Children's Home run by Kattz (AH) Ltd in Enfield

Inadequate

There are serious and widespread failures that mean that children and young people are not protected and their welfare is not promoted or safeguarded.

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The children's home provision is inadequate because:

 The home is not meeting the aims and objectives of its statement of purpose.  The leaders and managers do not demonstrate that the service is safe.  There are widespread failures in the leadership and management, notably in the processes and practices that underpin the protection and safeguarding of young people’s welfare.  The leaders and managers do not run a service that is in line with good practice and legislative requirements. There are (many) regulatory breaches; some of them have been raised before.  Some basic practices that safeguard young people are not embedded. These include the staff recruitment procedure. It is not effective and puts young people at risk.  The staff team is weak and lacks stability, experience and qualifications. The manager and staff team have not had necessary training to look after the young people in their care.  Behaviour management is poor. The use of physical interventions is of

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The children's home provision is inadequate because:

particular concern.  The systems for keeping and accessing the home’s records are inefficient and unreliable. This undermines any internal or external monitoring. It diminishes accountability and affects confidence in the information presented.

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The children's home strengths

 The leaders, managers and staff are determined to improve outcomes for young people.  The social workers report having good working relationships with the home. They consider the communication and working together to be good.  The physical environment is maintained to a good standard.  The home has a detailed locality risk assessment.

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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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13 The leadership and management standard

(1) In order to meet the leadership and management standard, the registered person must review and improve the behaviour management practice in the home. This is in particular reference that the registered person enables, inspires and leads a culture in relation to the children’s home that— (b) promotes children’s welfare. 01/06/2016

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13 The leadership and management standard

(2) In order to meet the leadership and management standard, the registered person must review the statement of purpose and make sure that the actual service is consistent with it. This is in particular reference that the registered person (a) leads and manages the home in a way that is consistent with the approach and ethos, and delivers the outcomes set out in the home’s statement of purpose. 01/06/2016

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13 The leadership and management standard

(2) In order to meet the leadership and management standard, the registered person must (c) ensure that staff have the experience, qualifications and skills to meet the needs of each child. 01/06/2016

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13 The leadership and management standard

(2) In order to meet the leadership and management standard, the registered person must establish efficient systems for record- keeping that effectively support monitoring and review processes. This is in particular reference that the registered persons (h) use monitoring and review systems to make continuous improvements in the quality of care provided in the home. 01/06/2016

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20 Restraint and deprivation of liberty

The registered person must be able to evidence that physical intervention practice is safe; in particular reference that any restraint that takes place in relation to a child is necessary and proportionate (Regulation 20(2)). 01/06/2016

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32 Fitness of workers

The registered person must recruit staff using recruitment procedures that are designed to ensure children's safety. (2) The registered person may only— (a) employ an individual to work at the children's home if the individual satisfies the requirements in paragraph (3). (3) The requirements are that— (d) full and satisfactory information is available in relation to the individual in respect of each of the matters in Schedule 2 (Regulation 32(1)(2)(3)(d)). 01/06/2016

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33 Employment of staff

The registered person must— (a) ensure that each employee completes an appropriate induction (Regulation 33(1)(a)). 01/06/2016

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34 Policies for the protection of children

The registered person must ensure that the records relating to any allegations are kept efficiently and can be easily assessed by the people with the legitimate need to know; In particular— (d) provide for records to be kept of an allegation of abuse or neglect, and the action taken in response (Regulation 34(2)(d)). 01/06/2016

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35 Behaviour management policies and records

The registered person must ensure that— (a) within 24 hours of the use of a measure of control, discipline or restraint in relation to a child in the home, a record is made which includes— (i) the name of the child; (ii) details of the child's behaviour leading to the use of the measure; (iii) the date, time and location of the use of the measure; (iv) a description of the measure and its duration; (v) details of any methods used or steps taken to avoid the need to use the measure; (vi) the name of the person who used the measure (‘the user’), 01/06/2016 and of any other person present when the measure was used; (vii) the effectiveness and any consequences of the use of the measure; and (viii) a description of any injury to the child or any other person, and any medical treatment administered, as a result of the measure; (b) within 48 hours of the use of the measure, the registered person, or a person who is authorised by the registered person to

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35 Behaviour management policies and records

do so (‘the authorised person’)— (i) has spoken to the user about the measure; and (ii) has signed the record to confirm it is accurate; (c) within 5 days of the use of the measure, the registered person or the authorised person adds to the record confirmation that they have spoken to the child about the measure (Regulation 35(3)).

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37 Other records

The registered person must— (a) maintain in the home the records in Schedule 4.

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37 Other records

Schedule 4.1 Register of children 1. A record in the form of a register showing in respect of each child— (a) the date of the child’s admission to the children’s home; (b) the date on which the child ceased to be accommodated in the home; (c) the child’s address immediately before being accommodated in the home; (d) the child’s address on leaving the home; (e) the child’s placing authority; and (f) the statutory provision (if any) under which the child is accommodated (Regulation 37(2) Schedule 4.1). 01/06/2016

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38 Storage of records

The registered person must ensure that the following items, which may be kept in electronic form, are kept in an accessible manner— (h) records of the use of measures of control, discipline or restraint (see regulation 35) (l) records of complaints (see regulation 39) (Regulation 38 (h)(i)). 01/06/2016

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40 Notification of a serious event

The registered person must notify HMCI and each other relevant 01/06/2016 person without delay if— (b) an incident requiring police involvement occurs in relation to a child which the registered person considers to be serious (Regulation 40(4)(b)).

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48 Notice of absence

If the person who is in day-to-day charge of the children’s home proposes to be absent from the home for a continuous period of 28 days or more, the registered person must give notice in writing to HMCI of the proposed absence and (b) specify with respect to the proposed absence— (i) its length or expected length; (ii) the reason for it; (iii) the arrangements which have been made for running the home during the absence; (iv) the address, name and qualifications of the person who will be responsible for the home during the absence; and (v) in the case of the absence of the registered manager, the arrangements that have been, or are proposed to be, made for appointing another person to manage the home during the absence, including the proposed date by which the appointment is to be made (Regulation 48). 01/06/2016

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Recommendations

To improve the quality and standards of care further, the service should take account of the following recommendations:  Improve the fire safety in the home by reviewing the current arrangements with the aim of making sure that the safest possible arrangements are in place. This in particular relates to the means of escape from the first floor and the location of the fire extinguishers (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 15, paragraph 3.9)  Review the procedure for keeping medication records and make sure that an efficient procedure is consistently implemented (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 34, paragraph 7.15)

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Recommendations

 Include arrangements for countering risks of self-harm and suicide in the home’s written policy for the protection and safeguarding of children (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 44, paragraph 9.19)  Make the records of staff duty roster clearer by specifying when the manager is on duty and who is on a night (sleeping-in) shift (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 62, paragraph 7.15)

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Information about this children's home

The home is registered to provide care and accommodation for no more than four young people who have learning disabilities. The home is privately owned.

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Recent inspection history

Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

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Recent inspection history

23 October 2015 Interim Sustained effectiveness

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Inadequate

Young people receive a service that is not in line with the home’s statement of purpose. There are widespread failures in the leadership and management that have a negative impact on the quality of service that young people receive. Young people are looked after by staff who have not been properly vetted. Staff are not provided with appropriate induction and training necessary for their roles. The processes and practices that underpin the protection and safeguarding of young people’s welfare are not strong. Young people receive a service that is not managed well and does not consistently promote their welfare.

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Inadequate

Some young people do well and make progress. For example, following an emergency admission, one young person has settled well in the home. He has formed positive relationships with most of the staff and, in particular, with the interim manager. The young person is registered with local health professionals and is engaging with the local child and adolescent mental health service (CAMHS). He is keen to improve his behaviour and has already made some positive changes. His teacher is very pleased with his focus on learning and his educational progress. He has developed an active lifestyle and engages well in a range of activities. This young person has made good progress in many aspects of his life and has continued to strive to improve in others.

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Inadequate

Other young people make less positive progress. Another placement that the home had at the time of the inspection was not effective. This was also an emergency admission. Staff were not successful at helping the young person to break his pattern of non-engagement. He continued to abscond frequently from the placement. At the time of the inspection, he was missing for two weeks. His youth offending worker said that his criminal behaviour quickly escalated during his stay.

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Inadequate

Another young person’s placement broke down after ten months. This young person made only limited progress during her time of living in the home. She continued to present with highly challenging behaviours. She attracted complaints from the neighbours and frequent police involvement. Her social worker commented that the home was trying to meet her needs, but really struggled with her behaviours. The social worker believed that the issues that the home had with staffing played a part. Judgement grade

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Inadequate

The home is not able to demonstrate that practice is safe. The safeguarding failures are multiple and include, staff recruitment, training and practice, and record-keeping.

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Inadequate

Staff recruitment practice is poor. A lack of scrutiny in the way that staff are employed means that there is inconsistency in confirming that young people are looked after by people who are suitable for the role.

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Inadequate

A lack of appropriate staff training seriously undermines the way in which young people are safeguarded. Not all staff members have training in child protection and safeguarding. Nobody on the team, including the interim manager, has had any training in working with children who have disability, internet safety or behaviour management. The home’s statement of purpose says that it ‘specialises in providing therapeutic care for children with learning disabilities and behavioural difficulties’. No appropriate training has been provided. Therefore it is unclear how the home intends to meet the young people’s complex learning, emotional and behavioural needs.

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Inadequate

The practice of untrained staff using physical interventions with young people is a serious concern. There was an incident in which a staff member ‘brought a young person to the floor’. The incident report does not describe how exactly the staff member did this, how she kept him on the floor and how long the restraint lasted. The manager’s justification for not logging and treating this as a physical intervention was that the staff member acted in self-defence. Such poor behaviour management is compounded by ineffective record-keeping and a lack of rigorous oversight. The young person said that he felt safe in the home. However, while staff remain untrained young people will be at risk of harm.

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Inadequate

Inefficient management of the records overall, means that they do not support and assure adequate safeguarding practice in the home. The interim manager is unable to access some important records, in particular, those relating to allegations against staff members, complaints and the use of behaviour control measures. On a number of occasions during the inspection, he had to correct the information that he initially provided. For example, following the scrutiny, the number of missing episodes reduced from five to three and the number of both allegations and complaints went up from none to one. Inefficient record-keeping and unreliable information negatively affects accountability, monitoring and trust that the records accurately reflect the service.

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Inadequate

The home has various written policies on child protection and safeguarding of young people. However, there is no clear guidance for staff on the arrangements for countering risks of self-harm and suicide. This is despite the home admitting young people with a history of self-harm.

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Inadequate

Health and safety checks including those relating to fire safety take place regularly to ensure that the environment is physically safe. However, the recent fire safety risk assessment and the checks failed to identify some definite opportunities for improving the fire safety in the home. The fire extinguishers are still kept in one room, despite the young people who tampered with them not living in the home any longer. The way that a door opens towards the stairs creates an obstacle on the fire-exit path. In an emergency, this would slow down an evacuation from the first floor.

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Inadequate

The home is failing to meet the aims and objectives of its statement of purpose. A lack of effective leadership and strategic oversight have resulted in inadequately trained staff, inconsistent practice and poor outcomes for young people. The home is not consistently run in line with the regulations and good practice. This inspection has identified a number of regulatory breaches. Some of them have been raised at previous inspections. The registered person has failed to achieve consistent improvement regarding compliance with the regulations. In particular, staff recruitment, induction, training, behaviour management and maintaining accurate records of physical interventions. These failures undermine the provider’s capacity to achieve lasting improvements and sustain good practice. The registered person, who is also the registered manager for the home, has failed to send a formal notification to Ofsted regarding her absence and the

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Inadequate

change in management. An interim manager has been managing the home since the end of October 2015. He has received limited supervision and no formal induction to his role. Although his application to register with Ofsted was received, this has been returned to him for further information to be included Services provided by the home do not match those outlined in their statement of purpose. The registered person aims to provide specialist high-quality care. Under the home’s professional services, the statement of purpose lists therapeutic social work practice and psychological intervention. Psychologists feature prominently in the home’s stated organisational structure. The interim manager and staff did not know anything about the company’s psychological services. In addition, they were unaware that the home is not registered to provide care to young people with emotional and behavioural difficulties. This resulted in the home admitting a

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Inadequate

young person outside the conditions of their registration. The retention of staff is low. Five permanent care staff have left in the last ten months. The leaders and managers have recruited more permanent staff members in recent months. This is a positive move, because less reliance on agency workers brings more staff stability to the home. The current staff group lacks relevant experience, qualifications and skills to be fully effective in their roles. These shortfalls mean that staff are not being suitably equipped to meet the complex needs of young people. Not all staff received an appropriate induction into their role. Only 20% of the current workforce is appropriately qualified. However, the trainer/assessor working with the home did not feel that the staff had the skills necessary to start working straight away towards obtaining a level 3 qualification, which is the minimum required. She was helping them to achieve the level 2 qualification first. The training plan is in its

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Inadequate

early stages of implementation and has not had a significantly positive impact on the quality of the service overall and, in particular, on safeguarding. External monitoring provides a reasonable level of scrutiny. Monthly visits take place and echo some of the concerns already noted in this report. The home’s independent visitor has recognised and, through the monitoring reports, shared with the registered person their opinion that the lack of staff training leaves young people and staff vulnerable and unprotected. The registered person failed to notify Ofsted of a serious incident in which a young person was arrested. The manager acknowledged that the incident was serious. His reasoning for not notifying Ofsted was that the incident happened outside the home. The failure to notify significant events, as required, undermines Ofsted’s ability to monitor the home. In addition to the recording weaknesses mentioned previously, there are other

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Inadequate

examples of the records not satisfying the regulations and good practice. The register of children’s admissions and discharges does not contain all the required detail. The records of the staff duty roster lack clarity regarding the staffing at night and the actual hours when the manager is on duty. The medication recording procedure is cumbersome and includes some repetitious and inconsistent recordings. All these weaknesses add to a picture of a service that is inefficiently and ineffectively managed.

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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 or young people being harmed or at risk of harm. The welfare of children and young people looked after 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 and young people 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 that 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 whom 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

The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: psi@nationalarchives.gsi.gov.uk .

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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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