Supported Fostering Services Charitable Trust

Supported Fostering Services Charitable Trust Inspection report for independent fostering agency

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Unique reference number SC058896 Inspection date 15 February 2016 Inspector Lee Kirwin Type of inspection Full Provision subtype

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Setting address 10 Belmont Hill, London SE13 5BD

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Telephone number 020 8318 0505 Email christine.mcgillvary@fostering.com Registered person The Supported Fostering Services Charitable Trust Registered manager Christine McGillvary Responsible individual Andrew Stirk Date of last inspection 25/03/2013

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Brief description of the service

Supported Fostering Services Lewisham is an independent fostering agency that is part of a larger charitable organisation. The organisation has two other fostering services registered with Ofsted, and there is another fostering service based in Wales. The agency offers a range of different types of placements to meet the needs of individual children and young people. The Lewisham fostering service has approximately 58 foster carers and 51 children and young people in placement.

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The inspection judgements and what they mean

Outstanding : An agency demonstrating and exceeding the characteristics of a good judgement, where children and young people are making significantly better progress and achieving more than was expected in all areas of their lives. Good : An agency where children and young people, including those with the most complex needs, have their individual needs met, and their welfare safeguarded and promoted. They make good progress and receive effective services so they achieve as well as they can in all areas of their lives. Requires improvement : An agency that may be compliant with regulations and observing the national minimum standards, but is not yet demonstrating the characteristics of a good judgement. It therefore requires improvement to be good. There may be failures to meet all regulations or national minimum standards, but these are not widespread or serious. All children's and young people's welfare is safeguarded

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The inspection judgements and what they mean

and promoted. Inadequate : An agency where there are widespread or serious failures, which result in children and young people not having their welfare safeguarded and promoted.

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Overall effectiveness

The agency provides exceptional foster placements for children and young people. They settle quickly, make rapid progress and feel at home with the families that they live in. Placements seldom break down in an unplanned way, and the majority of children and young people stay with their carers until it is in their best interests to move on to independence.

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Overall effectiveness

Foster carers are resilient and maintain placements throughout periods of crisis. They fully commit to the children and young people in their care, and often move quickly to offer permanent placements. They demonstrate genuine warmth, and go the extra mile to ensure that children and young people understand that they are cared for.

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Overall effectiveness

The agency provides a range of resources to support carers, staff, and children and young people. It employs qualified experts in child and adolescent mental health, art therapy and specialist trainers. This means that children and young people receive specialist help when they need it and without delay.

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Overall effectiveness

There is a strong learning culture throughout the organisation. Carers and supervising social workers access bespoke training, and can call on a wide range of experts to inform their practice. They consistently report that the agency listens to them, and is very responsive when they are faced with challenging situations. They adopt creative solutions and think ‘outside the box’, in order to make sure that interventions and support to children and young people take into account their journey into care and meet their individual needs.

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Overall effectiveness

Children and young people, supervising social workers and carers have access to an education specialist within the agency. She uses her expertise to ensure that children and young people receive the right educational placement, and that all available resources are used to offer them the support that they need to make progress.

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Overall effectiveness

Well-informed, professional assessments help the agency to be highly effective in advocating for children and young people within the wider professional network. They make sure that care plans are effective and that the needs of children and young people remain at the heart of care planning.

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Overall effectiveness

Members of the leadership team have distinct areas of responsibility and a shared vision. The registered manager has the support of an operations manager, who ensures that the business administration, monitoring and recording are completed to a high standard. This allows the social work staff to focus on social work practice and to prioritise work that makes a difference to children and young people.

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Overall effectiveness

Children and young people have fun and participate in a range of activities organised by the agency and by foster carers. The agency works hard to understand the lived experience of all children and young people in foster families, including birth children and young people. They use this understanding to shape and develop the service.

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Overall effectiveness

The combined impact of these particular strengths is that children and young people have a safe and stable base where they feel cared for by foster carers who have fantastic knowledge, skills and dedication. This is complimented by consistently high- quality support from skilled and experienced supervising social workers from the agency. This helps children and young people to make progress in all areas of their lives, reach their potential and often to exceed expectations.

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Recommendations

To improve the quality and standards of care further, the service should take account of the following recommendation: A written record is kept by the fostering service, detailing the time, date and length of each supervision held for each member of staff, including the registered person. The record is signed by the member of staff and supervisor at the end of each session (NMS 24.5).

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and young people

Children and young people are fully integrated as part of the foster family. One young person commented that ‘it’s just home’. She went on to describe how she felt that her carer was ‘mum’. She shared that they had travelled together to meet each of their extended families in Jamaica. Children and young people appreciate the fact that foster carers work hard to establish positive relationships with their birth parents. This helps the children and young people to maintain positive contact and to ensure that their parents can remain involved and in touch with them. One young person said that this helped her parents to accept that she was in care and ‘made growing up in care feel positive’. Another young person reflected on his experience with his foster family and said, ‘It’s fun – actually perfect.’

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and young people

The agency works hard to ensure that foster and birth children and young people have the opportunity to spend time together and to have the chance to talk about their experience in a fostering family. This attention to the family as a whole helps all children and young people to feel included, and encourages them to share any concerns or difficulties. One birth child in a fostering family described how she sees a young person fostered by her family as her brother, but that he got money from the agency when it was his birthday, and she did not. The agency responded by providing resources to make sure that all young people in the foster family received birthday money and gifts.

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and young people

Children and young people are only placed with families that can meet their needs. This means that, even when they are placed in emergencies, their foster families can look after them as long as it is necessary to meet their needs. This helps children and young people to feel safe, and means that they seldom have to move in a way that is unplanned or is not in their interests. Foster carers often move quickly to offer permanent or long-term placements. This gives children and young people a sense of being valued, and helps to build relationships where they feel safe enough to trust their carers. This, in turn, creates a nurturing environment for children and young people to overcome any emotional difficulties that may exist as a result of their journey into care.

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and young people

Children and young people in foster care are ambitious, and have clear, aspirational plans for their futures. They meet or exceed their expected targets in education, and have a positive attitude to learning. Foster carers prioritise education, and make sure that children and young people have the right routines and the necessary support to do well.

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and young people

Children and young people are encouraged to pursue hobbies and interests, and to take part in a range of constructive activities. They get involved in daily activities in the home, such as cooking, shopping and household chores. This helps them to develop the independence skills that they will need as they move into adulthood.

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Quality of service

The agency has high standards and expectations of the carers whom it recruits. It has a strong ethos of providing the very best standards of care for children and young people, and this is evident in the way in which it assesses, inducts and supports its carers. The assessment process is thorough and comprehensive. Any issues that may have an impact on a prospective foster carer’s suitability for the role are fully explored at all stages of the recruitment and assessment process.

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Quality of service

The panel chair is highly experienced and very knowledgeable about best practice within a fostering setting. She is skilled at balancing different perspectives and creates an environment which values the wide variety of experience and contributions of panel members. She brings a strong focus on the importance of understanding diversity and promoting anti-discriminatory practice, in order to meet the needs of all children and young people. The panel provides a robust scrutiny of care practices with a strong emphasis on the experience of children and young people, and safe care. It provides independent feedback on the quality of information presented to the panel, and is clear about the reasons for any recommendations made.

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Quality of service

Supervising social workers practise social work to high standards. They are thoughtful about the interventions that they undertake and engage effectively with foster carers and young people. Foster carers consistently comment that they feel that the agency is always available to support them and that, as one carer put it, ‘nothing is too much trouble’. Supervising social workers provide regular supervision and challenge carers effectively, to improve the experience of care for children and young people. Supervising social workers demonstrate that they have a clear understanding of the lived experience of children and young people, and that they recognize the unique skills and contributions of each foster carer.

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Quality of service

Standards of care are very high, but when practice falls short, and does not improve with support, the agency takes robust action and, if necessary, de-registers them as foster carers.

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Quality of service

The agency has a strong learning culture throughout. It values the experiences of everyone and encourages foster carers, foster children and young people, and birth children and young people to contribute to delivering training. All foster carers having completed their TDS, and undertake further core training, which is supplemented by regularly updated learning in key areas of child protection and safe care practice. Foster carers access a range of specialist training courses on, for example, attachment theory, loss, trauma and the impact of abuse. This helps them to have a better understanding of the behaviours that children and young people may exhibit. It also informs interventions to help children and young people to make progress. Where children and young people have more complex needs, the agency provides bespoke training for individual carers. This helps them to provide safe care for children and young people who may be particularly vulnerable.

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Quality of service

The expert help available within the agency makes a positive difference to children’s and young people’s lives. A child and adolescent mental health specialist provides consultation to staff and carers. She also undertakes direct work with children and young people with more complex needs, and contributes to the professional network, to ensure that care plans include therapeutic support and assessment where this is needed. An art therapist undertakes long-term direct work to provide a safe space for children and young people to express their feelings. The insight provided by these sessions helps to provide an in-depth understanding of the child’s or young person’s needs. In one example, this helped the professional network to develop informed strategies to overcome challenges, and to help prevent two brothers from being separated.

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Quality of service

The education specialist provides consultation to carers and supervising social workers, and undertakes direct work and assessment with children and young people. She advocates effectively with the professional network to ensure that children and young people have the right education placement, and that all available resources are utilised to support children and young people to engage and achieve. The virtual headteacher in one placing authority described her intervention as ‘superb’. She went on to give examples of how the agency support in this area helped children and young people, who may otherwise have been excluded, stay in school.

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Quality of service

Placing authority social workers consistently described how the input of the agency professionals enhanced the quality of care to children and young people, and contributed to their positive outcomes. One team manager commented that this agency offered resources over and above the norm, and that this ‘sets them apart from most other fostering agencies’.

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Safeguarding children and young people

There is a strong culture of safeguarding throughout the agency. This is underpinned by excellent training for foster carers and agency staff. Foster carers undertake training in a wide variety of areas that are designed to ensure that they have an understanding of trauma, loss and attachment as a way of understanding behaviour. This helps them to provide care that is based on therapeutic models of intervention, research and evidence-based practice. In effect, they are able to provide what a ‘good parent’ would offer, and more.

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Safeguarding children and young people

Children and young people are generally well behaved. They live in families that model good behaviour and have clear expectations in respect of boundaries. Because of this, children and young people are able to understand quickly what is expected of them, and they make progress in terms of meeting these expectations. Foster carers are resilient when faced with challenging behaviour. They work through difficulties, and help children and young people to learn from mistakes by sticking with them, working alongside them and celebrating success when they make progress.

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Safeguarding children and young people

Foster carers are vigilant and alert to signs of danger. They keep a close eye on children and young people, to make sure that they are not mixing with people who may cause them harm, and they encourage positive relationships by making their friends welcome in the home. Children and young people seldom go missing, and, if their whereabouts are unknown, foster carers work proactively, in partnership with placing authorities and the police, to ensure that they are safe.

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Safeguarding children and young people

Supervising social workers know the foster families well, and provide excellent support and guidance. They routinely monitor safe care practice in the home, and are quick to notice and respond if it is apparent that carers, and children and young people need extra support to stay safe. Foster carers consistently report that the agency is always there for them when they need help. Children and young people know how to raise concerns and, if they do, the agency is responsive. If concerns are serious, they follow agreed procedures to liaise with the local authority, to ensure that matters are investigated thoroughly and that action is taken to ensure that children and young people are safe.

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Safeguarding children and young people

If children and young people are particularly vulnerable to harm, the agency works closely in partnership with the placing authority to ensure that safety plans to manage risks are in place. These plans are regularly reviewed and updated. The agency commissions input from child and adolescent mental health experts and specialist trainers. This means that interventions are informed by expert assessments, and the agency can quickly access a range of resources to help children and young people to stay safe. This helps carers to manage high risks safely and to stick with children and young people through crisis. If it is apparent that a placement is not able to meet the needs of children and young people, the agency works effectively with the professional network, to support those children and young people to move on to a placement that better meets their needs.

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Safeguarding children and young people

The agency undertakes robust checks and vetting procedures for all personnel, to make sure that they are suitable to work with children and young people. The agency panel provides independent, rigorous scrutiny to ensure that foster carers are able to keep children and young people safe. The agency decision maker assesses all information presented to the panel, and closely monitors panel recommendations to ensure that they are evidence based, that they focus on the needs of children and young people, and that they promote safe care.

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Leadership and management

The agency is a charitable trust. It has a clear ethos of focusing on what matters to children and young people, and vast experience of delivering high-quality foster placements. All profits are reinvested, which means that the agency has a broad range of effective resources to enhance the quality of care.

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Leadership and management

The registered manager is a qualified social worker with extensive experience and a firm track record of success in managing high-performing fostering services. She is an excellent role model, and communicates a clear, caring, child-focused ethos, which is shared throughout the agency. Foster carers and supervising social workers describe the agency as being ‘like a family’. This experience is shared by children and young people in placement, who frequently describe their foster homes as being ‘my home’.

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Leadership and management

The registered manager promotes an open, learning culture throughout, and models this behaviour in her own practice. This creates a healthy environment where staff engage with the complexity of the task that fostering families face, and seek to learn what is not known. They support improvement through learning, and provide innovative solutions with an ethos of doing ‘whatever it takes’ to help children and young people to make progress.

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Leadership and management

The agency social work assessments are of exceptional quality. They take into account the experience of the whole family, and are informed by expert input. This means that the agency delivers on relevant care plans, and its work makes a significant contribution to the care-planning process. The registered manager works collaboratively with placing authorities who hold the agency in high esteem, and she is able to provide effective challenge to the network when advocating a course of action to meet the needs of children and young people.

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Leadership and management

The responsible individual, the registered manager and the business operations manager have distinct roles and are mutually supportive. This allows the registered manager to focus on social work practice, and to give her full attention to the needs of children and young people, foster carers and supervising social workers. She has a clear oversight of the quality of care and experiences of children and young people, and uses this to make improvements to the service. This means that since the previous inspection judgement, which was also outstanding, the agency has continued to improve.

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Leadership and management

Supervising social workers consistently report that the agency encourages them to learn new skills, to keep up to date with their knowledge and to use this to inform practice. They comment that the registered manager is accessible and empowers them to be creative in their work. She undertakes annual appraisals to ensure that high standards are maintained. She challenges poor performance and promotes continuous learning and development. New staff undergo a comprehensive induction, and are given time to learn before taking on full caseloads. She undertakes regular formal supervisions, but these are not always recorded in a timely manner or within the monthly timescales, as dictated by the agency’s statement of purpose. This does not have a significant impact on practice, because supervising social workers feel that the agency listens to them and cares about them.

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Leadership and management

The registered manager uses a variety of methods to seek feedback from children and young people, and foster carers. There is a high level of participation in consultation and support groups for foster carers, and their views are used to make improvements to the service. There are a number of social events to celebrate achievements, and a wide range of activities for all children and young people, so that they can meet, make friends and have fun. The agency employs a participation officer who seeks individual feedback, and engages in direct work with children and young people to provide a safe space in which to talk.

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About this inspection

The purpose of this inspection is to inform children and young people, parents, the public, local authorities and government of the quality and standard of the service provided. The inspection was carried out under the Care Standards Act 2000 to assess the effectiveness of the service, to consider how well it complies with the relevant regulations and meets the national minimum standards, and to support services to improve.

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About this inspection

The report details the main strengths, any areas for improvement, including any breaches of regulation, and any failure to meet national minimum standards. The judgements included in the report are made against the inspection framework and the evaluation schedule for the inspection of independent fostering agencies.

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