Children's home in Cherwell

Outstanding

The children's home provides highly effective services. The actions of the home contribute to significantly improved outcomes for children and young people who need help, protection and care.

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The children's home provision is outstanding because:

 Children and young people make excellent progress in their education, behaviour and social development.  The school provides a holistic approach through the provision of a variety of therapeutic support, including occupational therapy, and speech and language therapy.  Close attention to children and young people’s physical health needs and effective liaison with health professionals ensures that children and young people lead healthier lives.  Children are supported to reduce significantly the negative ways they previously dealt with feelings of stress, anxiety or frustration.  Children and young people make exceptional progress in their social skills. They are able to communicate their thoughts and feelings more often.  Children’s and young people’s views are central to the service.  Staff promote all children’s and young people’s interests and hobbies to an extremely high standard.  The service uses a comprehensive independence plan to support children

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The children's home provision is outstanding because:

and young people to develop skills in preparation for adult life.  The registered manager demonstrates an extensive knowledge and understanding of working with children and young people.  The registered manager leads a committed staff team that prioritises the best interests of the child or young person.  Leaders and managers value partnership working and, as a result, they have excellent relationships with other organisations and agencies.  Staff are of an exceptional calibre and are extremely motivated. They are extremely committed to providing outstanding care to support children and young people to reach their potential.

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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 ‘Guide to the Children's Homes Regulations including the quality standards’. The registered person(s) must comply within the given timescales.

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Recommendations

To improve the quality and standards of care further, the service should take account of the following recommendation(s):

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Recommendations

 The registered person should ensure that staff help each child or young person to prepare for any moves from the home, whether they are returning home, moving to another placement or adult care, or to live independently. The is with specific reference to ensuring that all work carried out with children or young people to develop their skills is underpinned by a written plan (‘Guide to the Children's Homes Regulations including the quality standards’, April 2015, page 17 paragraph 3.27)  The registered persons should demonstrate how staff continually and actively assess the risks to each child or young person and the arrangements in place to protect them, to ensure that they remain effective. This is with specific regard to ensuring that risk assessments identify specific triggers and detail preventative strategies, also to ensure that the site’s fire risk assessment includes the risks posed by young people's activities (‘Guide to

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Recommendations

the Children's Homes Regulations including the quality standards’, April 2015, page 42, paragraph 9.5)  The registered person should review the appropriateness and suitability of the location. This is with specific reference to updating the assessment of the the location and environment and the risks these may pose to children and young people (‘Guide to the Children's Homes Regulations including the quality standards’, page 64, paragraph 15.1)  The registered person must ensure that recruitment procedures safeguard children and young people and minimises potential risks to them (‘Guide to the Children's Homes Regulations including the quality standards’, April 2015, page 62, paragraph 13.1).

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Information about this children's home

The setting is a residential special school that accommodates young people for up to 52 weeks per year. All of the accommodation is registered as a children's home. The home provides education and residential care for up to 45 children and young people, aged from 11 to 19 years old, across seven homes. Young people access the organisation's special school or go to mainstream college. Young people on the autistic spectrum (mainly with Asperger's syndrome) are admitted as weekly, term- time or 52-week placements. Currently, it is exclusively boys who live in the home. The provider is a registered charity.

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Recent inspection history

Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

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Recent inspection history

23/09/2015 CH – Interim Declined in effectiveness

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Outstanding

Staff provide a caring and stimulating atmosphere in which the children and young people thrive. Children and young people are able to develop strong and trusting relationships with the staff, who know them extremely well. They feel valued and benefit from a warm but also fun atmosphere, where all share in laughter and banter.

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Outstanding

Children and young people make excellent progress in their education, behaviour and social development. The school provides a holistic approach through the provision of a variety of therapeutic support, including occupational therapy, and speech and language therapy. This ensures that children and young people have direct access to the specialist support they may need. This has enabled them to make significant progress in all areas. Residential and education staff work closely together to ensure that children and young people experience a consistent approach. They share information on a daily basis and review strategies to ensure that they remain successful. This effective support from staff means that all children and young people have good attendance and are making progress educationally, and many have achieved excellent outcomes.

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Outstanding

Close attention to children’s and young people’s physical health needs and effective liaison with health professionals ensures that children and young people lead healthier lives. They are developing an understanding of healthy eating and a healthy lifestyle. Staff promote physical exercise through enjoyable, fun activities, and children and young people benefit from healthy and nutritious meals. As a result, some children and young people have lost significant amounts of weight, having an extremely positive impact on their well-being. Staff provide support and education to children and young people based on their needs. Due to the quality of such interventions, children and young people have a greater awareness of the risks associated with certain behaviours, for example sexual health issues and self- harm. This has enabled them to reduce significantly the negative ways they previously dealt with feelings of stress, anxiety or frustration.

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Outstanding

Children and young people make exceptional progress in their social skills. They are able to communicate their thoughts and feelings more often. They feel more confident in confiding in staff and are able develop relationships with their peers. As a result, their self-esteem improves and has a positive impact on their well- being. Children’s and young people’s views are central to the service. They are able to share their opinions through the school council and key-work sessions. Staff take their views seriously and use them to improve the children’s and young people’s individual experiences, as well as the service as a whole.

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Outstanding

Staff promote all children’s and young people’s interests and hobbies to an extremely high standard. They provide an extensive range of activities for children and young people to complete, together enabling them to develop their confidence and social networks. Where a child or young person has an interest outside of the activities on offer, staff ‘go above and beyond’ to ensure that they are able to access these. This includes attending army cadets, rugby, sailing and football club. These activities enable children and young people to feel part of a wider community. Staff are extremely committed to supporting children and young people to reach their potential in all areas. For example, staff support a young person who is extremely skilled in cycling to travel to training in London on a weekly basis. This has enabled this young person to receive coaching from a national coach in order to increase his chances of representing Great Britain in the

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Outstanding

Staff liaise effectively with parents and ensure, where appropriate, that children and young people have support to stay in regular contact with their families. This supports children and young people to continue to have a sense of belonging within their families and to benefit from their support. The service has an excellent online facility which allows parents and young people to see what is happening in the school and keep up to date with events, and has improved communication between parents and staff.

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Outstanding

The service uses a comprehensive independence plan to support children and young people to develop skills in preparation for adult life. The child or young person’s key-worker monitors the plan to track progress and to identify where specific intervention is needed. As a result, children and young people have learned new skills such as riding a bicycle, as well as developing their ability to carry out chores independently.

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Outstanding

To assess children’s and young people’s needs, staff liaise with placing authorities and other professionals to obtain as much information as possible. Staff use this information effectively to ensure that they are able to meet the child’s or young person’s needs and support a successful transition into the home. Staff are proactive in challenging placing authorities to develop long-term plans for children or young people who are due to move on. Staff have ‘gone above and beyond’ in supporting a young person who recently left the school. Residential staff continued to provide guidance and support to this young person, providing consistency in a time of high anxiety, helping them to feel valued and boosting their confidence. However, children’s and young people’s plans for transition from the service are not clear and do not evidence what support the service is providing. This could lead to poorly planned or unsuccessful transitions to the child or young person’s

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Good

Staff and managers are alert to any potential risks and actively engage with the children and young people to let them know if they have any worries or concerns. Staff use their excellent knowledge and understanding of the child or young person, combined with their high levels of safeguarding knowledge and training, to protect them from risk of abuse. Staff and managers work closely with the local authority designated officer to ensure that all safeguarding incidents are reported appropriately and investigated thoroughly. Risk assessments highlight the risks associated with each child or young person and provide basic information on what staff should do if incidents occur. However, they do not reflect the staff’s excellent understanding of the child or young people. This is because they do not advise of the triggers to behaviours or provide information on preventative strategies. This means that risk assessments do not inform new staff or other professionals of how

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Good

to minimise risks or of the actions they should take to protect children and young people.

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Good

Staff respond proactively to all ‘missing’ incidents and try to establish the child’s or young person’s whereabouts. Staff follow the home’s procedures and ensure that they advise appropriate professionals and report to the police, when necessary. Children and young people are offered ‘return’ interviews to establish the reasons why they went missing in the first place. Where local authorities do not attend to complete the interview, the service is looking into employing an independent person to fulfil this function to ensure that children and young people receive the independent support they are entitled to. Staff have amended risk assessments to include details of what to do if the child or young person goes missing. They have also individualised protocols for those who regularly go missing. However, risk assessments do not detail the preventative strategies to support children and young people to reduce missing behaviour.

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Good

Children and young people are able to access the internet safely through the provision of software, support and supervision. The home has revised its E-safety policy to ensure that staff are informed of what to look for and what to do if there is a concern. Managers monitor and review all incidents to understand what they can learn to improve and develop practice.

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Good

Positive behaviour plans are ‘tick box’, and lack detail on children’s and young people’s triggers to support staff in identifying that a child’s or young person’s anxiety may be increasing. They also do not detail preventative strategies. However, this has not affected practice, as there has been a low number of incidents requiring physical intervention since the previous inspection. This demonstrates staff’s ability to de-escalate situations successfully and support children and young people to express their feelings more constructively. The service provides a debrief to children and young people and staff members after every incident. Records of these are evidence that staff provide strong, consistent boundaries, and encourage children and young people to reflect on their behaviour. Staff recordings of incidents of physical interventions are as per regulation and now evidence that children and young people are consulted after

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Good

Managers have gone to great lengths to consult other agencies and professionals to inform their location review. However, this mainly focuses on crime rates and does not consider the risk presented by its location. For example, it does not consider the wooded areas around the school or the lakes in the grounds. It therefore does not inform staff how these risks can be minimised. Managers ensure that all health and safety checks are carried out on a regular basis. However, the site’s fire risk assessment does not include the risk of fire due to children’s or young people’s activities, or what actions are needed to reduce these risks.

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Good

Recruitment procedures do not evidence the action that managers have taken to verify the reasons that prospective employees left their previous employment with children or vulnerable adults. This needs addressing to ensure that their procedures are robust and that only safe adults are employed to work with children and young people. Judgement grade

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Good

The registered manager has been in post since July 2014, and holds the necessary care and management qualifications. He has embedded a culture where children and young people come first. He demonstrates an extensive knowledge and understanding of working with children and young people, and leads a committed staff team that prioritises the best interests of the child or young person. Consequently, they all make exceptional progress from their starting points.

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Good

Leaders and managers value partnership working and, as a result, they have excellent relationships with other organisations and agencies. They work proactively with other professionals to ensure that children and young people receive care of an outstanding quality. The service has strong links with the local authority designated officer, whom managers often consult to improve safeguarding practice. The school has developed links with similar establishments in the area in order to share creative and innovative practice to improve the quality of care on offer. Managers effectively advocate and challenge on behalf of children and young people to ensure that other professionals carry out their responsibilities and support children and young people to progress and reach their potential.

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Good

There are sophisticated systems in place for managers to monitor children and young people’s progress and to identify where additional support is needed. Children’s and young people’s views are pivotal to the service and used to improve the quality of care. Managers have a good oversight of the service. They carry out regular audits and professionals meetings to analyse and evaluate practice so that they can identify areas for improvement. This is supported by recommendations to improve practice by the independent visitor. However, monitoring systems need to be improved further, to ensure that areas such as those identified for improvement within this report are recognised and addressed swiftly.

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Good

Staff feel supported by managers and receive regular team meetings and supervision, enabling them to reflect on and improve their practice. Staff access mandatory training and training specific to the needs of the children and young people. This increases their awareness and insight into the child or young person in order to support them more effectively. Staff are of an exceptional calibre and are extremely motivated. They are extremely committed to providing outstanding care to support children and young people to reach their potential. All requirements and recommendations from the previous inspection have been addressed. However, four recommendations to improve practice have been made as a result of this inspection.

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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’. 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

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What the inspection judgements mean

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 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 ‘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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