Children's home run by New Forest Care Limited in Southampton

Outstanding

The children’s home provides highly effective services that consistently exceed the standards of good. The actions of the home contribute to significantly improved outcomes for children and young people who need help, protection and care.

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The children’s home provision is outstanding because:

 This home has an exceptional family feel.  Children experience extremely nurturing and supportive relationships with staff, which provide them with the security and foundations to grow and develop.  Children value their relationships with staff and seek out their company.  Staff are extremely dedicated and enthusiastic in ensuring that children have opportunities to follow their interests.  From their starting points, children make excellent progress at school.  Staff have an exceptional understanding of each child, their histories and why they behave the way they do.  Staff are extremely compassionate and empathetic in their approach to encouraging children to communicate their emotions, to reflect on them and to understand why they have behaved in a certain way  Children’s wishes and feelings are extremely valued by staff.  Staff persistently review the effectiveness of their strategies and regularly

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The children’s home provision is outstanding because:

obtain external professional advice to improve their practice.  Staff have been extremely creative and resourceful in their strategies to encourage children to express their feelings more constructively.  The manager has high aspirations and is extremely ambitious for the children in his care. He leads by example and has successfully embedded a culture where children come first.  The manager and his staff value partnership working and, as a result, they have excellent relationships with professionals inside and outside of their organisation.  There are sophisticated systems in place to support the manager in identifying trends and patterns in children’s behaviour and to monitor their progress.  The staff team is of an exceptional calibre and is extremely motivated to providing outstanding care to support children to reach their potential.

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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 the ‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’. The registered person(s) must comply with the given timescales.

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Recommendations

To improve the quality and standards of care further, the service should take account of the following recommendations:

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Recommendations

 The registered person has specific responsibilities under regulation 34 to prepare and implement policies setting out: specific procedures to prevent children going missing and take action if they do. In particular, ensuring that the home’s policy or the child’s individual protocol sets out the proactive steps staff should take to prevent a child from going missing (Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards, page 44, paragraph 9.19).  The registered person should demonstrate how staff continually and actively assess the risks to each child and the arrangements in place to protect them. In particular, ensuring that children’s risk assessments are updated to reflect current risks (Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards, page 42, paragraph 9.5).  The registered person should actively seek independent scrutiny of the home including through feedback on the experiences of children in order to make

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Recommendations

continuous improvements in the quality of care provided, as outlined in regulation 13 of The Children’s Homes (England) Regulations 2015 (Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards, page 55, paragraph 10.24).

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Information about this children’s home

This children’s home accommodates a maximum of three children who have complex emotional, behavioural and educational difficulties. The home is privately owned and also includes a local educational establishment that resident children attend. Children have access to the organisation’s therapeutic services.

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Recent inspection history

Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

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Recent inspection history

5 January 2016 Interim Sustained effectiveness

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Outstanding

This home has an exceptional family feel. This is achieved through the home’s approach of dyadic development, staff’s outstanding positive role modelling and their excellent implementation of the home’s care model, ‘PACE’. This is based on the concepts of playfulness, acceptance, curiosity and empathy, and it is used effectively to support children to develop strong appropriate attachments to adults that they had not previously experienced. As a result, children experience extremely nurturing and supportive relationships with staff, which provides them with the security and foundations to grow and develop. Children value their relationships with staff and seek out and enjoy their company. Children and staff share a mutual respect and engage in lots of laughter and banter. Children have fun and are provided with countless activities and opportunities to try new things and to have new experiences. Staff nurture

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Outstanding

children’s personalities and are extremely dedicated and enthusiastic in ensuring that children have opportunities to follow their interests. Staff demonstrate an excellent understanding of the benefits of play in supporting children to have positive experiences but also in developing strong attachments. Through positive role modelling, children are learning to interact with others appropriately and, as a result, make significant progress in their social skills. Staff have aided children’s development by sourcing and supporting children to attend a number of clubs outside of school. This has enabled children to make friends outside of their home, thus extending their social experience. For some this is a significant achievement, as previously they did not want to engage in new things or talk to others who they did not know. This has had a positive impact on their self-esteem and sense of identity. From their starting points, children are making excellent progress at school. All

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Outstanding

children have superb attendance and one child commented that he ‘loved school’. Staff have extremely effective relationships with education staff. They communicate with each other twice a day to ensure that children receive consistent support to help them to develop. Staff highly value the children’s education and provide exceptional support to enable them to reach their academic potential. For example, staff ensure that children have one-to-one time each day so that each child can practice and develop their reading skills. They take a great interest in children’s homework and in promoting the subjects that children enjoy. Staff are currently arranging a trip to the Titanic museum for one child who is particularly interested in this historical event. Children trust staff and feel accepted and safe. As a result, children feel confident to express themselves. Staff are extremely focused on supporting children to

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Outstanding

regulate their emotions and express their feelings positively. Staff have an exceptional understanding of each child, their histories and why they behave the way they do. Staff are extremely compassionate and empathetic in their approach to encourage children to communicate their emotions, to reflect on them and to understand why they have behaved in a certain way. This has been extremely successful in supporting children to talk about their feelings rather than resort to violent or aggressive outbursts. For one child, their incidents of aggressive behaviour remain high, but they have reduced over time. Staff are continually reflecting on their practice and reviewing their strategies when they have lost their effectiveness. This has meant that staff have had to be extremely resourceful and creative in finding different strategies to support him to recognise his feelings and to find an alternative way to express

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Outstanding

himself without resorting to violence. Children receive exceptional holistic support. They receive regular therapy from the organisation’s therapeutic team. This is supporting them to process their experiences, to understand their backgrounds and to develop positive self-views and resilience. Staff are continuously alert to children’s health needs. Their routine medical appointments are well-attended and their more specific health requirements are met to a high standard. Staff monitor and review children’s development through six-weekly meetings with all professionals involved in the child’s care. These meetings provide a forum to discuss and reflect on the children’s progress, the strategies in place and the additional support they may need to improve their outcomes. The six-weekly reviews are used effectively, along with the children’s wishes, to devise targets to support children to reach their goals. Staff use a staged approach to support

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Outstanding

children to accomplish their goals through achievable steps. Children receive awards for their achievements and these strategies have been extremely successful in supporting children to develop new skills and to take more responsibility for themselves. This has a significant impact on their confidence and self-esteem. Children’s wishes and feelings are extremely valued by staff. They provide numerous opportunities to express their views and have input into the running of the home through key worker sessions, residents’ meetings and daily conversations with staff. This ensures that children have a real voice and are at the centre of planning for the home. As a result, children learn that their opinions are valued and their self-worth is promoted. Staff understand the importance of having regular contact with family and significant others. They provide sensitive guidance and support to children in maintaining contact with their families where that is appropriate. Staff have worked

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Outstanding

closely with placing social workers to locate family members and to support children in re-establishing contact with relatives they have not seen for a number of years. Through the staff’s support, children have been able to improve relationships with their families. As a result, children are able to maintain a sense of belonging within their families and to learn and understand more about their backgrounds, aiding their sense of identity.

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Good

Staff nurture supportive and trusting relationships with children who feel able to share their concerns with staff. Children say that they feel listened to and are confident that staff will take action to address any worries they may have. There has been one complaint made since the previous inspection. This was dealt with sensitively and appropriately. Children say that they have good relationships with each other and feel their relationships reflect that of siblings. Conflicts within the home are mainly of sibling-style arguments, and bullying or targeting type behaviours rarely occur. Staff use restorative approaches to support children to discuss their issues with each other and to find a resolution. This encourages them to take responsibility for their actions. The home’s staffing levels are high, reflecting the complex needs of the children. The high staff ratios also ensure continuity of care and provide the level of support

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Good

children need to form positive attachments with staff, to have positive experiences and to be kept safe from harm. Staff use their excellent relationships with children to engage them in discussions and to provide education on topics such as bullying and e-safety. This enables children to develop an understanding of how to keep themselves safe. Staff take their safeguarding responsibilities extremely seriously and report concerns to the appropriate authorities. Staff have strong relationships with other agencies and work closely with them to promote children’s safety. During children’s review meetings, staff review their risk assessments with other professionals involved in the child’s care. This ensures that all agencies are aware of any new risks and use consistent strategies to keep the child safe. The home’s risk assessments are extremely comprehensive and provide a detailed assessment of the risks and protective factors. However, one risk assessment had not been

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Good

updated to reflect that a child now had access to free time and did not require constant supervision during these periods. As a result, staff were not being adequately informed of the current risks to the child or the action they needed to take to safeguard him. In this case, this could have prevented the child’s access to free time, impacting on his ability to develop his independence. Children do not leave the home without permission. The home has clear procedures within their policy and each child has an individual protocol in place for staff to follow if this occurs. However, the policy and protocols do not advise of the proactive steps staff should take to dissuade children from going missing. This could impede the staff’s ability to prevent incidents of missing and keep the children safe. A high number of physical interventions take place within this home. These have been appropriate due to the levels of aggression displayed. The majority of

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Good

incidents involve one child, for whom there has been a reduction in restraints since his starting point. It is clear that staff are analysing incidents to identify triggers and have an excellent knowledge of the causes of his behaviours, such as his anxiety. Staff persistently review the effectiveness of their strategies and regularly obtain external professional advice to improve their practice to support the child to express his feelings without resorting to violent outbursts. Staff reinforce positive behaviour through rewarding children for their achievements. To encourage table manners, staff are rewarding positive behaviour during mealtimes with stickers which make up a picture. When the picture is complete, the child is rewarded with a takeaway. A similar reward is used to support children to settle at bedtime. Both have had a significant impact on supporting children to improve their behaviour.

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Good

Staff have been extremely creative and resourceful in their strategies to encourage children to express their feelings more constructively or to divert their attention to prevent their behaviour escalating into aggression. Staff have used countless strategies, including distraction boxes, traffic light systems, alert systems, mirroring and code words. When each strategy has lost its effectiveness, staff have not been complacent and are continually diversifying their approach to support children to manage their behaviour. There has been a significant improvement in the recording of restraints and sanctions. It is evident that staff spend time talking with children to establish why they were behaving in that way, how they were feeling and how they could better express it. It is also evident that the manager is now evaluating interventions and staff practice and is making recommendations to improve the staff’s responses.

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Good

Children live in an extremely homely and comfortable environment. There are pictures of the children around the home, and their rooms are extremely personalised, providing children with a sense of belonging. The home has excellent health and safety measures in place to protect children from the risk of harm. All checks are up to date and appropriate fire safety measures are in place to reduce risk. The manager demonstrates a good understanding of safe recruitment procedures. Since the previous inspection, no new staff have joined the organisation. Although there have been some changes in the team, staff who have joined have worked within the organisation for a number of years. Therefore, recruitment files were not appraised during this inspection.

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Outstanding

The manager was registered with Ofsted in respect of this service in January 2015. He holds an NVQ level 4 in leadership and management and has a number of years’ experience in this sector. The manager has high aspirations and is extremely ambitious for the children in his care. He leads by example and has successfully embedded a culture where children comes first. He demonstrates an extensive knowledge and understanding of children he cares for and leads an extremely dedicated team which prioritises the best interests of each child. Consequently, children make significant progress from their starting points. The manager and his staff value partnership working and, as a result, they have excellent relationships with professionals inside and outside of their organisation. They work proactively with other professionals to ensure that children receive care of an outstanding quality. Staff engage support from the therapists, occupational

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Outstanding

therapists and team-teach instructors to reflect on children’s behaviours, what children are feeling and how staff can best support them. This ensures that children receive evolving care that continues to meet their changing needs. Managers effectively advocate and challenge on behalf of each child to ensure that other professionals carry out their responsibilities and support children to progress and to reach their potential. There are sophisticated systems in place to support the manager in identifying trends and patterns in children’s behaviour and to monitor their development. The manager and staff carry out regular reviews to analyse and evaluate children’s development and to appraise their practice so that they can adapt their strategies to support children to grow and develop. The manager has excellent oversight of the service. He has a good understanding of its strengths and weaknesses and where improvements are needed.

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Outstanding

The independent visitor completes monitoring reports monthly and submits them to Ofsted within the required timescales. The reports are detailed, and their recommendations aid the manager in improving the care provided. However, the manager has not consulted or obtained feedback from others involved in the children’s care. This means that children’s families and professionals are not actively involved in defining or measuring the quality of the service, and nor are they able to contribute to the future planning of the home. Staff are extremely skilled and competent in caring for the children and deliver high quality care in line with the home’s statement of purpose. They use their knowledge of attachment theory and the home’s approach of dyadic development effectively to develop their relationships with the children to support them to grow and develop. Staff have undertaken regular training opportunities to ensure that they are able to

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Outstanding

meet the needs of each child. All staff who are required to do so have completed their diploma, and those who have not are currently in the process of doing so. Staff describe the manager as supportive and say that they receive regular supervision. The manager is constantly striving to develop his staff team in order to improve practice and the quality of care. As a result, these areas feature highly within supervision and are reflected in the staff’s drive to find creative and innovative strategies to support children to express themselves positively. The staff team is of an exceptional calibre and is extremely motivated to providing outstanding care to support children to reach their potential.

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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, but 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, work- based 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

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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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