Children's Home, Residential special school run by The Hesley Group Limited in Doncaster

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:

 Young people benefit from the secure relationships built with their well-known core staff team.  Importance is given to young people’s safety.  Staff work to establish positive daily routines and structure, which supports young people to make progress over time.  Young people benefit from support from a specialist health team.  Young people expand their daily life experiences and access a wide range of educational, social and leisure activities in the home and in the community.  Staff receive continued support and training, which provides them with the necessary information and skills to be able to care well for young people.

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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

The registered person must make arrangements for the handling, recording, safekeeping, safe administration and disposal of medicine received into the children’s home. In particular, the registered person must ensure that a record is kept of the administration of medicines to each child (Regulation 23(1)(2)(c)) In particular, the registered person must ensure that the medication administration record is signed immediately after medication is given to a young person. 28 June 2016

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Requirement Due date

The leadership and management standard is that the registered person enables, inspires and leads a culture in relation to the children’s home that helps children aspire to fulfil their potential and promotes their welfare. (Regulation 13(1) In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to ensure that the home has sufficient staff to provide care for each child; understand the impact that the quality of care provided in the home is having on the progress and experiences of each child and use this understanding to inform the development of the quality of care provided in the home; use monitoring and review systems to make continuous improvements in the quality of care provided in the home. (2)(e)(f)(h)) In order to meet the regulation, the registered persons must maintain a stable, consistent and experienced core team for each young person; fully implement the behaviour assessments and

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Requirement Due date

strategies devised by the therapeutic team, including recording the detail of the action taken and the outcomes of behaviour 28 September management strategies and body map recordings; and continue to build on the monitoring systems within the service.

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Recommendations

To improve the quality and standards of care further, the service should take account of the following recommendation:  Staff should continually and actively assess the risks to each child and the arrangements in place to protect them. (‘Guide to the children’s home regulations including the quality standards’, page 42, paragraph 9.5). In particular, they should ensure that body map recordings clearly detail the action taken, and evaluate the outcome of the action taken.

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Information about this children's home

This service, run by a company, is a residential special school that accommodates young people that have complex needs and severe learning disabilities including autism. The whole school is a registered children’s home.

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Recent inspection history

Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

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Recent inspection history

22 March 2016 Interim Sustained effectiveness

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Recent inspection history

10 October 2015 Full Requires improvement

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Recent inspection history

16 March 2015 Interim Sustained effectiveness

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Good

Young people build positive and sustained relationships with their established allocated core staff team. These staff know young people well and provide them with a sense of belonging and stability. Young people respond well and make progress because of the individualised care, daily life routines and structure. This reduces their anxiety levels, enabling them to maintain more settled behaviour. In turn, they are able to extend their social interaction. Young people participate and increase their life experiences through new social and leisure activities. For example, young people have taken part in a number of trips, including a recent residential barge trip. They enjoy going to discos, attending rebound therapy, swimming, ice-skating, walking, shopping and going to the cinema. Young people have enjoyed a raft of leisure activities planned for the school half-term holidays, with on-site and community-based

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Good

pursuits. This activity programme finished with a party to celebrate the queen’s 90 th birthday. Young people have good school attendance and make progress towards attaining the goals and targets set. The collaborative working between the care staff, school staff and the speech and language therapist ensures that young people expand their communication skills. During the inspection, young people actively used picture communication symbols to communicate with staff, making requests and choices throughout the day. This improved communication enhances young people’s daily lives, allowing them to make decisions and to convey their views, opinions and needs. Staff respect young people’s cultural and religious needs. For example, they provide halal food for those practising their Muslim faith. There is a focus on supporting young people to develop independence skills. Over time, young people gain daily living skills to attend to

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Good

aspects of their own personal care and to dress and feed themselves. Some participate in processing their own laundry, help to tidy their bedrooms and go shopping for new clothes. This ensures that young people gain self-confidence and manage aspects of their own lives. Every effort is made to ensure that a transition plan, to prepare young people over 18 years of age for their move to an adult provision, is in place. The service sometimes experiences trouble in obtaining these plans from the placing authorities. However, the manager is actively working with placing authorities to ensure that plans for young people’s transitions to adult services occur in good time. Young people have good access to health services. They receive regular check-ups with doctors, dentists and opticians. Staff members’ attention to ensuring that the young people have a balanced diet and to promoting physical activity has brought improved

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Good

health outcomes for a number of young people, who now benefit from being within the average weight range for their age and height. A specialist on-site health support team (for example, psychologists and speech and language therapists) and links with community health services maintain and improve young people’s health. The service has a policy on and procedure for the safe storage, administration and recording of medication. Staff receive suitable training before administering medication. To ensure that young people’s medication is safely administered the service has an established monitoring system. However, inspectors found recording omissions in the medication administered in one house. Particular staff had not followed the clear medication procedures. These deficits do not ensure that the administration of all medication is carried out in line with the doctor’s instructions. Young people benefit greatly from living in small groups or alone in domestic-style flats

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Good

and houses. The service is completing a refurbishment programme. A young person said, ‘I have chosen the colour for my bedroom and I like our new TV.’ The renovation of young people’s accommodation and the addition of new furnishings have enhanced their daily environment. In addition, young people benefit from the large grounds and access to on- site activity amenities. Family contact is well supported and facilitated. Parents visit the home and/or have regular phone contact, chatting to their children and the staff. A number of young people have visits and overnight stays at their families’ homes. Thus, young people benefit from the positive relationships supported and maintained with those who are important to them.

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Good

Staff demonstrate a clear understanding of each young person’s risks and vulnerabilities. This information is clearly recorded in individual risk assessments, support and help profiles. Regular reviews of this information take place to ensure that accurate details and strategies support keeping young people safe. Young people benefit from high levels of staff support to make certain that they receive constant supervision. This significantly reduces any opportunities for them to go missing and prevents the risk of exploitation. There have been no incidents of young people going missing. Staff work alongside young people to promote positive behaviour. They are aware of the things that will cause them anxiety, and the strategies to use to reduce these whenever possible. Young people respond well to consistent boundaries, which contributes to their feeling safe and secure. When young people’s behaviour escalates to a level at which they are in danger, or there are risks to other young

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Good

people, they are physically held to protect themselves and others. One member of staff stated, ‘This is a last resort.’ This is evident in the records as there have been only three incidents since the last inspection. This indicates that the behaviour strategies used to support and stabilise young people’s behaviour work. However, staff do not always follow the psychologist’s instructions. They are not consistently completing the forms to monitor young people’s patterns of behaviour and their responses to the implementation of intervention strategies. This affects particular young people and their potential progress relating to making positive changes to aspects of their behaviour. Records are kept in which any injury, including cuts and bruises, are noted. These specify the nature and location of the injury. Care managers and/or the health practice lead have oversight of these incidents, which includes seeing the young

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Good

person. However, the records kept do not always explain the cause, fully record the action taken or evaluate the outcome. This falls short of demonstrating the robust response taken in practice, and does not indicate clearly the decisions made by the senior team involved. Young people live in a safe environment, where fire, health and safety checks are routinely undertaken. There is a good response to addressing repairs and maintenance issues. This protects and promotes young people’s safety and well- being. Staff clearly understand child protection and whistle-blowing procedures. The service takes swift action to report safeguarding concerns. Prompt investigations take place, and the designated office for the local safeguarding children’s board has independent oversight. This ensures that appropriate action is taken to protect young people from further harm. The service undertakes careful selection and vetting when recruiting staff. This

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Good

includes carrying out suitable checks, which comprises full employment histories, police checks and obtaining references. As a result, staff are safe and suitable to work with young people.

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Good

The registered manager has been in post since 2014 and has over twenty years’ experience. She holds level 5 and level 4 diplomas in care and management. The management team has a child-centred approach, with a clear focus on the progress that young people make. This reflects the service’s statement of purpose. In addition to young people’s statutory reviews, a further in-house management review meeting is held at least three monthly to assess each young person’s needs. This provides a continued emphasis on the young people’s progression. Staff receive good support, through daily handovers, regular supervision and appraisals. They undertake a wide range of training that commences with a three- week induction. Ongoing training includes behaviour management, first aid, safeguarding, communication and autism. Staff quickly complete the level 3 diploma in care. This makes certain that they have the skills and knowledge to

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Good

provide a good standard of care to young people. Young people benefit from high staffing levels, which maintains and provides them with close support and supervision at all times. This allows them to participate fully in all daily routines and activities and assists in keeping them safe. The manager has acted to implement the requirements and recommendations made at the last inspection. The regulation 45 monitoring report undertaken by the manager now includes views and opinions from young people. A review and training has been undertaken with staff relating to the incident of holding doors to manage a young person’s behaviour. The practice of holding doors to restrict young people’s movement has ceased. Risk assessments and restraint records are accurately completed. Changes and improvements to the management monitoring now ensure c lear records of the management analysis and decision– making, after significant incidents occur.

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Good

The service works in partnership with social workers and families. More recently, working relationships with a number of local health services have been established and built on. These include relationships with the local doctor’s surgery and community nursing services. This ensures that parents are kept well informed about their child’s care and well-being and that all people caring and supporting young people work consistently together, sharing information to benefit the young people’s progress and experiences. The registered manager and the senior team know and understand the strengths and weaknesses of the home. As a result, they are giving purposeful attention to the retention of staff and to exploring a number of solutions. There continues to be a core of long-standing staff, while the turnover of a proportion of the care team persists. This affects the young people, as most find any change difficult to cope

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Good

with. The manager has balanced the allocated core staff teams with experienced and newer staff with the aim of achieving stability for young people. However, this area remains a service weakness, and if not addressed could affect the quality of care delivered. The service benefits from the thorough monitoring by the regulation 44 visitor, who reports on the progress and good practice in the service, while consistently supporting improvement through the recommendations made each month. There is a range of other supporting monitoring systems. These include night-time visits, medication, and environment and record audits, along with the manager’s regulation 45 monitoring. These assist in supporting the examination of the quality of care provided. However, the monitoring systems have not detected the shortfalls found in the recording of the action taken, the evaluation of minor injuries records and the lack of recordings made on young people’s behaviour

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Good

requested by the psychologist and therapy team. Consequently, the monitoring system still requires adapting in order to capture all aspects of the service. This will further enhance and provide an overarching view of the quality of care provided 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’. 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 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

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, workbased 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

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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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