Children's home in Birmingham

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:

 The manager and staff fail to explore and analyse patterns of absence and links to young people’s vulnerability to radicalisation and child exploitation.  Young people are not safe because the manager does not work in partnership to assess and tackle indicators of child sexual exploitation and radicalisation.  Risk management does not respond to or keep young people safe from self- injurious behaviours.  Young people do not have up-to-date children looked after health assessments.  Communication processes for young people who do not have English as their first language are inconsistent.  Some staff do not have required reference checks on file or have the required qualification to work with children and young people.  Staff lack up-to-date awareness and training about radicalisation, child exploitation and self-injurious behaviours.  Recording is poor and mistakes go unchecked.  Monitoring and the drive for improvement are poor. Some requirements and

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The children's home provision requires improvement because:

recommendations from the previous inspection remain unmet. A series of further shortfalls are identified and regulated against as a result of this inspection.

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The children's home strengths

 School attendance is a priority in this home. All young people attend school. Staff comment that school attendance is a ‘product of the environment here. They all go and so [are a] good example for all young people.’  Social workers are pleased that the staff have been able to have an early impact on helping young people to disassociate from gang-related activities.

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Statutory requirements

This section sets out the actions that must be taken so that the registered persons meet 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 persons must comply within the given timescales.

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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)(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 as an adult. 18 July 2016

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Requirement Due date

In order to meet the health and well-being standard, the registered person must ensure that staff help each child to (2)(a)(i) achieve the health and well-being outcomes that are recorded in the child’s relevant plans; (ii) understand the child’s health and well-being needs and the options that are available in relation to the child’s health and well- being, in a way that is appropriate to the child’s age and understanding; (c) that each child has access to such dental, medical, nursing, psychiatric and psychological advice, treatment and other services as the child may require. 18 July 2016

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Requirement Due date

11: The positive relationships standard In order to meet the positive relationship standard, the registered person must ensure that staff (2)(a)(ix) understand how children’s previous experiences and present emotions can be communicated through behaviour and 18 July 2016 have the competence and skills to interpret these and develop positive relationships with children. This is with particular regard to understanding and managing young people’s self-injurious behaviours.

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Requirement Due date

12: The protection of children standard In order to meet the protection of children standard, the registered person must ensure that staff (2)(a)(i) assess whether each child is at risk of harm, taking into account information in the child’s relevant plans, and, if necessary, make arrangements to reduce the risk of any harm to the child; (ii) help each child to understand how to keep safe; (iii) have the skills to identify and act upon signs that a child is at risk of harm; (v) understand the roles and responsibilities in relation to protecting children that are assigned to them by the registered person; (vi) take effective action whenever there is a serious concern about a child’s welfare; and (vii) are familiar with, and act in accordance with, the home’s child protection policies. 18 July 2016

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Requirement Due date

13: The leadership and management standard In order to meet the leadership and management standard, the registered person must (2)(g) demonstrate that practice in the home is informed and improved by taking into account and acting on (i) research and developments in relation to the ways in which the needs of children are best met; and (h) use monitoring and review systems to make continuous improvements in the quality of care provided in the home. 18 July 2016

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Requirement Due date

24: Monitoring and surveillance 18 July 2016 The registered person may only use devices for the monitoring or surveillance of children if the child’s placing authority consents in writing to the monitoring or surveillance, and, so far as reasonably practicable in the light of the child’s age and understanding, the child is informed in advance of the intention to do the monitoring or surveillance (Regulation 24(1)(b)(c)).

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must recruit staff using recruitment procedures that are designed to ensure children’s safety, and may only employ an individual to work at the children’s home who satisfies the requirement that full and satisfactory information is available in relation to the individual in respect of each of the matters in Schedule 2 (Regulation 32(1)(2)(a)(3)(d)). 18 July 2016

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Requirement Due date

The registered person may only employ the individuals with the appropriate experience, qualification and skills for the work that the individual is to perform. This is with particular regard to the completion of the Level 3 Diploma for Residential Childcare (England) (Regulation 32(3)(b)(4)(a)). 18 July 2016

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must ensure that all employees undertake appropriate continuing professional development. This is with particular regard to training in radicalisation, child sexual exploitation and self-injurious behaviour (Regulation 33(4)(a)). 18 July 2016

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must maintain records (‘case records’) for each child, which are kept up to date and are signed and dated by the author of each entry (Regulation 36(1)(b)(c)). 18 July 2016 37: Other records

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must maintain in the home the records in Schedule 4 and ensure that records are kept up to date. This is with particular regard to the home’s admission and discharge register (Regulation 37(1)(a)(b)). 18 July 2016

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Recommendations

To improve the quality and standards of care further, the service should take account of the following recommendations:  Record information about the child in a way that will be helpful to the child (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 62, paragraph 14).  Support children and their parents to understand the nature of records kept in the home and how to access them. Staff should understand their role in encouraging the child to reflect on and understand their history, according to their age and understanding. Staff should keep and encourage children to keep appropriate memorabilia and help them to record significant life events (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 62, paragraph 14.5).

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Information about this children's home

This local authority children’s home is registered to care for eight children with emotional and behavioural difficulties. The home’s statement of purpose states that children can be of either gender and between the ages of –nine and 17 years. The home offers short, long-term and emergency care to children.

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Recent inspection history

Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

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Recent inspection history

10 March 2016 Interim Sustained effectiveness

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Recent inspection history

10 November 2015 Full Requires improvement

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Recent inspection history

12 March 2015 Interim Sustained effectiveness

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Requires improvement

The overall experience and progress of young people requires improvement because some are not safe and their health needs go unmet. Some young people are unhappy at the home and increasingly run away. While relatively new to the home, they gradually comply less, demand more and become more confrontational. Some young people, as young as 14 years of age, spend extensive periods away from the home and are not reported absent or missing. Their safety cannot be promoted because staff are, for the majority of the time, unaware of their whereabouts. Unmet placement planning targets include lack of health assessment for young people with very little medical history, addiction problems, self-injurious behaviours and mental health needs due to significant trauma. Some young people remain in a poor state of mental health and have injured themselves, resulting in admission to hospital, due to lack of planned care or

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Requires improvement

support from staff and relevant agencies. Staff fail to impact on the smoking habits of young people as young as 13 and 14 years of age. Supervising the spending of young people makes little difference. Staff are unaware of young people’s sources of supplies of cigarettes and therefore intelligence about indicators of child sexual exploitation. Young people’s records do not provide meaningful information about their experiences and looked-after journey. For example, records provide little detail about their important transition from the home to new foster carers. Records mainly show a list of dates, with no details about how young people are feeling. There is no detail regarding any arrangements made for them to say goodbye to staff and their peers. While managers and staff insist that leaving arrangements were made, the records show little value of this significant period in young people’s lives and experiences at the home.

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Requires improvement

While staff liaise with interpreters to help young people to make sense of the home, communication in the home is inconsistent. Young people without English as their first language have to retain lots of information as few documents and other information are translated. For example, information about how to contact the mental health care crisis team and the role of independent consultation with a missing-from-care co-coordinator is not accessible to such young people. Some young people have tenuous relationships with staff, with no backdrop of support agencies in place. In contrast, other young people make good progress. They maintain positive attendance at school and appreciate their developing relationships with staff. Morning routines and individual approaches to getting young people up support their attendance at education. For those young people who currently find attendance a challenge, staff work hard to encourage and set very firm

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Requires improvement

boundaries. This includes staff transporting young people who may be late in getting up and initially refusing to attend. Staff do not give up and this determination filters down to all young people in the home. The home has made a difference for young people as staff develop a good understanding of autism and best ways to communicate with young people. Young people feel more assured because staff know how to be calm and direct in their approach. A calmer environment allows young people who are noise sensitive to feel more comfortable in the home, and they blossom with confidence. Young people take a far greater part in the daily running of the home and activities since the peer group has reduced in size, and with the improvements in communication. Relationships between the majority of young people and staff are positive. The strength of attachments is demonstrated in how young people remain in contact

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Requires improvement

after they leave the home. Some young people value the home’s contribution to their progress and return to talk to other young people who may be currently struggling with the boundaries in the home. Staff support some young people to engage with therapeutic services. Counselling provides these young people with valuable opportunities to discuss their previous history and experiences, and how these have an impact on current behaviour. Some young people’s abilities to maintain their bedrooms and personal items better may be a result of developing emotional health. Staff work to ensure that young people are able to seek out and enjoy safe and appropriate contact with family members. Staff value young people’s backgrounds. They provide support to re-unite young people who have been separated from their families when travelling to and entering this country. There has been a high turnover of young people, with the majority moving into

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Requires improvement

foster placements. These transitions are, so far, going well. Young people also grow in confidence and work towards being more independent. Young people take small and positive steps so that they and staff can monitor their safety as they try new things on their own. Some young people now use public transport independently, visit the local supermarket and go on activities with friends. Their self-esteem blossoms as they enjoy greater trust from staff and more self- determination in their day-to-day routines. Dynamics among the peer group are much improved. Young people report that they get on well and, when this is not the case, they are able to remain a good distance from young people who wind them up. Some young people enjoy the smaller peer group as the home now operates with only four young people, instead of eight at full capacity. They say that this helps behaviour as there are fewer arguments and the house is calmer.

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Requires improvement

The majority of young people’s health improves as staff support them to engage with health agencies and to address the impact of a history of neglect. For example, young people’s diets are much improved and they now eat regularly and healthily. They also enjoy a range of activities, with swimming and football as firm favourites as part young people’s keep-fit interests.

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Requires improvement

Procedures to keep young people safe are not robust and require improvement. Safeguarding protocols, inter-agency liaison and staff practice all lack rigour and fail to respond to the risks and vulnerability of some young people. Missing-from- care protocols do not respond to the current risk and vulnerabilities of young people. The manager lacks insight and challenge. Young people eventually return to the home, albeit late, but there is little focus on the whereabouts, activities and associations of these young people. Frequent incidents of young people absenting themselves from the home, including climbing over high perimeter fences and trying to leave unnoticed remain unreported with no referral or request for inter-agency safeguarding response. These absences are not recorded in the home as significant events. As a result, managers are unable to track patterns of behaviour that may be crucial indicators

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Requires improvement

of child exploitation and potential radicalisation. Lack of staff training in radicalisation and child exploitation further undermine an already shaky response to safeguarding young people. The manager provides reading material, but this lacks relevance to the current challenges of the vulnerabilities presented by young, unaccompanied, asylum-seeking young people living at the home. Safeguarding also lacks rigour because young people’s vulnerable pen pictures and risk assessments are not up to date. Risk-management strategies lack information on significant risks such as substance use, addiction and self-injurious behaviour. This means that police cannot be aware of significant risks when such young people are reported missing. Most young people’s behaviour improves and some of this success helps with young people’s transitions to foster placement. Young people are proud of their efforts to improve, particularly of their abilities to

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Requires improvement

maintain their bedrooms and personal items better. They say that they are better at calming down alone, breathing calmly and talking things through. Quiet colouring and writing down reflections also help young people to express their emotions and to regulate behaviour. Other young people say that they have managed to stay away from poor associations and gang-related activity. They say that they are able to keep to their curfews and electronic tagging conditions because staff offer positive choices with a range of activities. Some young people are inspired by positive role models in the home. They now say that they would like to work with children when they are older, because they understand what it is like to get into trouble and then be helped. Young people understand the risk of using computers and the internet. They are fully versed about the home’s new e-safety equipment and understand how staff

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Requires improvement

Some statutory requirements and the two recommendations from two previous inspections remain unmet, and this includes a requirement to improve leadership and management. Recording remains poor, as records are not accurate. Mapping the experiences of young people and the quality of action taken by staff is difficult because records and emails are often not dated. Shortfalls in recording also include the home’s register for admissions and discharges. Recent entries do not include information about young people’s placing authority or their previous placements. Monitoring in the home remains poor and allows significant recording shortfalls to go unchecked. Some staff and managers countersign their own documents and therefore improvement in areas such as risk assessment and missing-from-care protocols cannot be achieved. Other staff practices go unchecked. For example, staff use a metal detector on specific young people when they return to the home. This approach to surveillance

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Requires improvement

does not have written consent from social workers and is not reflected in the home’s statement of purpose. Staff fail to understand how this procedure may have a negative impact on young people’s experiences at the home. These shortfalls now have an impact on the safety of young people because key risks are not identified or communicated to other key safeguarding agencies via risk assessment and missing-from-care protocols Recommendations to record meaningful information to help young people to make sense of their looked after experience is not met. These shortfalls carry over from two previous inspections. There is now an impact on young people as their files have little evidence about important transitions in their lives. There is little research and development to inform and improve staff practice. This is most visible when looking at missing from care, child exploitation, risks of radicalisation and the poor outcomes for some young people living at the home.

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Requires improvement

Furthermore, staff do not regularly update themselves with core policies and procedures to inform their practice. Staffing arrangements meet the needs of the young people. A decrease in occupancy from eight to four young people benefits young people because they receive more one-to-one time. Individual time means that young people do not have to compete for attention. Individual and group dynamics are calmer, and relationships with staff are positive. However, the transfer of staff into substantive posts in the home is not robust enough to promote consistent care and safety to children and young people. While these staff have worked across several of the local authority’s homes for several years, they have not completed a required level 3 qualification in caring for children. Staff records do not contain two reference checks. External monitoring does not have a full impact on improvement. For example,

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Requires improvement

independent visitors’ reports raise recommendations regarding staff reading the home’s policies and procedures. However, the system brought in by managers for staff to update their knowledge has had little impact. For example, sometimes less than a third of staff have refreshed themselves with key polices such as safeguarding and disciplinary measures. Other requirements from the previous inspection are met. For example, the physical environment is improving as young people’s bedrooms are redecorated, furnished with robust furniture and personalised to a good standard. Young people were very keen to show the inspector around the home and wanted to ‘save best until last’ which was one of the young person’s bedroom. This took precedence over new outdoor play equipment and plans to update the computer system in the home. Staff have worked with education services to ensure that education arrangements are improved for one specific young person. This improvement has had a positive

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Requires improvement

impact as this young person has moved to a fostering placement and is looking forward to better educational opportunities. The registered manager has managed this home since March 2007 and brings extensive experience to the role. He is about to complete a level 5 diploma in management, as an extension to his existing level 4 national vocational qualification in management. With the above exception, all other staff have a level 3 qualification in caring for children in a residential setting. Young people receive good information about the home. The transition process includes the use of an interpreter for those young people who do not speak English. However, these young people have to retain information, as key documents such as the young people’s guide are not translated. The management team clearly understands and is sensitive to the impact that the pending transition of this local authority service to the private sector is having on

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Requires improvement

staff and young people. While the management team are very hands on and maintain close and approachable relationships with all the young people, lack of management direction and monitoring is now having an impact on the running of the home. Poor detail in record-keeping now seriously compromises the management team’s ability to track trends and patterns in behaviour and staff practice. This affects the monitoring of the impact of staff practice, compromises the home’s statement of purpose and limits the drive for improvement. Shortfalls now accumulate, as they remain unaddressed from the manager’s audits, independent monitoring and the previous Ofsted inspection.

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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 that 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 that adults make to the lives of children and young people. They read case files, watched how professional staff work with children, young people and each other and discussed the effectiveness of help and care given to children and young people. Wherever possible, they talked to children, young people and their families. In addition, the inspectors have tried to understand what the children's home knows about how well it is performing, how well it is doing and what difference it is making for the children and young people whom it is trying to help, protect and look after. This inspection was carried out under the Care Standards Act 2000 to assess the effectiveness of the service and to consider how well it complies with the Children's

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Information about this inspection

Homes (England) Regulations 2015 and the ‘Guide to the children's homes regulations including the quality standards’. the guidance raising concerns and making complaints about Ofsted, which is available from Ofsted's website: www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ofsted . If you would like Ofsted to send you a copy of the guidance, please telephone 0300123 4234, or email enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk .

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Information about this inspection

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Information about this inspection

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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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