Children's home in Stockport

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:

 Children have caused extensive damage to the home and facilities, necessitating police involvement when staff have been unable to de-escalate challenging and aggressive behaviour.  Some children’s involvement in criminality has increased, leading to arrests and prosecution for criminal offences.  Children do not respect the home’s boundaries and challenging behaviour escalates during unstructured time.  Measures to protect children at risk of child sexual exploitation are not robust. This means children may be at risk of online grooming.  Supervision of children known to have sexually harmful behaviour has not been sufficient to prevent sexual activity between children living in the home.  Local authority delays in setting up specialist psychological and emotional support for children mean that their needs are not well met and these impact on their overall progress, welfare and development.  Transitions to and from the home are not always well managed so that

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The children's home provision requires improvement because:

children do not have the opportunity to effectively plan for a change of placement. This raises their anxiety levels unnecessarily.  Although the home works well with partner agencies, its attempts to influence other agencies to fulfil their responsibilities to children are not effective. It needs to do more to advocate for children successfully.

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The children's home strengths

 The leadership and management of the home are strong. Managers and staff know children well, reflect on incidents and take steps to improve their interactions with and responses to children.  The home is committed to providing a stable, consistent and well-trained staff team.  The home supports children to re-engage with their education and to lead increasingly healthy lives. Children enjoy a wide range of new experiences and enjoyable pursuits.

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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

5: Engaging with the wider system to ensure children's needs are met

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Requirement Due date

In order to meet this standard with particular reference to challenging local authorities and others to fulfil their obligations to children, 5. … the registered provider must, and must ensure that staff— (a) seek to involve each child's placing authority effectively in the child's care, in accordance with the child's relevant plans; (b) seek to secure the input and services required to meet each child's needs; (c) if the registered person considers, or staff consider, a placing authority's or a relevant person's performance or response to be inadequate in relation to their role, challenge the placing authority or the relevant person to seek to ensure that each child's needs are met in accordance with the child's relevant plans. 31 May 2016

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Requirement Due date

In order to meet the positive relationships standard, with particular reference to helping children to reduce aggressive and violent behaviour and to interact positively and meaningfully with staff and each other, the registered provider must ensure that: 11.—(1) children are helped to develop, and to benefit from, relationships based on— (a) mutual respect and trust; (b) an understanding about acceptable behaviour; and (c) positive responses to other children and adults. (2) In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to ensure— (a) that staff— (i) meet each child's behavioural and emotional needs, as set out in the child's relevant plans; (ii) help each child to develop socially aware behaviour; (iii) encourage each child to take responsibility for the child's 31 May 2016 behaviour, in accordance with the child's age and understanding; (v) communicate to each child expectations about the child's

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Requirement Due date

behaviour and ensure that the child understands those expectations in accordance with the child's age and understanding; (vi) help each child to understand, in a way that is appropriate according to the child's age and understanding, personal, sexual and social relationships, and how those relationships can be supportive or harmful; (viii) strive to gain each child's respect and trust; (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; and (b) that each child is encouraged to build and maintain positive relationships with others.

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Requirement Due date

In order to meet the positive relationships standard, with particular reference to safely managing and reducing bullying behaviour, the registered provider must ensure that: 11.—(1) children are helped to develop, and to benefit from, relationships based on— (a) mutual respect and trust; (b) an understanding about acceptable behaviour; and (c) positive responses to other children and adults. (2) In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to ensure— (a) that staff— (iv) help each child to develop and practise skills to resolve conflicts positively and without harm to anyone; (xi) de-escalate confrontations with or between children, or potentially violent behaviour by children; (xii) understand and communicate to children that bullying is unacceptable; and (xiii) have the skills to recognise incidents or indications of bullying and how to deal with them. 31 May 2016

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Requirement Due date

In order to meet the protection of children standard, with particular reference to preventing children from engaging in harmful sexual behaviour with each other, 12. (1) the registered provider must ensure that children are protected from harm and enabled to keep themselves safe. 31 May 2016 (2) In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to ensure— (a) that staff— (iv) manage relationships between children to prevent them from harming each other; (v) understand the roles and responsibilities in relation to protecting children that are assigned to them by the registered person; (b) that the home's day-to-day care is arranged and delivered so as to keep each child safe and to protect each child effectively from harm.

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Requirement Due date

In order to meet the protection of children standard with particular reference to protecting children at risk of online grooming and child sexual exploitation, 12. (1) the registered provider must ensure that children are protected from harm and enabled to keep themselves safe. (2) In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to ensure— (a) that staff— (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. 31 May 2016

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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, with particular reference to effective transition planning for children being admitted to and discharged from the home, the registered provider must ensure that: 13.—(1) the registered person enables, inspires and leads a culture in relation to the children's home that— (b) promotes their welfare. (2) In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to— (g) demonstrate that practice in the home is informed and improved by taking into account and acting on— (i) research and developments in relation to the ways in which the needs of children are best met. 31 May 2016

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Recommendations

To improve the quality and standards of care further the service should take account of the following recommendation:  ensure that those with a leadership and/or management role are visible and accessible to staff and are able to deliver their leadership and/or management responsibilities. In particular, ensure that managers who are on-call provide good support to staff dealing with challenging situations and attend the home as necessary to assist staff who are faced with behaviour that is beyond their control (The Guide, page 52, para. 10.7).

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Information about this children's home

 The home is registered to provide care and accommodation for up to four children with emotional and/or behavioural difficulties. It is run by a charitable organisation in partnership with the local authority.

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Recent inspection history

Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

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Recent inspection history

12 November 2015 CH – Interim Sustained effectiveness

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Recent inspection history

6 June 2014 CH – Interim Improved effectiveness

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Requires improvement

Children have made variable degrees of progress during the last year. For example, one child has made very good progress and not long after the last interim inspection she moved to live with a long-term foster family. Her transition was well planned and executed and she maintains intermittent, positive contact with the home. Another child who has been discharged from the home made disappointing overall progress. After a number of years living in the home, he was discharged at very short notice to a foster family. Several changes of social worker and independent reviewing officers had created a sense of drift in care planning. His educational progress did improve latterly but his challenging and criminal behaviour intensified over time. Finding a suitable family had been a lengthy process, and during this time the child presented challenging behaviour which was harmful to himself and others. The home was fully engaged in family finding and met with prospective carers, to

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Requires improvement

ensure, as far as possible, that they had the skills to meet the child’s needs and to hand over comprehensive and pertinent information. Despite this, the transition was not well planned and was executed quickly, following a serious incident in the home. The child was happy to move on. Staff accompanied him for a short visit and took charge of the actual move, which they managed sensitively, so that it was a positive experience for the child. However, the speed at which the transition was implemented did not give him time to get to know the new carers and to adequately prepare for such a huge change in his life. No follow-up contact has been planned. This does not demonstrate effective joint working that helps a child to settle with new carers. The home needs to do more to challenge placing authorities when the pace of implementing decisions is not in a child’s best interests. Two children have been admitted to the home within the last four months.

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Requires improvement

Although both had planned admissions and the home completed good impact risk assessments, only one child had a pre-placement visit and neither had an overnight stay. This is not in accordance with the home’s procedures, as described in the statement of purpose. It is not the best way to support children in transition to a new home as it does not enable them to get to know their new carers and other children, nor does it reduce their anxieties about moving to an unknown place. Staff know children well, listen to them and invest time in them, which children appreciate. Children report that they like the staff team and feel well looked after. However, the quality of the relationships between some staff and children are not yet strong. This is evident from their inability to influence children to adhere to the home’s boundaries, to respect staff or to enjoy positive, productive relationships with staff. Children in need of psychological and emotional support do not always receive the

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Requires improvement

help they need from other professionals. For some children there are significant delays in the local authority making arrangements for support that have been agreed in care planning meetings. Consequently, children do not make progress in other aspects of their lives and their poor emotional health impedes their overall progress and development. Children have person-centred placement plans that address their individual needs. For example, children receive the support they need to lead healthy lives. They have a good, varied diet which includes a range of fresh fruit and vegetables and wholesome meals. However, some children continue to consume excessive amounts of sweets and fizzy drinks, often supplied by families. The manager recognises that the home needs to do more to guide families to desist from providing these ‘treats’, which are damaging to children’s health. The home works well with health professionals and this helps to promote children’s

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Requires improvement

understanding of how to lead healthy lives. For example, children recently benefited from a session with a visiting health professional who spoke to them about the dangers associated with smoking, the misuse of alcohol and the importance of maintaining good sexual health. The home ensures that children who are sexually active have the opportunity to receive treatment and advice from the sexual health clinic. Children who misuse alcohol are encouraged to reduce the amount of alcohol they drink. Staff monitor them closely if they suspect children have been drinking alcohol and take appropriate action to protect their health and safety. Some children continue to smoke, including in their bedrooms. Staff continually try to dissuade them from smoking, but without success. Consequently, children’s long- term health remains at risk. A key strength of the home is the promotion of active and enjoyable pursuits. Staff

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Requires improvement

take children on a range of active and enjoyable outings, including walks, bike rides, swimming, trampolining and holidays. Children benefit from being active in the fresh air and have the opportunity to spend time out with staff every day. Children develop new interests and enjoy new experiences. Staff listen to children’s expressed interests and try to accommodate them. Activities children enjoy in the home include playing on electronic games consoles and watching television. Many of the board games and toys have been damaged over the last few months and now need replacing so that children can relax and enjoy playing with staff and each other during unstructured time. The home works well with schools and the local authority virtual head-teacher. Staff contribute effectively to education planning meetings. They facilitate children’s engagement in school by transporting them to and from schools at some

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Requires improvement

distance from the home. They enable children who have been excluded from school to have lessons from visiting teaching assistants within the home, until more suitable education arrangements can be set up. Some children have made very good educational progress. This has been supported by the excellent relationship that the home has with a local school. One child, whose attendance at school had been a concern at the interim inspection, has been supported and encouraged by the home to re-engage with education and is once again making good progress in school. Contact with families is well supported, where appropriate. Where contact arrangements are not meeting the child’s needs, the home is proactive in meeting with parents and social workers with a view to improving the measures so that they are more beneficial for the child. Parents speak highly of the way the staff team looks after their children, involves

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Requires improvement

them in their children’s lives and supports them to maintain close contact. This helps children to have a sense of identity and belonging. A parent explained how well the home works with them: ‘They ring me regularly or drop me an email so I know what’s happening. My son rings me every night. He was a bit upset when he first moved there. He didn’t have a choice and he’d got used to the other home, but he’s settled OK. They treat him with respect and listen to his views – even when he’s angry. They give him cuddles and look after him really well. I have no concerns; they are brilliant.’ Children say, ‘It’s good here’. They report that staff listen to their wishes and feelings and help them to enjoy their lives and to make choices. Staff encourage them to influence decisions about their day-to-day lives and their future, and to reflect on and learn from incidents. The staff at the home encourage children to

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Requires improvement

make friends locally and at school. Friends and family are welcomed when they visit. Staff build relationships with the parents of children’s friends and encourage children to have overnight stays, as do their peers. The staff get to know and build trust with children’s friends, taking them out on trips and activities. This enhances children’s enjoyment of outings and helps staff to develop relationships with children’s friends that assist them when safeguarding concerns arise. Judgement grade

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Requires improvement

Children do not always respect the home’s boundaries. Some struggle to manage unstructured time, quickly become bored and resort to mischief that quickly escalates into challenging and destructive behaviour. Children have caused extensive damage to the home and its facilities in recent weeks, necessitating police involvement. The home strives hard to work collaboratively with the police to avoid involving children in the criminal justice system, so children are rarely prosecuted for the damage they cause in the home or for the assaults on staff. Appropriate sanctions and reparations are set up. These involve children contributing to repairing damage wherever possible. Staff interventions have been unsuccessful in influencing children to reduce their high levels of aggression and destructive behaviour. Consequently, the home is not providing a safe haven for children who have previously been subject to domestic violence.

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Requires improvement

Staff challenge incidents of bullying and remind children that it is not acceptable. This is not wholly successful in preventing bullying. For example, on one recent occasion, a child was frightened and at significant risk as a result of bullying which staff witnessed and struggled to prevent. Their attempts at de-escalation were not successful and although police involvement reduced the level of dangerous behaviour in the home, children continued to be out of control well into the night. The level of support from the organisation’s on-call manager on this occasion was unsatisfactory. Some children have become increasingly involved in criminality in the community. The home supports them through police interviews and encourages them, with reasonable success, to engage openly and honestly with the police and the youth offending service. Relationships with some neighbours are strained and are exacerbated by children’s behaviour. Neighbours have been unresponsive to the

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Requires improvement

home’s concerted attempts to rebuild relationships and do not make children feel welcome in the local community. Person-centred risk assessments guide staff in how to respond to and manage risks associated with individual children’s dangerous behaviour. However, the home’s strategies for keeping children safe are continually challenged by children and are therefore not always effective. For example, the home has increased supervision levels of children who display harmful behaviour to other children. This has led to a child climbing out of a small, high bedroom window onto the roof in order to access another child after bedtime. Children have been at risk of injury through falling and possible assault. The home has responded to this by installing new bedroom windows that can be kept locked, thus reducing the level of risk by making it more difficult for children to climb onto the roof and into each other’s

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Requires improvement

bedrooms. Children’s access to Wi-Fi in the home is restricted, so that those with a recent history of unsafe online behaviour have reduced internet access, aimed at protecting them from unsafe liaisons. However, the home has not done enough to fully promote children’s online safety. This is because it provides children who are at high risk of sexual exploitation with a £10 mobile phone top-up voucher each week, which enables access to the internet and social media via data usage. The home does not carry out spot checks on phones belonging to children at risk of online grooming. Instead, staff check such phones at pre-agreed times each week. This is not sufficiently robust to ensure that staff recognise and can take swift action should a child be in danger through accessing unsuitable sites and people. A specialist organisation provides short-term intervention workshops to educate and protect children at risk of grooming and sexual exploitation. The impact of this

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Requires improvement

work is not clear. Staff are not fully confident that it is successful in helping children stay safe online. Their attempts to enhance children’s understanding and safety through key worker sessions and support from specialist professionals are met with limited engagement from those children who most need support. Consequently, some children continue to be at considerable risk of sexual exploitation. Children with a history of being sexually abused have engaged in sexual activity with each other, and staff attempts to prevent this through closer supervision and supportive guidance have been unsuccessful. Consequently, some children who have suffered previous sexual abuse continue to have inappropriate and unsafe sexual relationships. The home follows good missing from care procedures. Staff search for children who fail to return home on time, make contact with their known associates, families and friends, and report them missing where there are concerns for

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Requires improvement

children’s safety. They liaise effectively with a specialist agency that conducts return interviews with children who have been missing. However, the home’s missing from care records do not easily demonstrate that these interviews take place following each incident. Missing from care records do not show that the reason a child went missing has been fully explored and noted, in order to inform future safeguarding practice. The home raises concerns appropriately with local safeguarding teams and meets with partner agencies to reflect on safeguarding incidents and to initiate new intervention strategies. Investigations into allegations or suspicions of harm are shared promptly with relevant agencies and, as far as possible, are handled quickly, under the guidance of and in co-operation with the local authority designated officer, the police and the placing authority. This ensures that all those with a responsibility for protecting children contribute to planning and to

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Good

The registered manager has extensive experience of working in and managing children’s homes. She manages both this home and another four-bed children’s home. She has been in post for approximately two years and competently leads the staff team, ably assisted by an established and experienced deputy manager and senior staff. Managers know the children very well and maintain close oversight and management of care plans, children’s day-to-day experiences and their progress. Managers have a good overview of the operation of the home and the challenges faced by children and staff. Knowing the strengths and weaknesses of the home and individual staff members’ skills, they take action to improve, which includes arranging bespoke training for staff to help them to understand children’s individual needs and to develop their skills so that they provide a warm and nurturing home. Staff are mostly well supported and supervised and this helps them to provide

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Good

person-centred care that is responsive to children’s individual needs and wishes. They develop their knowledge and skills and improve their practice through reflecting on incidents in one-to-one supervision and team meetings. For example, team meetings have a good focus on developing strategies to manage the behaviour of individual children by recognising their triggers and identifying which techniques are effective in helping to reduce their anxieties, to build confidence and to develop social skills. This helps staff to provide consistent care and planned responses to challenging behaviour. Staff build effective working relationships with parents and partner agencies, including schools, social workers, police and health professionals. One professional explained: ‘They are very professional and knowledgeable and they understand the triggers behind children’s behaviour. This brings more depth to discussions in

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Good

meetings. We work with many care providers and have a trust in them that we don’t have in other establishments. We trust their professional judgement.’ Although the home actively challenges other agencies to meet their obligations to children, this is not always successful. For example, despite reminders to the placing authority of the need to set up the psychological support agreed in a child’s care plan, there have been significant delays in doing so and the child’s emotional and psychological needs continue to impair his overall development and progress. The home does not always escalate their concerns about the pace of implementing plans to team managers and heads of service in good time and so is not as strong an advocate for children as it should be. Children are looked after by a stable staff team, whom they like. Vacancies are routinely covered by a regular agency member of staff who knows the children well

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Good

and participates fully in team meetings and in the running of the home. In addition, shortfalls in the rota are covered by a small number of staff from homes within the organisation and this promotes consistency and stability for children. The provider is committed to having a well-trained and qualified staff team. Most of the team are qualified in caring for children and young people and new staff are enrolled on a suitable qualification course on completion of a comprehensive induction. A rolling programme of mandatory training provides staff with the basic skills they need for their role. Additional training, which many staff have already completed, includes a focus on caring for children with attachment difficulties, those at risk of child sexual exploitation and children who display sexually harmful behaviour. This helps staff to have a good grasp of the safeguarding needs of the children they look after.

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Good

Impact risk assessments inform decisions about children coming to live at the home and there is clear evidence of children being refused a placement when their needs may jeopardise the progress of children already in placement. Careful placement planning is based on good analysis of information and matching children’s needs to staff skills, as well as the individual needs of each child living in the home. Where there is a gap in staff knowledge about a child’s specific needs, further training is provided to enhance staff skills so that they can provide appropriate care for the child. The statement of purpose is regularly reviewed and updated. It clearly sets out the aims and ethos of the home, which are, for the most part, consistent with the care provided. There is an ongoing maintenance programme which is reasonably successful in repairing damage quickly, although the high levels of damage mean that the home is continually in need of renovation.

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Good

Detailed case records provide an overview of children’s daily life. Regular summaries of children’s experiences and progress are shared with the placing authority and demonstrate that children enjoy a range of enjoyable experiences and make some progress in improving their lives. Staff help children to contribute to their records and to comment on measures of control and restraint. Children know they can access their records, should they wish. Leaders and managers appropriately notify significant events to the relevant authorities. This helps to promote children’s safety and welfare through multi- agency collaboration.

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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, work- based 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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