Children's Home run by PIC Children’s Services in St Helens

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 are safe and feel safe here. This is because staff have a secure understanding of the young people’s needs and the potential risks, such as child sexual exploitation. Consequently, they are able to put effective strategies in place to keep young people safe.Staff work well with other agencies, such as the drug and alcohol team and multi-agency child sexual exploitation teams. Feedback gained from these agencies during this inspection was positive. Staff work collaboratively to keep young people safe and to give them solid foundations on which to keep themselves safe.  The young people, who is w to the home is taking more responsibility for their healthcare needs. They are making an effort to reduce the number of cigarettes that they smoke. They have made positive steps to secure education and training and have a number of options open to them for September 2016.  The young person benefits from regular and positive contact with family

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The children’s home provision is good because:

members and those significant in their lives. They reported feeling happy with levels of contact.  The home is decorated and furnished to a good standard and provides a very homely and welcoming environment for young people. Young people have access to the rear garden, but this is an underused resource. Bedrooms have been highly personalised and reflect the individual preferences of the young person.  Monitoring of the home is not yet robust. Reports by the independent person still lack the evaluation to help the home move forward. Reports are not sent to the registered manager or Ofsted in a timely manner. Some records are not sufficiently detailed; for example, healthcare plans, missing from care risk assessments and incident reports. The statement of purpose and location risk assessment are out of date.  A consistent, knowledgeable staff team cares for the young person. However, the systems for deputising when the registered manager is not

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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 within the given timescales.

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Requirement Due date

13: The leadership and management standard

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Requirement Due date

In order to meet the leadership and management standard, the registered person must–

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Requirement Due date

(2) (a) lead and manage the home in a way that is consistent with the approach and ethos, and delivers the outcomes, set out in the home’s statement of purpose; (d) ensure that the home has sufficient staff to provide care for each child.

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Requirement Due date

In particular, ensure that there are effective management structures and staff to deputise for the registered manager when she is not present. 29/08/2016

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Requirement Due date

Ensure that the registered person keeps the statement of purpose under review and, where appropriate, revises it, and notifies the HMCI of any revisions and sends HMCI a copy of the revised statement within 28 days. (Regulation 16 (3)(a)(b)) 29/08/2016

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Requirement Due date

Ensure that the registered person reviews the appropriateness and suitability of the location of the premises used for the purposes of the children’s home at least once in each calendar year taking into account the requirement in Regulation 12 (2)(c) (the protection of children standard). (Regulation 46 (1)) 29/08/2016

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Recommendations

To improve the quality and standards of care further, the service should take account of the following recommendations:  Ensure that the day-to-day basic needs of young people are met, concerning the development of the rear garden and the damaged bath panel. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, Page 15, paragraph 3.7)

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Recommendations

 Ensure that the registered manager makes best use of the independent and internal monitoring of the home to ensure continuous improvement. In particular, ensure that reports from the independent person are received by the registered manager and Ofsted in a timely fashion to inform the monitoring of the home and enable effective action to be initiated with regards to shortfalls, patterns or trends. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 55, paragraph 10.24)

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Recommendations

 Ensure that young people’s case records are up to date, are sufficiently detailed and are signed and dated by the author. This applies in particular to healthcare plans, missing from care risk assessment, and incident reports. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 62, paragraph 14.3)

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Information about this children’s home

The home is one of eight owned and managed by a private company. The home is registered to care for one young person who may have emotional and/or behavioural difficulties.

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Recent inspection history

Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

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Recent inspection history

20/03/2015 Interim Sustained effectiveness

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Good

Young people’s views are central to how the home operates. Staff value the young person’s opinions and provide regular opportunities for her to share her views. The manager has ensured that she is included in making decisions about how the home could be improved. An example of this includes the young person choosing the decor for their bedroom and other soft furnishings for the home. This has helped her to feel valued and respected. The young person said that she has a positive relationship with the staff. She said that she can talk to them about things that are bothering her, such as her belongings not being brought to her. She is aware that staff are talking to the social worker about this and that they have offered to get them for her. She was clear when she arrived that she wanted staff to care for her but not ‘baby’ her. The staff are respecting her wishes. The young person has made progress in the short time that she may have been

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Good

living in the home. Examples given by professionals, include a significant reduction in risk-taking behaviour, such as drug and alcohol misuse, and her willingness to engage with education and employment opportunities. Staff are good advocates for young people in terms of health and education. The young person benefits greatly from living in a home where the value of education is promoted and encouraged. The young person particularly enjoys sensitive and well thought out support to address her education needs. For example, staff work tirelessly to ensure appropriate education provisions are in place for her. As a result, the young person is currently contemplating whether to accept a college placement which would mean her completing a mathematics GCSE or taking up an apprenticeship in construction. She said that she is likely to try the apprenticeship as she will have college as a backup plan. This demonstrates forward thinking and

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Good

her ability to keep her career and education options open. The young person benefits from personalised care planning, which carefully considers her needs and the support needed for her to move forward in her life. For example, preparing the young person to move onto semi-independent living. She is making good progress with her budgeting skills and is talking to staff about the bills she will need to pay and how she can do this. However, her placement plans and healthcare plans are not always completed to a high standard. This results in a lack of clarity in the health sections and risk assessments concerning drugs, smoking cigarettes, alcohol and hay fever. This does not influence the care provided because staff have a very good understanding of her needs and are meeting them well in practice. Transitions in and out of the home are managed well. The registered manager and staff took every opportunity to meet with young person prior to her moving into

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Good

the home. This means that staff are able to begin to build a positive relationship with the young person, listen to her views about her likes and dislikes, and how she would like her room to be organised. Consequently, young person has quickly settle into their new home.

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Good

The safety and well-being of the young person are of paramount importance to staff. Effective multi-agency working helps them to keep the young person safe. There have been some incidents of the young person being missing from care. Staff are building a picture of the possible signs that indicate that this may occur; for example, the playing of loud music. They work closely with her family to ensure that she is located quickly as she is at high risk of child sexual exploitation. Due to her ever-changing needs, keeping the missing from care information and risk assessment up to date is imperative. This has not always happened. For example, information pertaining to the medication she is taking, what to do if she fails to answer her phone and her mood when she left the home is not included. This may affect staff’s ability to initiate the missing from care procedures effectively.

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Good

Professionals working with the young person report excellent levels of communication between themselves and the home’s staff. This collaborative approach means that staff are working together to ensure that young people are kept safe. The professionals said that the registered manager and staff work closely with them and take on board their advice and support. For example, not carrying out specific work on drug and alcohol misuse as this may ‘overload the young person and unravel the work and progress she has made with them.’ As a result of this work, ‘the young person is more aware that she has no cut-off point regarding drinking alcohol and this leads to risk-taking behaviour’. However, she has greatly reduced her alcohol consumption since living at the home.

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Good

Staff spend time with young people, helping them to understand how to avoid risky situations – whether these are in the community, within the home or online. A very good example of this includes a discussion during a key work session about online safety and sexual exploitation. This enabled the young person to disclose some information to staff about her image being displayed in a public place. Consequently, the home took swift, effective action to address this.

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Good

Behaviour management strategies are carefully tailored to the individual young person’s needs. For example, agreeing the times she has to be home by. Consequences are fair, reasonable and are meaningful to the young person. As a result, she is more able to reach their desired goals. The home has recently been refurbished. This has created a much warmer, homely environment for the young person. She has been instrumental in choosing the décor for her room and other soft furnishings in the home. The garden is safer due to the repairs to the fencing. However, this is an underused area as it lacks any purpose. There is some garden seating, but the lawn requires cutting and the area where the old trampoline was situated is a trip hazard. The organisation has very recently engaged the services of a gardener to aid with the maintenance of the garden. Inside the house, the bath panel is broken and is a hazard to the young

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Good

person. Young people’s safety is enhanced by effective recruitment procedures, which ensure that all staff are vetted prior to starting work at the home, and the robust vetting of visitors to the home – all of whom are required to sign in and out of the home and are supervised well during their visits.

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Requires improvement

The home is led by a qualified and experienced manager. She is highly committed to her role and oversees the management of two homes for the company. The systems for deputising for the registered manager are not robust. This is because she does not have a designated person to deputise for her when she is at the other home or not available for work. Currently, this role falls to one of the on-call managers which can take them away from managing their own homes. This has an impact upon the time that the manager actually has to manage the home.

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Requires improvement

Staff, either hold a relevant childcare qualification or are working towards one. They said that they felt well supported during their induction and had been on a number of training courses, including safeguarding. They said that this has improved on their knowledge and understanding in this area of work.

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Requires improvement

The statement of purpose and location risk assessment have not been updated. The statement of purpose refers to the national minimum standards which no longer exist and does not provide accurate information about the running of the home.

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Requires improvement

The risk assessment of the home’s location lacks up-to-date information and does not provide placing authorities, parents of young people with an accurate picture of the home.

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Requires improvement

The quality of the written records is improving, but there remains a lack of consistency; for example, incident forms do not always provide a clear audit trail of the events and action taken by staff to support young people. Monitoring is not yet robust and has not identified the shortfalls found at this inspection. Reports by the registered manager are improving, but lack evaluative statements that quantify the progress, or otherwise, of the home and the reasons for this. The independent person’s reports are not being sent to the registered manager or Ofsted in a timely manner. This means that the registered manager can receive three reports at a time and this delays her ability to rectify any shortfalls.

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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 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, 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

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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