Children's home run by Beaufort Care Group Ltd in Dorset

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 experienced, well-managed and diverse staff team provides good- quality individual care for the children and young people. The staff have quickly developed positive relationships with the residents, some of whom have only been in the home for a few days.  Through careful impact risk assessments and learning from past experience, the interim manager has exercised good judgement in matching a new admission with an existing resident.  The manager works well with other agencies to ensure that the children’s and young people’s needs are met. External professionals say that all the staff that they have encountered have been genuinely caring, and that their standard of communication is very good. They have also praised the home for the quality of transition planning, in relation to a recent admission.  The staff are energetic and positive in their approach and offer a wide range of interesting and fulfilling activities for the children and young people to

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The children's home provision is good because:

enjoy. This helps to keep the children and young people occupied and enables them to forge trusting relationships with adults.  Although the registered manager has recently left the home, the interim manager has wasted no time in promoting positive outcomes for the young people and identifying areas for potential development. He has ensured that the staff are well supervised and that they and the young people are effectively supported during this period of uncertainty.  The home provides very good-quality, well-furnished accommodation. It is situated in an attractive semi-rural environment, with good transport links. The home is close to numerous amenities, including beaches, woodlands for exploring and walking, and large towns with a choice of sports and leisure facilities.

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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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12: The protection of children standard

In order to meet the protection of children standard, with particular reference to identifying and managing environmental risks to the young people, the registered person must ensure: 12(2)(a) that staff (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; (vi) take effective action whenever there is a serious concern about a child’s welfare; (b) that the home’s day-to-day care is arranged and delivered so as to keep each child safe and to protect each child effectively from harm; (c) that the premises used for the purposes of the home are located so that children are effectively safeguarded; (d) that the premises used for the purposes of the home are

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12: The protection of children standard

designed, furnished and maintained so as to protect each child from avoidable hazards to the child’s health. 30/09/2016

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13: The leadership and management standard

In order to meet the leadership and management standard, with particular reference to ensuring that there is a consistent approach to young people’s behaviour, and that all management monitoring systems are in place and effective, the registered person must: (1) enable, inspire and lead a culture in relation to the children’s 20/09/2016 home that (a) helps children aspire to fulfil their potential; and (b) promotes their welfare. (2) In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to (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; (b) ensure that staff work as a team where appropriate; (c) ensure that staff have the experience, qualifications and skills to meet the needs of each child; (d) ensure that the home has sufficient staff to provide care for each child; (e) ensure that the home’s workforce provides continuity of care

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13: The leadership and management standard

to each child; (f) 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; (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 (ii) feedback on the experiences of children, including complaints received; and (h) use monitoring and review systems to make continuous improvements in the quality of care provided in the home.

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Behaviour management policies and records

35 (3) The registered person must ensure that (a) within 24 hours of the use of a measure of control, discipline or restraint in relation to a child in the home, a record is made which includes (i) the name of the child; (ii) details of the child's behaviour leading to the use of the measure; 30/09/2016 (iii) the date, time and location of the use of the measure; (iv) a description of the measure and its duration; (v) details of any methods used or steps taken to avoid the need to use the measure; (vi) the name of the person who used the measure (‘the user’), and of any other person present when the measure was used; (vii) the effectiveness and any consequences of the use of the measure; and (viii) a description of any injury to the child or any other person, and any medical treatment administered, as a result of the measure; (b) within 48 hours of the use of the measure, the registered person, or a person who is authorised by the registered person to

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Behaviour management policies and records

do so (‘the authorised person) (i) has spoken to the user about the measure; and (ii) has signed the record to confirm it is accurate; and (c) within five days of the use of the measure, the registered person or the authorised person adds to the record confirmation that they have spoken to the child about the measure. In particular, they must ensure that a full description is given of the physical intervention and its effectiveness, that both staff and young people are effectively debriefed, and that the manager evaluates the information and signs the record to confirm it is accurate. (Regulation 35(3))

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Recommendations

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

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Recommendations

 Ensure that children are provided with nutritious meals suitable for each child’s needs. In particular, the home should promote healthy eating, including the consumption of at least five portions of fruit and vegetables a day as part of a balanced diet. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, April 2015, paragraph 3.8)  Ensure that the children’s home provides a nurturing and supportive environment that meets the needs of the children: in particular, ensure that the staff toilet is kept unlocked when not in use and review the parking arrangements. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards, April 2015, paragraph 3.9)  Ensure that the return-home interview is carried out within 72 hours of the child returning to their home or care setting. This should be an in-depth interview and is normally best carried out by an independent person (i.e.

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Recommendations

someone not involved in caring for the child) who is trained to carry out these interviews and is able to follow up any actions that emerge. (Department for Education: ‘Statutory guidance on children who run away or go missing from home or care’, January 2014, paragraph 32)

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Information about this children's home

The home is one of a group of five children’s services in the south of England, owned and operated by this independent provider. This is the home’s first inspection since registration.

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Information about this children's home

The home is registered to provide care and accommodation for up to two children and young people, irrespective of gender, who may have emotional and/or behavioural difficulties.

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

11/04/2016 Registration visit Suitable for registration

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Good

Children and young people are treated as individuals, and the staff work hard to build trust and help them to develop attachments. This can be a slow process, but the staff are patient and consult regularly with other professionals, to help guide their practice. The staff clearly care about the young people and are concerned for their welfare. The inspector saw examples of very good-quality individual work with the young people. For example, the staff used considerable skill in retrieving a young person from a neighbouring property during the inspection. They supported her outside the home for a long period of time, until she came in of her own accord. This avoided an unnecessary confrontation and the possible need for physical intervention. The following day, the interim manager was successful in persuading a young person to take their medication, after they had refused two doses the previous day. This helped to prevent the young person from having a medical episode,

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Good

which would have been a potentially harmful experience for them. The young people are beginning to develop trust in some members of staff and open up to them to talk about matters that are worrying them. Some excellent work has taken place with a young person who wrote a letter to her key worker, expressing how she felt. The key worker showed considerable sensitivity and warmth in her response. The home has had very limited time to have an impact on the children and young people in terms of progress, but there are already signs that they are starting to build relationships and respond to adults in a positive way. Relationships are warm and respectful, with appropriate boundaries. The young people’s healthcare needs are promoted well. Staff have received specific training in certain medical conditions to help the young people to manage their difficulties. They advocate strongly for the young people, to help them to

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Good

receive the services that they need. The young people have access to primary healthcare services and to child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS), and other specialist advice, if they should require this. Sometimes CAMHS provide support and guidance to the staff team, while waiting for a child or young person to reach a point when they are ready for therapy. The home has a safe system for storing medication. One young person has recently arrived from another provider’s service, and has medication in blister packs. To avoid other young people being at risk from the medication, staff place the medicine from the blister pack in a small pot rather than take the whole pack to the child. Potting up is not recommended practice, but it is a temporary measure until the blister packs have been finished. The inspector was told that after the blister packs have been finished, the medication will be administered directly from

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Good

the original packaging, which is a safer and less wasteful system. The home’s former registered manager identified medication recording errors involving antibiotics, and issued clear directions to staff about how to record medicines correctly. The whole team has recently received training in medication handling. The home has adopted a monitored dose system, which is managed by a local pharmacy. Although medication recording errors were made, it was positive that the manager picked this up and responded to it assertively to prevent any recurrence. Medicines records completed recently have been filled in correctly, so no requirement has been made. The home places a high priority on education, but one child has recently arrived and is not yet in school. The other young person had to be withdrawn from school on medical advice and has not yet been re-established in education. The interim manager has been communicating well with local schools, but the home has had

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Good

insufficient opportunity to demonstrate its effectiveness in achieving good outcomes for education. This will be assessed at the interim inspection. Professionals from other agencies are extremely positive about the home and, in particular, their working relationships with the manager and staff team. The home was praised for its transition planning. One professional said, ‘We were absolutely delighted with how the home worked with us in making such a very positive transition. It really was tailor made … and we believe gave [the young person] the best possible opportunity to make her placement work right from the outset. It is so important … for the welfare and future progress of a child that new placements start on the right foot … This requires quite meticulous joint planning, which is what so impressed me with this home. It was so easy to work with them, and a pleasure.’ The children and young people are not yet of an age when they require formal

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Good

preparation for independence, but they are welcome to help prepare meals if they wish to do so. The children and young people are encouraged and supported to have positive contact with family members, if this is in line with the local authority’s plans. Some young people have received visits from close family members, which has been an important part of the process of their settling into the home. Until recently, there was just one young person in the home. The weekly menu has evolved in consultation with them, but without any obvious moderation by adults. It relies heavily on carbohydrate meals, such as spaghetti hoops on toast and biscuits for dessert, and lacks fresh fruit or healthy snacks to provide young people with adequate nutrition for growth and development. Discussion took place about the need for children and young people to be fully consulted within the parameters of a really creative choice of different healthy,

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Good

interesting and tasty foods that will meet their nutritional needs, rather than allowing them free rein to make up their own menus. Staff who have cooked well- balanced meals for the household say that, in practice, the children and young people will often eat these meals when they are put in front of them, which proves that they will consume healthy foods when offered. A recommendation has been made. Now that there is a second young person in the home, the manager plans to hold house meetings every week. Menus will be a topic for discussion. The young people have so far exercised choice through key-worker sessions. They both have access to an independent advocate to help them to express their views.

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Requires improvement

Young people are generally kept safe in this home, but leaders and managers have not taken effective action in response to repeated episodes when the young people have climbed onto the roof or over the garden wall. The first instance of climbing onto the garage or bungalow roof took place on 10 June 2016. All three residents have now done this. Some remedial work to window restrictors and the close boarding of a gate were carried out in the hope that this would stop this, but the children and young people now climb onto the roof and over the garden wall by using a metal grille set into the wall instead. Although the wall and garage roof are only of single-storey height, if any children or young people were to fall from there, they would be likely to sustain injury. In spite of the fact that there have now been seven roof-climbing incidents, the managers have still not risk assessed this most obvious hazard or put a permanent

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Requires improvement

stop to it. Since the inspection took place, managers have instructed the maintenance team to make this area safe. The location risk assessment states that the garden is a safe play area, and yet this has not been the case. The environment risk assessment is in a question-and-answer format, and, although it is updated monthly, it does not ask the right questions to prompt the manager to add any newly identified hazards. A requirement has been made. Restraint and incident recording requires improvement. There have been 17 significant incidents since the home opened. The manager has, in only one case, demonstrated that staff are monitoring these by signing off the record. Many of these incidents pre-date the present interim manager taking up his role. Physical interventions have all been appropriate, but, again, restraint recording does not meet regulatory requirements. Out of five physical interventions, there

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Requires improvement

was no record of the young person being debriefed. There was also no record of the manager reading and commenting on the intervention, and the inspector found only one example of staff being debriefed. A requirement has been made. The home has had relatively few incidents in which young people have gone missing. When some young people have left the home without authorisation, staff follow them and often manage to persuade them to return. This was demonstrated clearly during the inspection, when two staff members and a senior manager went after a young person who went over the wall and ran off. This situation was managed very sensitively. There have been several occasions when children and young people returning from being missing have not had return-home interviews. The managers were under the impression that the police ‘safe-and-well’ interview served this purpose, but it is the placing authority’s responsibility to facilitate a formal return interview. A

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Requires improvement

recommendation has been made. The inspector observed on the first day of the inspection that the staff toilet was kept locked to prevent the young people from using it. One young person needed to gain access to this facility urgently, because their own bathroom was occupied. They were allowed to do so, but the inspector questioned why the staff facilities were kept locked. The regulation 44 visitor raised the same question in their latest report. The manager immediately issued an instruction that the staff toilet must be unlocked, and this was implemented on the second day of the inspection. Although on registration it appeared that, with space for five vehicles in the grounds, there was ample parking, it was clear during the inspection that when there are visitors, for example during handover meetings and reviews, five spaces are not always enough. The managers said that they will review parking arrangements to see if it is possible to avoid visitors having to park on the narrow

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Requires improvement

road. A recommendation has been made with regard to reviewing the use of the environment. The home has not received any complaints directly from young people or from external sources. Sometimes, incidents that have taken place, including young people climbing on the roof as described above, have understandably caused alarm to concerned members of the public. External observers may well not understand what led to the situation or the reason for the staff’s actions. Discussion took place during the inspection about how the service’s leaders and managers could build relationships with people living in the locality, to help them to understand the context of any future incidents. This would promote open communication about any concerns they may have. Staff recruitment practice is good. The service has a robust system of checks on prospective employees to ensure that every possible safeguard is in place to

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Requires improvement

reduce the risk of the children and young people coming into contact with unsafe adults. The manager and staff are well aware of local safeguarding procedures, but there has been no need to make any referrals in this respect. The home is well maintained and, apart from the matters raised above, health and safety provision is good. Fire safety and other essential checks are carried out in a timely manner.

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Good

The registered manager resigned recently. Their last official day in post was only two days prior to this inspection, but in fact they have been absent due to sickness or leave for a total of four weeks out of the last two months. This has led to some inconsistency in management arrangements, and a degree of uncertainty for the staff and the young person who was in the home at the time. The interim manager has had almost no time to introduce his own management style and systems, but he has still managed to make a positive impact. For example, there are signs that the home will continue to develop its present ethos, in line with its recently updated statement of purpose and children’s guide. The interim manager is very aware of the home’s strengths and areas for development. He is gradually reviewing all the home’s paperwork and has already introduced some positive changes. For example, the interim manager has implemented a new,

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Good

clear and effective behaviour management plan for the children and young people, using a format that he found useful in a previous registered manager role. The management needs to stabilise now, and the post has been advertised externally. The provider has kept Ofsted up to date with developments and fully informed about management changes. There are sufficient skilled staff on duty to meet the young people’s needs. The staff team is very diverse, representing different ethnicities, nationalities, genders and life stages. The team provides very good role modelling for the children and young people. The staff commented that they have a very strong team. The staff are now settling into the new home and pulling together to convey consistent messages to the young people. They have access to good-quality training. Much of this has been specifically tailored to the young people’s unique needs, for example certain health

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Good

conditions. Discussion took place about the fact that only four out of the eight staff hold current first-aid qualifications. The manager ensures that there is always one qualified person on each shift, and this meets regulatory requirements and complies with the statutory guidance. Given the young people’s complex needs, the manager may wish to consider whether he wishes to aim for a higher proportion of qualified staff. In addition to formal training, staff receive consultation from CAMHS and from a qualified child psychotherapist who specialises in attachment disorders. These specialist skills are put into practice when supporting the young people in the home. The staff are well supervised and say that they receive effective support and guidance. They have not yet had their appraisals, because the home has only been open since May, but these are due in the near future. The interim manager challenges any practice that he considers needs to be improved, and raised a

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Good

number of instructions to staff during the inspection, for example regarding improving the young people’s diets. He is also very well supported, and the residential services manager was present in the home during the inspection, working directly with the young people as well as participating with the staff in managing challenging situations. The home works very effectively with other agencies. The interim manager has very positive relationships with health and education services. He is not afraid to challenge external agencies when he believes that the children and young people are not receiving an effective service. Management monitoring is good in most areas, in particular in terms of day-to-day practice, and the medication recording errors were identified. There are some shortfalls in monitoring of certain records and risk assessments, as described above. A requirement under quality standard 13 has been made to support further

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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

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

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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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