Children's home in Lambeth

inspection

Ofsted issued four compliance notices on 10 March 2016. This inspection monitored compliance with the notices. The home has met three notices. They have not met one notice.

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Inadequate

There are serious and/or widespread failures that mean the young person’s welfare is not promoted or safeguarded, their care and experiences are poor and they are not making progress.

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The children's home provision is inadequate because:

 The responsible person has failed to meet a legal compliance notice. Despite greater consistency in the staff team, it is still not possible to access full information on staff. This includes a lack of background checks on the manager.

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The children's home provision is inadequate because:

 The responsible person has not submitted an application to register the manager with Ofsted.

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The children's home provision is inadequate because:

 The responsible person has not notified HMCI of serious incidents involving the police.

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The children's home provision is inadequate because:

 Strategic planning is inadequate. The home has no current development plan, workforce development plan or effective training matrix.

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The children's home provision is inadequate because:

 The quality of care planning and review is weak. Staff do not consistently record their interventions with the young person. They have not revised placement/care plans, risk assessments and behaviour support plans following significant events.

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The children's home provision is inadequate because:

 Poor record keeping means any progress made by the young person is extremely difficult to evidence. Staff do not record actions leading to rewards in sufficient detail to evidence progress in meeting care plan targets.

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The children's home provision is inadequate because:

 The approach to the giving of sanctions is poor. Records fail to evidence the young person’s learning and the effectiveness of any sanction.

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The children's home provision is inadequate because:

 The young person is not making satisfactory progress in his educational attainment.

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The children's home provision is inadequate because:

 The young person has high levels of going missing from the home. This means that staff are unaware of his whereabouts for days at a time and therefore do not know whether he is safe.

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The children's home provision is inadequate because:

 The young person has been involved in offending type behaviours, leading to police involvement and his arrest.

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The children's home provision is inadequate because:

 The responsible person fails to ensure that monitoring visits by an independent person occur monthly. Therefore the home is not independently scrutinised as required.

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The children's home provision is inadequate because:

 Managers do not receive the level of support and guidance necessary to effectively run the home. In particular, the acting manager does not receive appropriate professional supervision.

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The children's home strengths

 The young person says he feels safe and settled in the home and has developed good relationships with the staff.

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The children's home strengths

 The home meets the young person’s cultural needs effectively.

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The children's home strengths

 All care staff receive regular supervision, and most have completed annual appraisals.

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The children's home strengths

 The home has met three of the four compliance notices. The home now evidences the safer recruitment of staff, has supplied financial information to HMCI (to October 2014) and has ensured that all shifts have a member of staff trained in first aid.

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The children's home strengths

 The home has improved its working with partners, including staff from the virtual school, the youth offending service and the social worker.

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The children's home strengths

 Staff have been creative in working with the virtual school to gain funding for music lessons.

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The children's home strengths

 The physical environment is safe and well maintained.

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The children's home strengths

 The report from the independent person’s visit is detailed, analytical and helpful to the development of the home.

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Statutory requirements

This section sets out the actions which must be taken so that the registered person(s) meets the Care Standards Act 2000, Children's Homes (England) Regulations 2015 and ‘Guide to the Children's Homes Regulations including the quality standards’. The registered person(s) must comply within the given timescales.

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Statement of purpose

16.—(3) The registered person must— (a) keep the statement of purpose under review and, where appropriate, revise it; and (b) notify HMCI of any revisions and send HMCI a copy of the revised statement within 28 days of the revision. (Regulation16(3)(a)(b)) 30 June 2016

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Employment of staff

33.—(4) The registered person must ensure that all employees— (b) receive practice-related supervision by a person with appropriate experience; and In particular, to ensure that the acting manager receives appropriate supervision. (Regulation 33(4)(b)) 30 June 2016

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Independent person: visits and reports

44.—(1) The registered person must ensure that an independent person visits the children's home at least once each month. (7) The independent person must provide a copy of the independent person’s report to— (a) HMCI; (Regulation 44(1)(7)(a)) 30 June 2016

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Other records

37.—(2) The registered person must— (a) maintain in the home the records specified in Schedule 4; (b) ensure that the records are kept up to date; and In particular, with reference to the records of each person working at the home and of persons who work at any time at the home who are not mentioned in the records kept in accordance with paragraphs 1 or 2 of the Schedule. (Regulation 37(2)(a-b)) 30 June 2016*

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Fitness of manager

28.—(1) A person may only manage a children’s home if— (a) the person is of integrity and good character; (b) having regard to the size of the home, its statement of purpose, and the number and needs (including any needs arising from disability) of the children— (i) the person has the appropriate experience, qualifications and skills to manage the home effectively and lead the care of the children; and (ii) the person is physically and mentally fit to manage the home; and (c) full and satisfactory information is available in relation to the person in respect of the matters in Schedule 2.2. (Regulation 28 (1) (a) (b) (c)) 30 June 2016

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Notification of a serious event

40.—(4) The registered person must notify HMCI and each other relevant 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(40(b)) 30 June 2016

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Notification of a serious event

* These requirements are subject to statutory requirement notice.

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Recommendations

To improve the quality and standards of care further, the service should take account of the following recommendation(s):  Ensure that staff continually and actively assess the risks to each child. In particular that their risk assessments and care plans clearly evidence this (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations including the quality standards’, page 42, paragraph 9.5).

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Recommendations

 Ensure that staff record when they praise, reinforce and encourage positive behaviour and relationships, and challenge and discuss poor behaviour with the young person (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations including the quality standards’, page 39, paragraph 8.11).

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Recommendations

 Provide the young person with suitable lockable storage space to store personal items securely (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations including the quality standards’, page 16, paragraph 3.19).

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Recommendations

 Ensure that the necessary support is given to children to enable them to access their education or training (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations including the quality standards’, page 28, paragraph 5.13).

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Recommendations

 Complete a workforce plan which can fulfil the workforce-related requirements of Regulation 16, Schedule 1 (paragraphs 19 and 20) (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations including the quality standards’, page 53, paragraph 10.8).

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Recommendations

 Encourage children to read their records and to add further information to them. They should be regularly reminded of their rights to see information kept about them and be given information about how they might be supported to access their records in later life (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations including the quality standards’, page 62, paragraph 14.6). 

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Information about this children's home

This privately owned children's home is registered to provide care and accommodation for no more than three young people who may have emotional and behavioural difficulties.

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Recent inspection history

Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

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Recent inspection history

9 February 2016 Interim Declined in effectiveness

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Inadequate

Progress made by the young person at the home is limited. He says that he enjoys living there and gets on well with staff. The relationship between the young person and staff is a strength. However, poor strategic oversight and ineffectual leadership significantly undermine the home’s ability to provide good care. The impact of care and intervention has not helped the young person make sufficient progress. The home’s strategies to help him reduce offending behaviour and running away from care have not been effective. As a result, the young person has been arrested for criminal behaviour and has spent days at a time missing from the home. He has therefore been at risk of harm. The admission of the young person was planned appropriately. His social worker said of the home’s planning, ‘It has been a very positive experience’. Staff were made aware of the young person’s needs and triggers to extreme behaviours. A

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Inadequate

number of previous placements had ended due to his poor and challenging behaviour. However, a lack of on-going assessment and review means his progress in the placement cannot be determined. Care planning is poor. The format for care planning and the content of the placement plan have been amended. This is intended to ensure that the plan identifies aims and objectives, and timescales for their completion. However, not all objectives have clear timescales, hindering accurate monitoring of completion. The young person is aware of this plan. However, it does not include comments from him. Staff do encourage him to attend meetings, and his worker from the youth offending service (YOS) commented that he can now contribute to these meetings without losing his temper and threatening people. The plan is largely in line with the local authority care plan, but critically fails to include vital information such as addressing his ‘missing from care’ and physical aggression. Staff have not

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Inadequate

updated the placement plan to include all current objectives or to reflect progress and completion of targets. These omissions slow progress and hinder the young person’s involvement in his own development. Staff say that the young person has not been involved in any assaults or criminal damage at the home, and has reduced aggressive outbursts. However, rewards for positive behaviour, sanctions and absences from the home have not been fully analysed. Consequently, risk assessments, the care plan and behaviour management plan rely on anecdotal evidence in relation to progress. Strategies to support the young person to learn better coping mechanisms are inconsistent. During the inspection the staff imposed boundaries on the young person and challenged his use of aggressive language. However, there is no record of the frequency or intensity of his previous outbursts to confirm that the approach is working or to improve future interventions. The young person said, ‘I think I

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Inadequate

have improved my behaviours, how I interact with others.’ External professionals suggest that he has improved, and his YOS worker said, ‘He has improved, he is assertive now rather than aggressive.’ Despite these positive comments, the young person has committed serious offences in the community leading to court appearances. The acting manager states in her review of the quality of care that the young person has weekly one to one sessions. However, there are only records of monthly key worker sessions. The young person says he prefers casual talks with staff to formal key-worker sessions. However, staff do not record all of the sessions that they conduct, which makes it difficult to track progress in addressing issues and recording information about his emotional development. Staff are knowledgeable about the young person’s cultural background and support him in maintaining his cultural identity. They are working with his social worker to

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Inadequate

enhance family contact and to encourage positive relationships. They have regular discussions with him about religion, in particular the diverse religions that he encounters in his home area. The young person says that he can talk to staff about any issue, and feels suitably supported in maintaining positive relationships with family and friends. The young person has not improved his engagement in education since moving in to the home and struggles to respond to the routines to support his learning. Staff are over-optimistic about the young person’s educational progress. Staff worked with the virtual school to put in place home tuition. However, the young person’s engagement with this has been limited. Initially, the education provider attended for morning sessions. The home requested that it changed the sessions to afternoons, as staff were unable to get the young person up to attend morning sessions. Staff suggested that this had resulted in an improvement in his

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Inadequate

attendance and engagement in education. However, scrutiny of records showed that there has been no improvement in attendance. The home has been unable to improve attendance despite changing the tuition time. The home has not tracked or monitored attendance in a way that enables staff to have an accurate understanding of this. The young person says he wishes to attend school, but knows that he has to improve his attendance at the home and his behaviour. Despite their efforts, the home and education provider are not yet successfully ensuring that the young person receives an appropriate education. The relationships between staff and the young person are positive. The young person interacts well with staff and they communicate well with him. He gets good emotional support from staff, and enjoys their mix of age, ethnicity and gender. The young person said, ‘I love it here. It is brilliant. I cannot think of anything that

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Inadequate

could beat it here. When I am here, I chill with staff. I get on well with them, very well.’ He is keen to take responsibility in situations in the home in a helpful way. For example, during the inspection he made dinner for the inspector and acting manager. His social worker said, ‘The nurturing aspect of care here is very good’. The young person has an activity programme, and this includes physical activities such as swimming, badminton and gym visits. Staff encourage him to use these activities to stay fit and as part of his education programme. He enjoys staff company and prefers to engage in activities with them. Staff use these opportunities to have discussions with him, rather than in formal key-worker sessions. However, these are not always recorded, an issue identified by the independent visitor. Staff work with the young person to provide other activities which he enjoys, such as cinema trips, go-karting and music sessions. Following joint work with the

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Inadequate

virtual school, they have created a music room and gained funding for piano lessons for him. His social worker said, ‘They have picked up on his love of music and put in place a music teacher. Young people live in a home that generally provides them with a suitable level of accommodation and comfort. The young person says he likes his bedroom, that the home is great and that he would not change anything in it. He is happy with his bedroom. However, it does not have a lockable space to store his personal possessions.

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Inadequate

The young person is proud of his success in developing his self-help skills, and cooks at least three meals per week. Staff are building on his enthusiasm for cooking to include clearing up and kitchen hygiene. He has good personal hygiene and ensures that his room is clean and tidy. As with the shortfalls already noted, such progress is not properly linked to care plan targets. This fails to capture the young person’s successes and misses opportunities to track his progress. Reports to the social worker record general progress, rather than the successful completion of targeted interventions and the setting of revised targets. Consequently, staff have not updated the placement plan and risk assessments to reflect the young person’s progress, and to set him more challenging targets to aid his social development. Judgement grade

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Inadequate

Strategies to help the young person keep himself safe and reduce his negative behaviours have limited impact. The young person has been arrested for criminal behaviour and continues to run away from care. Although there are tentative signs that the young person is slowly improving his behaviour, progress is hampered by ineffective risk assessment and poor behaviour management planning. Staff completed personal risk assessments for the young person in November 2015. They include risk reduction strategies, but do not identify any targets for reduction of risk. These assessments have received no further monitoring or updating since being written. The risk assessments contain guidance to staff on how to manage risk. However, managers have not reviewed this guidance following significant incidents, such as the young person’s arrest on two separate occasions and lengthy absences from care. There is no evidence of work with the

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Inadequate

young person around risk reduction following these incidents, and no evidence of learning from them to help him reduce the risk of future incidents. Individual support programmes to assist the young person lack aims, objectives and clarity. Staff report that they are aware of the risks to the young person and how to address them. They feel they address the young person’s behaviours in one to one sessions, which the young person confirms. However, there are no recordings of these meetings. The poor recording and lack of targets make it difficult to take a structured approach to risk reduction. Behaviour management planning is poor. Intervention plans and risk assessments guide staff interventions in difficult situations. There have been no restraints of the young person. However, there is no clear recording of any intervention strategies, including any one-to-one discussions about incidents and how the young person

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Inadequate

earns or fails to earn rewards. Therefore opportunities to help the young person to learn from his negative behaviours are lost. Sanctions are infrequently used, but are not currently restorative in nature. They tend to show staff’s disapproval of the young person’s actions, rather than include his reflection on the incident or reparation to the victim. Such consistently poor records make it extremely difficult to analyse any progress the young person is making. The recruitment of staff does not fully protect young people. Staff records show that the home has improved its application of safe recruitment guidelines. This includes confirming gaps in employment. Most checks required are in place. However, the responsible individual has not yet completed all required checks on the manager, in particular, checks of all previous employment with children or vulnerable adults. This shortfall weakens the effectiveness of the recruitment

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Inadequate

process. The approach in helping the young person to reduce the times he runs away from care has a limited impact. To date, his absence records have shown some periods where he has remained in the home, followed by lengthy periods of missing from care. His placing authority arranges for an independent person to visit him following any absence from the home. The acting manager has developed a good relationship with the young person and he talks openly to her, and at great length. His youth offending service worker says that the young person has responded better to a curfew in this home. Staff are working with the young person to reduce late returns and to adhere to the court-imposed curfew. However, his absences remain a concern for staff and do place him at risk, due to his offending and being away from the guidance of appropriate adults. The searching of bedrooms lack evidence of justification. Staff conduct searches of

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Inadequate

the young person’s room, and say that they do this when he is not present. There is no accessible record of the searches, and no reflection on this and the effectiveness in managing risks. All health and safety checks are in place. During the inspection, the regular maintenance of firefighting equipment took place. The responsible individual ensures that the home is maintained well and provides a safe environment for staff and young people.

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Inadequate

The registered provider has failed to meet the conditions of a compliance notice. The notice was issued following serious failings at the last inspection. The home’s workforce development plan remains incomplete. While it contains an overview of proposed actions to retain and develop staff, a large number of key aspects are missing. This includes: the management and staffing structure; training required to deliver the statement of purpose; timescales for staff to achieve induction, probation and core training; processes for managing poor performance; timescales for supervision of practice; and new training and qualifications completed by staff while in the home or the ongoing training and continuing professional development needs of the staff. Although ongoing professional development is noted in the document, it does not outline how this is to be achieved. The responsible individual has created a training matrix, but this is

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Inadequate

not readily accessible to the acting manager and is not yet complete. This makes it difficult for the manager to identify training priorities for the home and improve the safety and quality of care provided. The home lacks strategic oversight to operate efficiently and effectively. The responsible person has constructed an online file system which is not yet fully operational. Records are poorly organised and difficult to access, limiting the acting manager’s ability to check training and appraisals completed. Information is also missing on the staff team and fails to list staff’s addresses, their sex, date of birth, or their work status and average hours worked per week. These shortfalls prevent the manager from running the home effectively. Managers fail to notify Ofsted about incidents as required. For instance two serious incidents have occurred, resulting in the arrest and charging of the young person.

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Inadequate

The failure to notify HMCI of these serious incidents removes an important safeguard from the young person and provides further evidence of poor managerial oversight. The acting manager has been working as a manager in this and another setting owned by the company since 8 June 2015. She has lengthy, relevant experience and a social work qualification. She has applied for a level 5 management qualification and is awaiting confirmation of a place on the course. On 19 June 2015 the registered provider submitted an incomplete application to Ofsted to register her as manager for this setting. Ofsted returned the application with a request for a complete application. The registered provider has not submitted this application. This has removed the opportunity to assess the fitness of the manager to be in day-to-day charge of the service. The acting manager does not receive the level of support and guidance necessary

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Inadequate

to effectively run the home. Although she has regular supervision, this is not from a suitable professional source. As a result the acting manager does not receive appropriate support to aid her development of the staff team and to raise the quality of care provided to young people. The registered provider has failed to ensure that the home receives regular independent scrutiny. They have not ensured that an independent person visits the home at least once a month. This has meant that the home did not receive any monitoring visits for three months. These visits have now recommenced. The report supplied is detailed, analytical, and sets helpful and suitably challenging targets for the home. The acting manager is following the guidance in these reports, endeavouring to improve the support provided to staff and the quality of care for the young person. Staff are receiving regular supervision and the manager

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Inadequate

is acting on recent advice from the independent visitor on ways to improve the quality of recording of these sessions. Given the gap in external monitoring, it is too early to fully assess the impact of the independent person’s monthly visits. Internal monitoring lacks focus and clarity. The acting manager has completed a review of the quality of care and submitted this to HMCI during the inspection. Her report is underpinned by the quality standards, and comments on the experiences of the young person living in the home. However, the report lacks sufficient evidence of improvements to the young person’s behaviour and of the impact the home is having on him. The statement of purpose does not include all necessary information. Details for interested parties to make complaints, or access information on child protection and behavioural management are now available. However, the statement still fails to explain the approach to anti-discriminatory practice and children’s rights. There

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Inadequate

remains limited information on staff experience and qualifications. The home is well maintained and comfortable. The acting manager has commenced a programme of work to upgrade the home, seeking to create a more homely environment. The responsible person has created a music room, which the young person uses frequently.

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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 ‘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 0300 123 4234, or email enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk .

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Information about this inspection

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

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Information about this inspection

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

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Information about this inspection

Interested in our work? You can subscribe to our monthly newsletter for more information and updates: http://eepurl.com/iTrDn .

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Information about this inspection

Store Street Manchester M1 2WD T: 0300 123 1231 Textphone: 0161 618 8524 E: enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk W: www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ofsted

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