Children's Home run by Keys Stepping Stones Limited in Tameside

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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because:

 Communication systems within the home are ineffective because they do not always identify children and young people’s appointments. Consequently, some children and young people have missed appointments with the youth offending team and routine dental appointments.  Not all children and young people have been routinely offered an independent return home interview following missing-from-home episodes. Therefore, important information is not collated and used to inform further care planning or to reduce risks.  On one occasion, a method of physical intervention for one young person was used inappropriately.  The manager has not evaluated three of the eight sanctions to ensure that this practice is fair and appropriate.  The manager has not fully considered one disclosure that a young person has made before the young person was permitted to return back into that environment.  There is no workforce development plan to identify how new staff will be

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because:

inducted into the home or what their induction programme and schedule of mandatory training will look like. Furthermore, there are no details of how leaders and managers manage and improve poor staff performance.  New staff are not appropriately supported or inducted into the home. New staff do not receive supervision as highlighted within the home’s statement of purpose, and one new member of staff has commenced work without undertaking any mandatory training.  The majority of the workforce do not hold the qualifications required to undertake their role, nor do they routinely access appropriate training to ensure that they can meet the diverse needs of all the children and young people within the home promptly.  The external monitoring of the home does not systematically provide a rigorous and impartial assessment of the home's arrangements for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of the children and young people in

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The children's home strengths

 Children and young people report that they are happy in the home and that they feel safe and protected by the actions taken by the staff.  Effective selection and matching processes support children’s and young people’s positive, successful and planned transitions into the home.  Children and young people have been supported to re-engage with an education provision suitable for their needs. They achieve high attendance rates and are making some progress from their individual starting points.  Children and young people are supported and enabled to enjoy a wide range of social activities and have been given the opportunity to engage in activities that they have not previously experienced.  Safe recruitment practice is maintained to ensure that only those individuals who are safe to do so work alongside vulnerable children and young people.  The responsible individual has verbalised a commitment to continuing to

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The children's home strengths

develop a sustainable, consistent and trained staff team. Assurances have been given by the responsible individual that plans are in place to develop an effective workforce development plan for the service.

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Statutory requirements

This section sets out the actions which must be taken so that the registered person 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 must comply with the given timescales.

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must ensure that any individual who works in the home in a care role has the appropriate qualification: the Level 3 Diploma for Residential Childcare (England) by the relevant date. In the case of an individual who starts working in the care role in the home on 1st April 2014, the date which falls 2 years after the date on which the individual started working in the care role in a home; or in the case of an individual who was working in a care role in a home on 1st April 2014, 1st April 2016 (Regulation 32(4)(a)(5)(a)(b)). 27/05/2016

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Requirement Due date

In order to achieve the protection of children standard the registered person must ensure that children are protected from harm.

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Requirement Due date

In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to ensure-

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Requirement Due date

(vi) take effective action whenever there is a serious concern about a child's welfare; and

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Requirement Due date

(vii) are familiar with, and act in accordance with, the home's child protection policies.

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Requirement Due date

With particular reference to ensuring that any disclosures made by a child are investigated fully before any young person returns back to the environment which they have raised their concerns about. 27/05/2016

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Requirement Due date

13: The leadership and management standard

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Requirement Due date

In order to achieve the leadership and management standard the 27/05/2016 registered person must -

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Requirement Due date

(2)(c) ensure that all staff have the experience, qualifications and skills to meet the needs of each child, including those staff who are employed as bank staff.

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Requirement Due date

With particular regards to ensuring that staff are suitably trained to support children and young people; who may be at risk of child sexual exploitation whilst missing from home; have an understanding of, and can support children and young people who may use self-harming behaviours; and ensure that all staff receive training, and refresher training in first aid and team teach, prior to providing care and support for young people.

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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

 The registered person must ensure that they advocate for and challenge the local authority when safe and well checks and return interviews are not carried out by the responsible organisations (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the Quality Standards’, page 45, paragraph 9.30).

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Recommendations

 The registered person must seek to develop the home's effective working relationships with each child's placing authority and with other relevant person's, such as schools and youth offending teams, to ensure all children's needs are met. With particular reference to ensuring that all significant information is shared with all the agencies which are working with and supporting a young person promptly and having internal systems in place to ensure that staff are aware of and facilitate all appointments which are made for young people (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 52, paragraph 10.3).

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Recommendations

 The registered person must have a workforce plan which can fulfil the workforce related requirements of regulation 16, schedule 1. The plan should: detail the processes and agreed timescales for staff to achieve induction, probation and any core training (such as safeguarding and health and safety and mandatory qualification); and details of the process for managing and improving poor performance (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 53, paragraph 10.8).

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Recommendations

 The registered person is responsible for ensuring that good employment practice in maintained. They must ensure that supervision of newly appointed staff is undertaken regularly, and in line with the commitment identified within the home’s statement of purpose, to ensure that any potential risks are minimised and that children are safeguarded (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 61, paragraph 13.1).

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Recommendations

 The registered person must ensure that all staff understand each child's behaviour management strategy, and only apply the identified and agreed physical intervention as outlined within their care plan as a last resort when preventing injury or harm (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 46, paragraph 9.36).

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Recommendations

 The registered person must ensure that all incidents of discipline are subject to systems of regular scrutiny to ensure that their use is fair and appropriate (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 46, paragraph 9.36).

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Recommendations

 The registered person must ensure that any individual appointed to carry out visits to the home as an independent person makes a rigorous and impartial assessment of the home's arrangements for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of the children in the home (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 65, paragraph 15.5).

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Information about this children's home

This is a private children's home that is part of a large national organisation. It provides care and accommodation for up to four young people with emotional and/or behavioural difficulties. This provider enlists the support of a clinical psychologist within their care planning.

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Recent inspection history

Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

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Recent inspection history

24 November 2015 CH - Interim Declined in effectiveness

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Recent inspection history

20 January 2015 CH - Interim Sustained effectiveness

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Requires improvement

Children and young people experience variable outcomes. Some children and young people have settled in well and are beginning to form positive relationships with some staff. As a result of these relationships and the care and support of staff, these children and young people make good educational progress against their own individual targets. This has been made possible because the manager has secured a suitable education provision for one young person, and they have now returned to full-time education. For other children and young people, their experiences and progress has been hampered by their significant behavioural challenges. Despite the best efforts of the manager and staff to support these children and young people to work through these difficulties, one young person has been unable to maintain a consistent and suitable attendance record. Thus, some children’s and young people’s later life chances are compromised as they are

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Requires improvement

unable to obtain the skills, experience and knowledge that they require to join the world of work successfully. Children’s and young people’s health needs are adequately promoted. Medical information is available, complete and up to date. Positive working relationships with the looked after children’s nurse, and the in-house and specialist child and adolescent mental health teams ensure that children’s and young people’s emotional health needs are met and that they receive the care and support as agreed in their individual health plans. However, not all staff are fully trained to deliver first aid, and young people do not always attend all their diarised health appointments, such as routine dental appointments, because this information is not systematically shared with staff during handovers or in the home’s diary. Children’s and young people’s experiences and progress have been enhanced, as staff actively encourage and support them to engage in positive activities in the

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Requires improvement

local community. Children and young people benefit from regular activities, which they report that they enjoy, such as swimming, horse riding, playing rugby and football, and going to drama and dance groups. These activities alongside day trips to Blackpool, Liverpool, theme parks and activity-based centres, ensure that children and young people develop positive relationships with their local community and expand upon their previous experiences. This, in turn, enables and supports them to build positive memories of their childhood experiences. Children and young people can identify with at least one adult, and confirm that they feel listened to by the staff team and outside agencies when the need arises. Children and young people are actively encouraged to develop and review their care plans and are involved in the decisions that affect the day-to-day running of the home. Staff seek children’s and young people’s wishes and views through one-

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Requires improvement

to-one informal discussion, individual key work sessions and weekly meetings, as well as a number of informal consultation feedback systems. Thus, children and young people are becoming more empowered as they are involved in their care planning, which in turn improves their confidence and self-esteem and ensures that they feel valued and respected as young individuals. Children and young people benefit from planned, smooth and successful transitions into the home. Careful consideration from leaders and managers, sufficient assessments and transition planning ensure that children and young people feel informed and prepared for their move. They are supported to gain some insight into the management of the home, the staff and the other children and young people living there before they move in. This is achieved as managers and staff visit the children and young people in their present placements. Staff share

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Requires improvement

pertinent information with them prior to their move so that they know what to expect and who will support them. Children and young people benefit from introductory visits to the home and have enjoyed joining activities with other children and young people in the home. This ensures that positive relationships can be nurtured at the point of admission. One child said, ‘I came for my tea before I moved in and I liked it. I was happy to move in because I knew who everybody was.’ Staff value and promote well contact for children and young people with their parents and significant others. Staff are acutely aware of the impact that some contact arrangements have on children’s and young people’s emotional well-being and support them sensitively during these times. Furthermore, staff are particularly adept at forming positive relationships with families and significant others, which have enabled them to work constructively with them to ensure that the best

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Requires improvement

interest of the child or young person is maintained at all times. Social workers have commented that staff have been committed to supporting and facilitating contact for children and young people with their home towns so that children and young people can maintain their sense of identify and belonging. One social worker noted that this dedication and the support provided to support positive family contact, and to forge and build positive family relationships, are real strengths of the home. Children and young people develop some basic self-care and life skills in line with their age and abilities. They are encouraged and supported to keep their bedrooms tidy and to help on occasions with household chores. This, alongside building their knowledge and skills in preparing and making simple snacks, assists them with becoming independent and self-sufficient young people. The home is a large detached property, which is situated in an area convenient for

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Requires improvement

public transport and local amenities. This means that children and young people can access a broad range of services to meet their individual needs and engage regularly in their chosen activities. Judgement grade

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Requires improvement

Most staff have received sufficient safeguarding training and implement the home’s adequate safeguarding policies and procedures effectively. However, the leadership and management team is not always robust in its application of the safeguarding policies, because it does not always ensure that external safeguarding procedures have been fully exhausted and conclusions drawn before making decisions regarding children’s and young people’s care plans. For example, information shared by one young person was not fully explored or fully considered by the management team, nor had conclusions been drawn from the placing authority social worker’s investigations, prior to one young person being presented back into the environment about which they had raised concerns. As a result, one young person’s safety and welfare was compromised. Incidents of missing from care are responded to adequately. Staff are familiar with

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Requires improvement

children’s and young people’s risk management plans and protocols that are in place and implement these routinely. When children and young people go missing from home, staff make suitable attempts to contact and locate them. While staff ensure that police and the social workers are kept informed of these incidents, other agencies, such as youth offending teams, do not routinely get this information. One professional commented that this impeded their care planning and delivery of work for that young person. In addition, while the systems have improved to ensure and allow children and young people the opportunity to undertake an independent return home interview, following any episodes of missing, these are yet to be routinely offered to all children and young people after every reported incident. In this way, pertinent information is lost and cannot be used to inform future care practice and thus reduce further incidents occurring.

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Requires improvement

Furthermore, not all staff have received suitable training so that they are equipped to support children and young people with increasing and developing their knowledge base around the potential dangers associated with this particular behaviour. Children and young people are encouraged and supported to make good and safe decisions. The children and young people spoken with during the inspection were clear about the rules and the expectations placed upon them, and confirmed that they felt that the sanctions and consequences that are in place for non-compliance with these expectations were fair. The manager, however, has not evaluated three of the eight sanctions to confirm children’s and young people’s thoughts and to monitor and evaluate staff practice. Some children and young people report that staff need to support them physically when they are unable to regulate their own emotional responses. They confirmed

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Requires improvement

that at these times staff make them feel safe and secure, while giving them the opportunity to discuss their thoughts and feelings later in order to establish what, if anything, can be done to support them differently in the future. Children and young people are cared for by staff who are, in the main, trained to manage and implement adequate behaviour management strategies which are clearly recorded within children’s and young people’s plans. However, on one occasion, a physical intervention was implemented inappropriately and outside of the agreed behaviour management plan. Furthermore, the manager has not received the required refresher training to implement physical interventions and has not ensured that all new staff receive this prior to being left in sole care of children and young people when this may be necessary. Children and young people live in a large, safe, comfortable home. Staff respect

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Requires improvement

children’s and young people’s privacy, and the size of the home allows them to enjoy their privacy and time alone, while also having the option of enjoying spending time and playing games together. A range of health and safety checks and safe recruitment practice ensure that children, young people and staff’s safety and welfare is promoted.

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Requires improvement

The registered manager has been in post since August 2013. He continues to undertake the required level 5 qualification and is expecting to complete this prior to the deadline on the 1 April 2017. Since the interim inspection, when a declined in effectiveness judgement was reached, the management and leadership model for the home has been changed. While the manager is now supported by one support manager and three senior staff members, limited evidence was provided to confirm what impact these arrangements have had on making large scale changes to the management and leadership arrangements in the home. The manager has suitably addressed the one requirement and three of the six recommendations following the last inspection. The recommendations to improve the protection of children and young people, ensuring that children and young people receive independent return home interviews and ensuring that all staff are

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Requires improvement

provided with suitable and sufficient staff training to support individual children’s and young people’s needs have been re-issued. Staff are committed and motivated to deliver a good standard of care for all children and young people and feel well supported by their manager. However, the majority of the staff team do not hold the required qualification to support this. Furthermore, there is no workforce development plan to identify how new staff will be inducted into the home and what their induction programme and schedule of mandatory training will look like. Thus, new staff are not appropriately supported or inducted into the home and have commenced work without undertaking any mandatory training. In addition, new staff do not routinely receive supervision to support and monitor their practice, as highlighted in the home’s statement of purpose. The manager is committed and dedicated to providing children and young people

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Requires improvement

with improved experiences. He has a good understanding of the progress that children and young people make and is driven to supporting his staff in working with other agencies to ensure that these improvements can be sustained and improved upon. Some agencies were positive about how the manager and staff support children and young people to improve their experiences and progress. One social worker stated, ‘(Name) is building good relationships with staff and has settled really well. She engages well in a lot of community activities now and is engaging in therapy. The staff support (Name) well with her education and she is making some good progress with this.’ Other placing authorities, however, have not been so happy with the progress that some young people have made. For example, one placing authority noted that their young person had not made any significant progress with improving their social and emotional well-being, because

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Requires improvement

the therapeutic input that they had received had little or no effect on changing their attitudes and behaviours. The manager ensures that all the relevant safeguarding agencies and Ofsted are informed following any significant incident, for example when children and young people place themselves at risk by engaging in self–harming behaviours or by running away. As a result, statutory agencies can discharge their safeguarding duties promptly, while ensuring that children and young people can access any additional support and services quickly and effectively. Furthermore, the manager is appropriately assertive with partner agencies and ensures that children and young people receive the services that they require. He is proactive in requesting services, meetings and reviews when he considers that the home cannot continue to meet children’s and young people’s needs safely. This care practice serves to promote children’s and young people’s safety and welfare.

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Requires improvement

The manager deals with complaints against the home promptly and adequately. When children and young people or those within the local community have raised any areas of concerns, the manager has investigated these complaints promptly and ensured that a suitable solution is identified quickly. The manager consults regularly with the local authority designated officer (LADO) when any allegations against staff are made. The lack of a workforce development plan hinders the manager’s practice in supporting and managing staff when practice issues arise, as this process is presently unclear. The monitoring systems which are used to review the effectiveness of the home are adequate. While internal and external processes are in place to evaluate the home's arrangements for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of the children and young people in the home, these systems are not rigorous. Visits by an independent visitor are undertaken each month. However, these visits have failed

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Requires improvement

to identify shortfalls such as: lack of staff training and qualifications, inadequate supervision for new staff, insufficiently robust action taken to ensure that independent return home interviews are carried out, and insufficient challenging of leaders and managers when internal safeguarding procedures are not followed. This lack of rigour has been acknowledged by the responsible individual who made assurances to address this.

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What the inspection judgements mean

The experiences and progress of children and young people are at the centre of the inspection. Inspectors will use their professional judgement to determine the weight and significance of their findings in this respect. The judgements included in the report are made against ‘Inspection of children's homes: framework for inspection’.

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What the inspection judgements mean

An outstanding children's home provides highly effective services that contribute to significantly improved outcomes for children and young people who need help and protection and care. Their progress exceeds expectations and is sustained over time. A good children's home provides effective services that help, protect and care for children and young people and have their welfare safeguarded and promoted. In a children's home that requires improvement , there are no widespread or serious failures that create or leave children being harmed or at risk of harm. The welfare of looked after children is safeguarded and promoted. Minimum requirements are in place, however, the children's home is not yet delivering good protection, help and care for children and young people. A children's home that is inadequate is providing services where there are widespread or serious failures that create or leave children and young people being

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What the inspection judgements mean

harmed or at risk of harm or result in children looked after not having their welfare safeguarded and promoted.

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Information about this inspection

Inspectors have looked closely at the experiences and progress of children and young people living in the children's home. Inspectors considered the quality of work and the difference adults make to the lives of children and young people. They read case files, watched how professional staff work with children, young people and each other and discussed the effectiveness of help and care given to children and young people. Wherever possible, they talked to children, young people and their families. In addition the inspectors have tried to understand what the children's home knows about how well it is performing, how well it is doing and what difference it is making for the children and young people who it is trying to help, protect and look after. This inspection was carried out under the Care Standards Act 2000 to assess the effectiveness of the service and to consider how well it complies with the Children's

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Information about this inspection

Homes (England) Regulations 2015 and the Guide to the children's homes regulations including the quality standards. the guidance raising concerns and making complaints about Ofsted, which is available from Ofsted's website: www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ofsted . If you would like Ofsted to send you a copy of the guidance, please telephone 0300123 4234, or email enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk .

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Information about this inspection

achieve excellence in the care of children and young people, and in education and skills for learners of all ages. It regulates and inspects childcare and children's social care, and inspects the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass), schools, colleges, initial teacher training, workbased learning and skills training, adult and community learning, and education and training in prisons and other secure establishments. It inspects services for looked after children and child protection. If you would like a copy of this document in a different format, such as large print or Braille, please telephone 0300 123 4234, or email enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk . You may reuse this information (not including logos) free of charge in any format or medium, under the terms of the Open Government Licence. To view this licence, visit www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence , write to the Information Policy Team,

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Information about this inspection

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Information about this inspection

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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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