Children's Home run by Stockton on Tees Borough Council in Stockton-on-Tees

Good

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

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The children's home provision is good because:

 The nurturing, committed staff team enables children and young people to feel safe and achieve progress in most areas of their lives.  Partnership working with other agencies is strong.  The manager and staff team build trusting relationships with children, young people and their families. They are welcoming and supportive to families, and celebrate achievements of young people.  The manager and staff remain committed to children and young people throughout difficulties in managing behaviour.  The approach to restorative behaviour in response to incidents has had a positive effect on young people.  Recruitment practice is comprehensive and effective.  Educational placements are well supported, with staff assisting with homework, reading and so on.  Young people in work placements are well supported, with staff attending events where young people demonstrate the skills that they are learning.  Children and young people are supported to take part in community

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The children's home provision is good because:

activities that enable them to maintain good health, such as a range of sports.

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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 must comply within the given timescales.

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Requirement Due date

In order to meet the protection of children standard, with particular reference to risk assessing and the locality risk assessment, the standard in paragraph 12(1) requires the registered person to ensure—

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Requirement Due date

(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;

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Requirement Due date

(vi) take effective action whenever there is a serious concern about a child’s welfare.

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Requirement Due date

(c) that the premises used for the purposes of the home are located so that children are effectively safeguarded. 14 July 2016

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must notify HMCI and each other relevant person without delay if—

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Requirement Due date

a child is involved in or subject to, or is suspected of being involved in or subject to sexual exploitation (Regulation 40 (4)(a)). 15 June 2016

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Recommendations

To improve the quality and standards of care further the service should take account of the following recommendation(s):  Any sanctions used to address poor behaviour should be restorative in nature, to help children recognise the impact of their behaviour on themselves, other children, the staff caring for them and the wider community. In some cases it will be important for children to make reparation in some form to anyone hurt by their behaviour and the staff in the home should be skilled to support the child to understand this and carry it out. In particular, sanctions must be recorded. ('Guide to the children's homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 46, paragraph 9.38).  The registered person should ensure that all incidents of control, discipline and restraint are subject to systems of regular scrutiny to ensure that their use is fair and record their findings. For restraints, this should be within required timescales

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Recommendations

('Guide to the children's homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 46, paragraph 9.36).  All children's case records (regulation 36) must be kept up to date and stored securely whilst they remain in the home. Case records must be kept up-to-date and signed and dated by the author of each entry ('Guide to the children's homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 62, paragraph 14.3).  The registered person should plan staffing levels to ensure that they meet the needs of children and can respond flexibly to unexpected events or opportunities. Staffing structures should promote continuity of care from the child's perspective ('Guide to the children's homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 54, paragraph 10.15).  Staff need the knowledge and skills to recognise and be alert for any signs that might indicate a child is in any way at risk of harm. The registered person should

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Recommendations

ensure that skills in safeguarding are gained, refreshed and recorded in the homes workforce plan ('Guide to the children's homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 43, paragraph 9.12).  Staff should be familiar with the home's policies on record keeping and understand the importance of careful, objective, and clear recording. Staff should record information on individual children in a non-stigmatising way that distinguishes between fact, opinion and third-party information. Information about the child must always be recorded in a way that will be helpful to the child ('Guide to the children's homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 62, paragraph 14.4).

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Information about this children's home

This children’s home is registered to care for up to three young people with emotional or behavioural difficulties. The registered provider is a local authority.

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Recent inspection history

Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

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Recent inspection history

16 March 2016 Interim Sustained effectiveness

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Recent inspection history

12 March 2015 Interim Improved effectiveness

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Good

Children and young people are settled and are achieving in their lives, despite a period of disruption within the home. They have positive, warm relationships with staff. A child said, ‘They are all my favourites.’ The staff speak to children and young people in a calm, nurturing manner and use good humour to diffuse situations. This helps to generate a positive sense of belonging. A young person said, ‘It’s good here, I feel safe.’

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Good

Staff ensure that they have detailed information prior to children and young people arriving at the home. They speak to the family members and professionals involved, to gather information about the family dynamics and experiences. This enables them to gain an understanding of how these may have impacted on each child or young person. Information about past trauma is responded to with understanding and empathy. This enables comprehensive assessments to take place that inform the plans for the placement. The impact is that it helps to ensure that children and young people have good experiences while at the home and achieve their aims.

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Good

Key-worker sessions are regular and incorporate in-depth discussions about issues of concern for children, young people or staff. These are planned and link with the care plans, but can also be spontaneous. This ensures that plans are achieved, and that children and young people are afforded flexible opportunities to work through issues when they arise. As a result, children’s and young people’s confidence and level of trust improve.

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Good

Education is well promoted in the home. Children and young people are supported well with homework, and staff regularly attend events such as parents evenings. Staff advocate on their behalf and encourage them to work hard, giving positive reminders of the benefits of achieving in education. Young people at college and in work placements are equally supported. The result is that their attendance and achievement are high, compared to their starting points prior to living at the home.

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Good

Children and young people are in good health and attend appointments well. Staff support them by talking through issues that are concerning them and by transporting to appointments. In some cases, staff stay throughout therapeutic sessions at the request of children and young people. This demonstrates a level of trust that enables issues to be addressed and improves the relationships.

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Good

Activities are well planned and regular. Children and young people take part in a wide range of sporting activities such as swimming and martial arts. Such activities help to improve their social skills, as well as to generate a sense of well-being.

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Good

Contact is recognised as important in the lives of children and young people. Staff keep family members updated regularly. Staff have improved the family relationships that had been fractured before coming into contact with the home. The result is that children and young people feel able to enjoy both living at the home and visiting family. A parent said, ‘I see (name) regularly. I can see a real change, she is growing up.’

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Good

Children and young people are consulted regularly and their views are taken into account. Meetings take place with the whole group on a monthly basis. Questionnaires are used to obtain individual views about the home, and how children and young people are feeling.

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Requires improvement

Children and young people state that they feel safe within the home and the local community. A social worker said, ‘Staff do everything they can to keep him safe.’

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Requires improvement

Staff have an understanding of the practices that keep children and young people safe, and incidents of missing have reduced. If there are absences, these are for a short period of time, and staff make every effort to locate the children and young people before reporting them as missing to the police. Return interviews are carried out by social workers regularly. A neighbourhood police officer said, ‘The staff are really good, they do everything they can to find young people before they call us.’ However, after 10.00pm each evening there is only one member staff on duty, therefore they cannot go looking for those who have gone missing and the police is the only option.

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Requires improvement

Risk assessments are carried out, and are reviewed regularly. However, these need to be updated when incidents occur as well as during timetabled reviews. Risk assessments continue to be written with an adult focus, and are not accessible to children and young people.

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Requires improvement

Staff have an understanding of safeguarding and the associated situations which place young people at risk of exploitation and abusive relationships. Following an incident when two young people were in a risky situation in the community, the staff team followed relevant protocols. Every effort was made to have them returned safely. However, this incident was not reported to the regulator as required. There were no amendments made to risk assessments and risk management plans to try to prevent future incidents occurring, and the incident was viewed as a, ‘one off’. This minimises the risk factors around young people, and the result is that there is no wider oversight of potential risks and preventative action.

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Requires improvement

Records of incidents are not always comprehensive. Individual daily logs do not reflect full accounts of the day’s events. A range of logs, both hard copy and electronic, are completed but are not signed by individual members of staff. The impact is that if investigation into an incident is required, it would be difficult to ascertain who recorded what information. Importantly, if a child or young person wishes to read their records, now or in the future, they would find it difficult to follow the story of their life easily.

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Requires improvement

Positive behaviour is consistently promoted by using incentives and restorative approaches. Practice to address challenging behaviour is not always recorded as a sanction, and staff often use vague expectations of change and without timescales. The impact is that children and young people are unaware of what they need to do to change situations and within what timescale.

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Requires improvement

Restraints have been reduced. Records of incidents of restraint are comprehensive, but do not always include an evaluation by management of the effectiveness or appropriateness of such incidents.

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Requires improvement

During the recent episodes of disruptive behaviour, there have been two allegations against staff. These have been reported and investigated fully. The designated officer for safeguarding in the local authority said, ‘The home notified me quickly and everything I would expect to be done was done.’

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Requires improvement

The manager is suitably qualified and very experienced in managing residential care for children and young people. The manager was not present for the inspection, but his deputy was available. Staff report that the manager has an, ‘open door’ policy and that they feel able to approach him at any time with issues or concerns.

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Requires improvement

Recruitment practice is strong, with a comprehensive induction process that enables staff to learn throughout this time. Training for staff takes place regularly, and covers mandatory subjects such as first aid and emerging themes of practice.

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Requires improvement

Supervision records could not be evaluated, as they were not available during the inspection, but staff reported that they have regular supervision sessions. They also state that their practice is evaluated annually. This results in a stable team of staff who enjoy continuous professional development. The home is staffed with appropriately qualified people who are able to meet the needs of the children and young people living there. However, during times of disruptive behaviour, staffing levels have not been adequate to carry out all aspects of safeguarding practice. There are protocols in place to assist in such situations, but these are not always effective. The impact is that staff have been unable to look for missing children and young people, as they are working alone. This can be unsafe for all those involved.

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Requires improvement

The manager has systems in place to monitor the quality of care. These include assessments of the locality in which the home is positioned, to ensure the safety of children and young people. Such assessments are reviewed, but do not always take into account all relevant information or contain sufficient analysis and evaluation. This may result in staff being unclear about the learning to take from monitoring the systems. The impact is that the development of the home has been hampered by a lack of strategic oversight.

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Requires improvement

Monitoring processes are carried out regularly, but change in practice is not always the result. Gaps seen in records indicate that the effectiveness of monitoring is a shortfall of management practice.

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Requires improvement

The manager and staff work proactively and positively with other agencies and professionals. A social worker said that the home is, ‘brilliant’. It builds effective working relationships with parents and social workers from the local authority, enabling positive outcomes for children and 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’. 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

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What the inspection judgements mean

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 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 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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