Barnardo's - Adoption South West

Barnardo's - Adoption South West Inspection report for a voluntary adoption agency

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Unique reference number SC434885 Inspection date 21/01/2016 Inspector Paul Clark Type of inspection Full Provision subtype Domestic adoption

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Setting address Barnardos, Verona House, Filwood Road, BRISTOL, BS16 3RY

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Telephone number 01179375500 Email Jacqui.bazley@barnardos.org.uk Registered person Barnardos Registered manager Carolyn Oliver Responsible individual Brenda Farrell Date of last inspection 19/06/2012 Website: www.gov.uk/ofsted

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This document may be reproduced in whole or in part for non-commercial educational purposes, provided that the information quoted is reproduced without adaptation and the source and date of publication are stated.

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Brief description of the service

This branch of a voluntary adoption agency is based in Bristol, and recruits, prepares, assesses, approves and supports prospective adoptive families from the south west of England, for domestic adoption only. It does not undertake intercountry adoption. Birth records tracing, counselling and intermediary work is not undertaken by the south west team but in other registered offices of the Barnardo’s organisation. The Barnardo’s voluntary adoption agency has five other branches in England. It is a member of the South West Adoption Consortium. It works with local authorities to match and place children with its approved adopters and provides post adoption support to those adoptive families. The agency currently provides adoption support to 36 approved adoptive families who have 53 children living with them. 30 of these children already have an Adoption Order in place. All of these adoptive families have a post adoption support plan in place. Additionally, there are 21

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Brief description of the service

approved adoptive families, or approved single adopters awaiting an adoption placement. There are 11 potential adoptive families currently going through the assessment and approval process. There is a team manager of the adoption service. The service generally uses external assessors to carry out adopter assessments. There are three FTE social workers who may also carry out assessments. Social workers generally act as family finders, and provide pre and post Adoption Order support. There are also two FTE Project Workers who provide more direct support to adoptive families. The Barnardo’s organisation has a team of professionally qualified therapists who work with the social work team, offer consultation advice to adopters, and who may conduct direct work with adoptive families.

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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

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The inspection judgements and what they mean

safeguarded 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 overall effectiveness of this voluntary adoption agency is good because it identifies and meets the needs of those children and young people who have the most complex needs. Most notably, those children and young people from black and minority ethnic backgrounds, sibling groups, school age children, children who have additional needs arising from learning or physical disability, and children with emotional or behavioural needs.

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Overall effectiveness

Adoptive families are supported by social workers and project workers who meet regularly with them and provide services which are clearly spelt out in adoption support plans. These services include the provision of consultation or direct work with a team of professionally qualified therapists. This ensures that children receive care in adoptive families that know how to best meet their needs. The overwhelming number of adoption arrangements are stable, and in the one case since the last inspection where there has been an adoption disruption the lessons learned have been used to effectively improve practice.

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Overall effectiveness

The educational needs of adopted children and young people are effectively supported through the delivery of practice in keeping with a clearly written education policy. Specifically, social workers in the service attend personal education planning meetings with adopters and influence how pupil’s premiums can be best spent to support children and young people’s education.

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Overall effectiveness

Assessments of potential adopters are timely, rigorous and display analysis as well as description. Adopters are well prepared by a high quality preparation training programme which includes key areas such as safeguarding children and attachment and loss theory.

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Overall effectiveness

Leadership and management are good and the agency effectively reviews and improves services in consultation with adopters, young people, placing authorities and all stakeholders.

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Recommendations

To improve the quality and standards of care further the service should take account of the following recommendations:

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Recommendations

 Ensure that people who are interested in becoming adoptive parents and prospective adopters are treated fairly. Specifically, that they are informed about the independent review mechanism at an early stage of their assessment. NMS 10.  Ensure that the adoption agency has a clear statement of purpose. Specifically, that details of the services provided are clearly spelt out. NMS 18.1  Ensure that all people working in or for the agency and persons applying to be included on the central list, are interviewed as part of the selection process and have references checked to assess suitability before taking up their duties. Specifically, that telephone enquiries are made to each referee to verify the written references. NMS 21.1

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and young people

The way that this agency supports and promotes the experiences and progress of, and outcomes for, children and young people is good. This is achieved by ensuring that adopters are recruited from a variety of backgrounds irrespective of ethnicity, faith and cultures, and this ensures that children can be matched with adopters who will best meet those areas of their needs. Adopters are made aware at an early stage of their recruitment that this agency endeavours to find adoptive parents for those children who might otherwise be difficult to place. For example, older children, sibling groups, children with a disability. This ensures that they have a clear awareness of their role in supporting adopted children.

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and young people

The overwhelming majority of children live in safe, stable and secure adoptive families and develop secure attachments with the adults caring for them. One 12 year old young person who had been adopted three years ago told the inspector, “I am very happy here; my life has changed so much. I feel settled and loved.” There has only been one adoption breakdown since the time of the previous inspection. This was the subject of a review by the placing agency which identified learning points for practice that have now been put in place. Additionally, these learning points have been incorporated into the preparation training course for prospective adopters. This helps to minimize the likelihood of future adoption breakdowns.

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and young people

Children progress well emotionally. This is achieved by the provision of therapeutic support from a team of professionally qualified therapists who give support and advice to social workers and adopters; and who undertake direct work with adoptive families when necessary. Some of the social workers in the team have undertaken training in life story work and adopters confirm that this has resulted in them receiving help from social workers in undertaking life story work with their children. This helps children to have a clear awareness of their backgrounds and helps to promote their sense of personal identity. Adopters are made aware during their preparation training of the importance of supporting any contact arrangements between their adopted children and their birth families, when these arrangements have been put in place. Adopters who spoke to the inspector clearly described their understanding of the importance of this in helping children deal with issues related to

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and young people

their personal identity and their experiences of attachment and loss.

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and young people

The agency ensures that adopted children continue to receive ongoing support with their education and that adopters are aware of the resources available to them through Government initiatives such as the Adoption Passport. Social workers from the team attend children’s personal education plan reviews and the inspector saw several examples of how the social workers lobby for pupil’s premiums to be spent in a way that will best support children’s educational needs.

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Quality of service

The quality of service provided by this branch is good. This is achieved by the provision of full documentation being given to prospective adopters within the timescale given in the national minimum standards, an early home visit, and high quality preparation training conducted by skilled and experienced professionals. Adopters appreciate the comprehensiveness of the preparation training and say that it made them fully aware of both the negatives and positives of adoption. One adopter described it as, “excellent, really told us everything about adoption, good and bad. Attachment and loss theory was a real eye opener.” Other adopters said “We found it (the preparation group) an eye opening experience and certainly filled in the gaps for us.” “Brilliant, showed how much your life is going to change.” This preparation helps to ensure that adopters are fully aware of the adoption task and that they are properly trained to give children the best possible care. This includes an

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Quality of service

appreciation of the need to support their children’s ongoing contact arrangements with birth family members, as they are stipulated in court proceedings.

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Quality of service

The statement of purpose suggests that this branch conducts birth records counselling work and intermediary work, whereas this work is undertaken by another branch within the Barnardo’s organisation, and this may result in people being given misleading information.

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Quality of service

External assessors conduct adopter assessments in a timely, sympathetic and professional way. A two stage assessment process with a mid-assessment break allows potential adopters time to reflect and fully consider whether they wish to proceed. This minimizes the risk of future adoption breakdown. Assessments are detailed, contain analysis as well as description, and are not signed off and submitted to the adoption panel by the adoption team manager until they are fully complete and the adopters felt likely to be recommended for approval by the adoption panel. The majority of adopters spoken to during the inspection were unaware of the independent review mechanism that could be used should they be unsuccessful in their approval. Ensuring that potential adopters know about this mechanism is important in terms of fairness and transparency about the process.

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Quality of service

Approved adopters are given membership and confidential access to a national matching service which helps to link adopters with children needing an adoptive family. The social workers in the team help adopters to produce profiles of their households which assist placing authorities when considering the best possible adoption placements for children. Adopters also produce profiles in a child friendly format which helps children to know more about their proposed adoptive family.

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Quality of service

All pre Adoption Order families have an adoption support plan in place which clearly spells out the way that the agency will provide services to support them. These plans are also in place for those families post Adoption Order who continue to need support, even when this is some years after the Adoption Order is made. The agency claim in their statement of purpose that they provide life-long support. Evidence that this is the case is provided by the comments made by adopters. One adopter who successfully adopted a child three years previously commented “They were with us every step of the way, friendly good advice when you need it. We still get regular visits and newsletters. They are always in touch to check everything is ok.” Ongoing and high quality support is indicative of a good adoption service.

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Safeguarding children and young people

The arrangements in place to ensure that children and young people are safeguarded are good. The recruitment and vetting procedures for staff and members of the panel on the central list are largely appropriate, but the agency needs to ensure that written references are always followed up by telephone confirmation and a record is made of when this has been done.

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Safeguarding children and young people

The assessment of prospective adopters includes rigorous enquiries into their histories and backgrounds, which includes contact with former partners who have experience of their ability to safely care for children. The Adoption Panel focusses strongly on safeguarding concerns in their deliberations on approval. All social workers and panel members on the central list are trained in safeguarding, and this training is updated annually.

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Safeguarding children and young people

A key area of the preparation course for adopters is safeguarding children. This includes them developing an awareness of the risks posed by social media, the action to be taken when children go missing, and the risk of sexual exploitation. The preparation course also explains to adopters the potential impact of abuse on the behaviour of children and young people. Adopters are made aware of the need to manage contact with birth families effectively and the potential that this has to cause harm or distress to children and young people.

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Safeguarding children and young people

The agency has systems in place to ensure that all appropriate bodies, including the regulatory body, are notified should a child protection disclosure or safeguarding issue come to light. The agency reviews and updates its child protection policy annually and the managers of the service liaise with the Local Safeguarding Children Board and Local Authority Designated Officer on the promotion of safeguarding children. The Local Authority Designated Officer states that there are no recent or current safeguarding concerns about this agency.

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Leadership and management

The leadership and management of this voluntary adoption agency are good. The agency has a strong commitment to finding adoptive families for those children and young people who it may be more difficult to find adoptive families for. Its statement of purpose includes “the children most likely to need our service are those from black and minority ethnic backgrounds, sibling groups, school age children, children who have additional needs arising from learning and physical disability, and children with emotional or behavioural difficulties.” This commitment is reflected in the agency’s recruitment programme for adopters, and prospective adopters are made aware of this at an early stage following their initial expression of interest. The delivery of this ambitious service is supported by the establishment of a team of professionally qualified therapists who provide consultation to the social work team, adopters, and

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Leadership and management

who may undertake direct work with adoptive families. The work of this team and of the agency as a whole is guided by research into evidence based practice, most notably that of attachment and loss theory.

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Leadership and management

The agency provides a six monthly report to its board of trustees detailing its activity as a member of the South West Adoption Consortium and actions taken in preparation for the Government’s Regional Adoption Agencies programme. This demonstrates an awareness of the way that the agency needs to adapt its services to meet the changing needs of those children who require adoptive families. The review includes consultation with placing agencies, adopters, adopted children and young people about its content and this helps to promote continuous improvement within the agency.

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Leadership and management

As previously stated in this report, although there has only been one adoption disruption since the previous inspection the agency has used the lessons learned to improve practice and these lessons have been included in the preparation course for prospective adopters.

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Leadership and management

The manager, social workers and staff of the adoption team are appropriately qualified and are members of the appropriate professional body. Induction training is comprehensive and covers all key areas of their role; and in these areas training is regularly updated. All management and staff undertake an annual performance appraisal which identifies their training and development needs. Staff told the inspector that they have good access to the training they need. They say that supervision is monthly and is of good quality and that there are monthly team meetings, and meetings with the therapy team. Good training and supervision helps to support adopters and provide children and young people with the best quality care.

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Leadership and management

The agency has implemented the recommendations of the previous inspection and it now has a clearly written and comprehensive education policy in place which directs social workers to effectively support adopted children’s education. Adopters are now told that they must inform the agency following any death of a child they have adopted.

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About this inspection

The purpose of this inspection is to assure 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 voluntary adoption agencies.

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