable experience. They have helped parents to feel to have the confidence take their children out on activities. They are very aware that sometimes young people and families may find seeing each other stressful, especially when it is time to say goodbye. They make sure everyone is suitably and sensitively supported.

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good

The children live in a safe home where the manager and staff give their welfare and happiness the highest priority. The staff fully understand each child’s vulnerabilities associated with their age, experiences, level of understanding and disabilities. They always listen to the children, regardless of the complexity of their needs and means of communication, and can quickly identify when a child is unhappy or worried. The children are consistently treated with dignity and respect and know that the staff will do their best to reassure and help them. As a result, they feel valued and safe and have a strong sense of belonging. A child said: ‘If I’m worried I can talk to any of the staff and they will help me.’

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good

The manager and staff always take decisive action to protect children and promptly report any concerns about their welfare to the appropriate people and agencies. They work collaboratively with families, social workers, teachers and doctors to understand risks to individual children. They manage risk effectively using suitable protective strategies and levels of supervision to ensure children’s welfare is consistently promoted. The staff strive to balance the need for protection with enabling children to take reasonable risks as part of their growth and development. Enhancing their independence in the home and participation in the wider world. Strong safe care practices ensure that the children are protected from bullying, aggression, abuse and exploitation. They do not go missing from home and are safe in the community.

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good

The manager and staff clearly understand how individual children’s learning disabilities impact on their daily lives, how they experience and understand the world. They understand the children’s personal challenges to make sense of their experiences, express their wishes and feelings, and build relationships with other children and adults. They recognise that children’s feelings of frustration and anxiety may lead them to showing aggressive or self-harming behaviour. The staff’s well-coordinated way of working is providing the children with clear and consistent boundaries and constructive routines. Consequently, the children feel safer and less anxious because they know what is expected of them, how staff will respond to them, and what is going to happen next. Staff use symbols and simple communication techniques, such as ‘now’ and ‘then’, to help children follow their daily routines. They are currently working with the children to help them to deal

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good

successfully with changes in their routines.

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good

Children’s behaviour is usually very good and they get along very well. Staff successfully help children when they feel anxious and upset. They have helped a child overcome times when he was struggling with his emotions. He is now much more settled and happier; his school attendance has significantly improved and he is achieving more in school. Another child is no longer making hurtful comments and has built a positive relationship with the other children. The number and frequency of incidents of aggressive or self-harming behaviour has reduced significantly over the last seven months. Staff recognise when children are starting to become unsettled and agitated and intervene effectively to support them. They use well-thought-out and detailed plans and strategies that help the children to relax. They talk with the child in a calm voice and using short clear sentences to help him understand what they are saying. They are helping the children to

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good

manage their feelings themselves by doing activities or going to places that help them feel safe. For example, when one child is upset he takes himself to his room and puts on his pyjamas and gets into bed until he feels calm. The manager and staff together carefully reflect on the times that children get upset. This valuable exercise is developing their understanding of children’s feelings and behaviour and informs how best to support them to manage their feelings constructively.

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requires improvement

The Registered Manager has been in charge of the children’s home since 2011; she is knowledgeable, experienced and suitably qualified to support children with learning disabilities. She ensures that home that is managed in the children’s best interests. She and staff show a strong determination to improve children's lives and provide them with a high standard of daily care is enabling them to make continuous and significant progress in all aspects of their lives and become more resilient. However, the manager does not have sufficient capacity and management resources to effectively complete all the required management tasks. The lack of a senior member of staff with dedicated administrative and management time to assist the manager is impeding the effective oversight of the running of the home, leaders and managers’ understanding of how they are making a different to children’s lives and systematically develop the quality of the care provided. It also

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requires improvement

means that clear arrangements are not in place for the management of the home in the manager’s absence or when she is on leave. The manager has not had opportunity to complete a detailed review of the quality of care provided at least every six months to ensure that the quality standards are being met for each child, or developed a workforce plan to make sure that staff have the right skills, expertise and training and the staffing arrangements continue to be suitable. The recommendations for improvements made at the last inspection relating to the quality of risk assessments, written records and the supervision of staff have not been achieved. The staff continue to use a wheelchair as a means of managing risks to a child’s safety in the community near busy roads and in large crowds, although he does not have difficulty walking. His risk assessment and behaviour management plan do not clearly set out the circumstances how and when it should

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requires improvement

be used or sets out a plan to work towards it no longer being required. The staff said that they are using the wheelchair less frequently and he is walking much further, but his records do not show the progress he is making, the other strategies that are being used, or his views about having to use the wheelchair. The quality of the children’s written records is not of a consistently good standard. They do not always show young people’s views, wishes and opinions about their lives; are not always signed by the author and dated; do not show how staff are working with children to meet their assessed needs; provide a detailed and evaluative picture of the effectiveness of this work and children’s progress. Incident records often contain generalised terms, for example ‘ritualistic behaviour’, which do not give a clear description of what actually happened. Children’s individual risk assessments and management have not been regularly

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requires improvement

reviewed to ensure they remain relevant to the child, and the outcome of the most recent reviews of children’s placing authority plans are not available on their files. Staff do not always completing documents to track children’s progress and evaluate their experiences and activities. Children’s case files and records are not being routinely reviewed and audited to make sure they are well-organised, contain all the relevant and up-to-date information about children’s lives and are detailed, clear and evaluative. This is limiting their usefulness as a tool to assist staff in caring for the children, monitoring and measuring their progress to add to a better understanding of their lives. Staff are well-supported by the manager and receive the advice and guidance that they need to do their jobs effectively. However, not all the staff are having professional supervision at least once a month as set out in the home’s policy. This

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requires improvement

means that they are not getting regular opportunities to meet with a manager individually to reflect on the needs of the children, their practice and identify their own training and development needs.

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requires improvement

The leaders are fully aware of the weaknesses in the management of the home, and have started the recruitment process to appoint a senior team leader and shift leaders. Effective action is needed now to avoid any possible impact on the quality of care provided to the children. The independent visitor’s monitoring of the home provides exacting scrutiny and challenges leaders and managers to improve. She has repeated highlighted the lack of management resources to support the manager.

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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

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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