Children's home run by Horizon Care and Education Group Limited in Cannock Chase

Good

The children’s home provides effective services that meet the requirements for good.

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The children’s home provision is good because:

 Young people are settled and happy here and enjoy warm and supportive relationships with staff.  Young people make significant progress due to the calm and orderly atmosphere, which enables them to focus on their own developmental needs.  The proactive and committed staff team ensures that it provides young people with consistent care and boundaries, which support their emotional and physical development.  Staff strongly support young people to engage in education and to aspire for the future.  Staff listen to young people and involve them in their behaviour management plans and risk assessments, providing them with appropriate feedback.  Highly trained and vigilant staff keep young people safe and undertake effective work with young people to learn how to keep themselves safe.  Staff are trained in child sexual exploitation and they work closely with family and professionals to reduce the risks significantly.

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The children’s home provision is good because:

 The registered manager of this newly established home is child focused, proactive and provides her staff with regular supervision, which supports their professional development.  The registered manager responded rapidly to challenge a staff member who behaved negatively towards a young person. An area for improvement is to ensure that all staff promote positive relationships with young people at all times.

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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 timescale.

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Requirement Due date

(1) the positive relationship standard is that children are helped to develop, and to benefit from, relationships based on: (a) mutual respect and trust. (2) in particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to ensure: (a) that staff: (i) meet each child’s behavioural and emotional needs, as set out in the child’s relevant plans (viii) strive to gain each child’s trust and respect (x) are provided with supervision and support to enable them to understand and manage their own feelings and responses to the behaviour and emotions of children, and to help children do the same. 30 June 2016

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Information about this children’s home

This privately owned children’s home is registered to provide care for three young people with emotional or behavioural difficulties. The home was registered in December 2015.

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Good

This newly registered home is welcoming, spacious and has a relaxed atmosphere. Young people say that they are happy and settled here and that they benefit from the calm environment. Young people love their bedrooms, having decorated them to their own tastes. The shared living areas have photographs and pictures on the walls and the kitchen is a large room that forms the focal point of the home. Young people have trusting and warm relationships with members of the consistent and stable staff team, who encourage them to make positive progress towards their future independence and plans. Young people say that staff listen to them and that they can express their wishes and feelings. They contribute to decisions about the home in informal discussions and in the regular young people’s meetings. Both young people want to stay here until independence.

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Good

Since coming here from previous residential placements, young people have made progress in their education, behaviour and independence. One young person is now engaging in regular counselling with Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services to improve his self-esteem and to support his emotional well-being.

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Good

Young people benefit from support by the highly motivated staff to attend and engage in education and independence skills. This includes receiving help with transport, homework and researching future possibilities for education and careers. Young people respond positively to the strong boundaries and routines, which provide them with the security of clear guidance and expectations.

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Good

Young people have fun playing pool, ice-skating, and playing board games with staff. One young person is a keen skateboarder and is able to spend his free time at a local skate park with his friends. One young person has expressed an interest in joining St John Ambulance or cadets and the proactive staff are exploring the various options open to him. Staff support young people’s physical well-being with healthy eating options.

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Good

Young people’s identified needs are addressed by family contact and by a range of diversity information which is displayed on the walls. Young people feel able to explore their identities with the perceptive and informed staff.

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Good

One parent said of his son, ‘He enjoys being here and wants to stay. He is settled and doesn’t want to go into foster care, which was his plan… The staff are all great.’ One young person said, ‘It’s lovely here’, and commented on the warmth of her relationship with the registered manager in particular.

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Good

Young people feel safe here and highly trained staff keep them safe. Both young people are moving towards independence, and staff skilfully maintain a balance for them between the need for unsupervised time and monitoring their safety. Staff undertake and review thorough risk assessments and behaviour management plans. Vigilant staff are trained in child sexual exploitation and are fully aware of the potential indicators that young people are being groomed. They work closely with family members and childcare professionals to ensure that, for example, unsupervised contact does not place young people at risk. Staff review the locality risk assessment every month, to ensure that they identify any new risks in the area.

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Good

Staff have plans in place for supporting and monitoring young people when they are away from the home. They keep in touch by phone and have a ‘safe’ word in the event that a young person needs collecting in an emergency. Staff have maintained strategies for one young person which were established at her previous placement, thereby providing both safety and consistency. Effective impact assessments prior to admission have led to a very positive match between the young people. This supports their safety as well as their overall well-being. Young people discuss, and contribute significantly to, their risk assessments and behaviour management plans with their key worker. They then read and sign these plans. This ensures that young people understand the risks and concerns. It also empowers them to tell staff how they think they can help to keep themselves safe. Key work sessions address bullying, behaviour, safe sex, relationships, self-harm

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Good

All the staff are first aid qualified and responded quickly and appropriately to one young person’s recent skateboard accident, ensuring that he received the correct medical treatment. Conscientious staff pay attention to the day-to-day health needs of each young person and ensure that they safely cater for food allergies.

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Good

One social worker said, ‘They keep him safe and they update risk assessments.’ Judgement grade

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Good

The registered manager holds a BA Hons degree in social policy and deaf studies, a master’s degree in social work and an NVQ 3 in caring for children and young people. She has 15 years’ experience in children’s residential care, of which nine years have been in senior roles. Four staff are qualified to level 3 childcare and two, who are new to working with young people in residential care, are shortly to commence their level 3 studies.

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Good

The registered manager has made a very positive start to this new service. As an experienced registered manager, she is very aware of the strengths and areas for development in her team and has clear development plans. She demonstrates an understanding of how to effectively monitor and address staff development needs. She has a clear vision for her service and is both creative and child focused. The registered manager is ‘hands on’ and spends time with young people getting to know and understand them. She is proactive in enabling staff to think about how to move young people forward, both in formal supervision and daily discussions. Supervision is regular, relevant, challenging and supportive.

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Good

The registered manager has high expectations that staff will keep professionals informed about young people’s progress by emailing regular updates. Staff are required to read young people’s files and sign that they have read them. The registered manager has challenged the local authority and virtual school regarding the care plan and educational provision for one young person. She also ensured that the young person’s wishes and feelings were taken into account in making key decisions.

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Good

The registered manager immediately and firmly addressed a young person’s complaint about one staff member who spoke to her negatively. The registered manager addressed her behaviour with the staff member in depth and quickly provided feedback to the young person and her social worker. This resulted in the young person feeling that the matter had been resolved and that she did not want to take it further. The social worker for the young person commented that the registered manager, ‘jumped on it straight away and was brilliant.’ She expressed satisfaction with the outcome.

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Good

The registered manager is well organised, and record keeping is clear and relevant to the young people. She is highly committed and constantly looks for ways to improve the service further. She has already made significant inroads into the actions she identified in her recent review of the service. These have included allocating each staff member specific responsibilities, such as ensuring that photographs of staff and young people are displayed in the home and that relevant information is passed on to social workers. The social worker for one young person said, ‘This is a proactive house.’

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Good

One area for improvement is the consistency of the staff team in promoting positive relationships with young people. Staff training and supervision have not sufficiently ensured that all staff members respond positively to young people at all times. The registered manager is fully aware of this and has already begun to address the issue.

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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 children 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 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 children looked after 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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