Children's home run by Pine Forest Homes Limited in Cannock Chase

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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The children's home provision requires improvement because:

 Managers and staff are not ensuring young people are receiving full-time education, and delays in securing alternative provision is not effectively challenged.  Young people‟s independence skills are not consistently progressed and evaluated.  Managers and staff do not ensure missing from care incidents are effectively recorded, and that return interviews are consistently offered to young people.  Staff training is not given sufficiently priority. There is no training plan, and staff are not enrolled to complete their level 3 diploma.  There are gaps in the manager‟s quality assurance processes. There is no development plan and the views of key stakeholders are not routinely secured.  Managers do not ensure the staff rota is accurate.  There is not always a person on duty with a suitable first aid qualification.  The manager does not ensure that all the records in the home stay up to date.  Delays in completing home maintenance tasks have meant that young

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The children's home provision requires improvement because:

people have been without bathroom lighting and some without keys to their bedrooms.

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The children's home strengths

 Young people are positive about their experience of living in the home and value the support that they receive from staff.  Staff work well with other professionals to support young people to help them become increasingly safe. Incidents of young people being missing from care and self-harming have reduced.  Young people are supported to maintain contact with important people in their lives. This enables young people to maintain their identity.

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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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Requirement Due date

5: Engaging with the wider system to ensure children's needs are met

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Requirement Due date

In order to meet the engaging with the wider system to ensure children‟s needs are met standard the registered person must, and must ensure that staff—

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Requirement Due date

5(c) if the registered person considers, or staff consider, a placing authority‟s or a relevant person‟s performance or response to be inadequate in relation to their role, challenge the placing authority or the relevant person to seek to ensure that each child‟s needs are met in accordance with the child‟s relevant plans.

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Requirement Due date

This is with particular reference to promoting educational attendance and ensuring that independent return home interviews are offered. 30 June 2016

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Requirement Due date

6: The quality and purpose of care standard

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Requirement Due date

In order to meet the quality and purpose of care standard the registered person must ensure that staff—

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Requirement Due date

2(b)(vii)) provide to children living in the home the physical necessities they need in order to live there comfortably;

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Requirement Due date

(2)(b)(vi) help each child to develop resilience and skills that prepare the child to return home, to live in a new placement or to live independently; 30 June 2016

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Requirement Due date

13: The leadership and management standard

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Requirement Due date

In order to meet the leadership and management standard the registered person must is required to— 30 June 2016 (2)(h) use monitoring and review systems to make continuous improvements in the quality of care provided in the home.

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Requirement Due date

This is specifically in relation to missing from care episodes, and that an up-to-date development plan is in place to set targets for continuing the home‟s improvement and development.

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must ensure that, at all times, at least one person on duty at the home has a suitable first aid qualification (Regulation 31(2)(a)). 30 June 2016

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must ensure that all employees undertake appropriate continuing professional development; This is with specific reference to ensuring that staff are enrolled to complete appropriate qualifications to fulfil the requirements of Regulation 32 (Regulation 33(4)(a)). 30 June 2016

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must ensure that 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 the effectiveness and any consequences of the use of the measure. This is in relation to sanction records (Regulation 35(a)(vii)). 30 June 2016

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must maintain records (“case records”) for each child which include the information and documents listed in Schedule 3 in relation to each child are kept up to date. This is with particular reference to current education placements (Regulation 36(1)(a)(b)). 30 June 2016

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must ensure that the records in Schedule 4 are kept up to date; This is with particular reference to ensuring that the staff duty roster of persons working at the home records the actual rosters worked (Regulation 37(2)(b)). 30 June 2016

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Requirement Due date

In order to complete a quality of care review the registered person must establish and maintain a system for monitoring, reviewing and evaluating: the system referred to in paragraph (2) must provide for ascertaining and considering the opinions of parents, placing authorities and staff (Regulation 45(2)(5). 30 June 2016

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Information about this children's home

This children‟s home is privately owned. Care is provided for up to four young people with emotional and/or behavioural difficulties.

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Recent inspection history

Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

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Recent inspection history

19 January 2016 Interim Sustained effectiveness

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Recent inspection history

22 December 2014 Interim Declined in effectiveness

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Requires improvement

Young people say that they enjoy living in the home, but their progress since living here has been variable. Some young people have not actively engaged with staff or their care plans. Consequently, their placements have ended. Others have only recently started to engage, and are beginning to develop positive relationships with staff members. As one young person commented, ‟having different staff is a bonus, as you don‟t get fed up of them and they are all good at different things.‟

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Requires improvement

None of the young people are in full-time education and there have been delays in securing suitable alternative provision. Their subsequent engagement has not been consistent, and alternative structured learning opportunities in the home are limited. This has meant that young people‟s educational progress has been significantly compromised. Staff are consistent with their encouragement and, in recent weeks, engagement is starting to improve. As one education professional observed, „it looks more positive than it did in January, emotionally she does appear to be in a different place.‟

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Requires improvement

Staff positively engage with education professionals, but have been ineffective in challenging the timeliness of services in identifying appropriate alternative provision, which has had a detrimental impact upon young people‟s attitudes to learning and their progress.

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Requires improvement

Staff support young people to access a range of routine and specialist services to help them develop understanding of their physical, emotional and sexualised health needs. Some young people have been reluctant to engage with specialist services, and staff have been persistent in their encouragement. Individual key-work sessions have also been used to help address health-related concerns effectively.

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Requires improvement

Young people‟s preparation for independent living is not consistently progressed and evaluated. Staff have not focused, in some instances, on helping young people to build up their emotional resilience and confidence. Although young people have gained some practical independence skills, there are no structured independence programmes for them to engage in. This makes it difficult to assess their readiness to move on, or to evaluate their progress.

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Requires improvement

Young people have been fully supported to develop and maintain family contact and friendships. The staff have been proactive in their approach and have re- established links with family members. Family members describe staff as „approachable and supportive‟. This approach ensures that young people stay in contact with those significant in their lives and helps to promote their self-identity.

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Requires improvement

Young people feel valued, because they are consulted about life in the home. Residents meetings are regularly held which provide opportunities for young people‟s voices to be heard. Young people make clear choices about activities and menu planning. They describe the home as „homely‟. It is appropriately furnished and young people are supported to personalise their own bedrooms. This homeliness is compromised by delays in completing maintenance tasks. This has meant, for example, that one of the young people‟s bathrooms has had no lighting for more than two months and another young person has been without a room key for a number of months.

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Good

Young people say that they feel safe in the home and with the staff who look after them. They say they are able to talk to staff if they are concerned or upset, and that appropriate support is provided. In the words of one young person, „there‟s always someone to talk to here.‟

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Good

Staff model and promote acceptable behaviour. Risks are well understood and managed with the support of personalised risk management plans that are consistently updated. These guide staff effectively to understand young people‟s specific vulnerabilities and the challenges that they present. Young people do not always respond positively to the support shown by staff to help them to resolve conflict. Staff recording of subsequent incidents and control measures do not sufficiently capture the details leading up to challenging behaviour. There is limited evidence to show that these are effectively evaluated and any learning is captured. This denies staff and the young people the opportunity to reflect and learn from this. There have been no incidents of physical restraint, because staff effectively use verbal de-escalation techniques.

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Good

Incidents of young people being missing from care are decreasing. There are effective agreed strategies with placing authorities, families and the police to make coordinated efforts to locate young people. Any serious concerns are escalated to multidisciplinary strategy meetings. This ensures that all safeguarding professionals are working together to assess and minimise risk. However, staff do not consistently record missing incidents. This means that effective monitoring and evaluation are difficult to achieve. Records do not reflect what action is taken when young people return home. Return home interviews are not consistently offered and staff have not been proactive in challenging the local authority to fulfil their statutory requirements.

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Good

Self-harm incidents are managed effectively. Staff are confident to support young people to develop coping and distraction techniques to manage incidents of self- harm. Consequently, incidents of self-harm have reduced.

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Good

For some young people drug misuse is an area of concern. Staff respond effectively and make referrals to specialist agencies. The local community police officer has also visited the home to raise the young people‟s awareness of the wider safeguarding risks linked with substance misuse and missing behaviour, including child sexual exploitation. Staff undertake individual work with young people on the dangers of drug misuse and associated risks These key-working sessions are used proactively to help young people to reflect on their risk-taking behaviour. This ensures that young people are supported to access specialist support and information to help them to make the right choices to keep themselves safe.

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Good

Young people are able to raise any concerns they may have with staff. They are confident that staff will listen to their concerns and complaints, and deal with them appropriately. This helps young people to feel safe and secure, and protects them from the risk of harm. Since the last inspection, one young person has made an allegation against a member of staff. The registered manager appropriately implemented statutory procedures to address this and to ensure that the young person was effectively safeguarded.

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Good

Young people benefit from living in a home that has a safe and secure environment. Regular health and safety checks ensure that the equipment works well and that fire drills are regularly completed. There is a detailed location risk assessment that highlights risk factors in the surrounding area and indicates how these will be managed.

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Requires improvement

An appropriately qualified and experienced registered manager leads the home. She has been in post since December 2013 and holds a level 5 diploma in leadership for health and social care and children and young people‟s services. Staff say that they are well supported by her.

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Requires improvement

Since the last inspection, there have been a number of staff changes. The registered manager is now additionally responsible for the provider‟s other home and an assistant manager has been appointed to supplement the management capacity. During this period of change, the staffing has been supplemented by consistent agency staff who are familiar to the young people. However, managers have failed to ensure these changes are accurately recorded on staffing rosters. This means it is unclear who is working in the home at any time. New permanent staff have now joined the home. An experienced staff member, overseen by the registered manager, has supported their induction. This ensures that staff have the skills and knowledge to effectively care for the young people living here.

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Requires improvement

Managers do not ensure staff training is sufficiently prioritised. The manager has not implemented a staff training plan that helps to identify staff training needs. This compromises the manager‟s ability to ensure that staff are appropriately trained to undertake their role. For example, there are incidences when there has been no suitably qualified first aider working. Due to the changes in the staff team the majority of the staff do not currently hold a suitable childcare qualification and are not enrolled to complete their qualification. This significantly compromises their ability to complete their qualifications within the required regulatory timescales.

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Requires improvement

The majority of staff training is accessed online. The registered manager recognises the limitations of this type of training. She has developed a series of in- house workshops in team meetings to help bridge the gap in staff‟s knowledge. For example, she secured trained on attachment. This has helped staff to have the appropriate skills to meet the needs of young people placed.

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Requires improvement

All staff receive regular supervision that is robust and reflective. This ensures that staff clearly understand their individual roles in achieving the aims and objectives of the home.

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Requires improvement

The manager‟s monitoring of the home is completed regularly and the reports are sent to Ofsted. However, the manager does not have a current development plan and her quality assurance process lacks consultation, especially with young people. Although managers promote and develop effective partnerships with other agencies including the police and the missing person coordinator. This partnership working does not extend to ensure that agency feedback helps to inform the manager‟s quality assurance report.

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Requires improvement

Managers and staff do not ensure that case file‟s are consistently updated to hold accurate information. This compromises the ability of staff to address young people‟s needs and appropriately to challenge service provision.

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Requires improvement

The home‟s statement of purpose has recently been updated, and provides parents and professionals with an accurate overview of the home. It reflects recent staff changes.

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Requires improvement

Managers ensure robust staff recruitment processes are in place. This helps protect young people from exposure to unsafe people working in their home. The manager‟s effective challenge to placing authorities has not been consistently robust. This has meant that young people have been without education provision for prolonged periods and return interviews have not been consistently offered to young people.

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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.

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What the inspection judgements mean

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.

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What the inspection judgements mean

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.

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What the inspection judgements mean

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 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.

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Information about this inspection

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 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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