Children's home run by Sahara Care Service for Children Ltd in Slough

Inadequate

There are serious and/or widespread failures that mean children and young people are not protected or their welfare is not promoted or safeguarded and/or their care and experiences are poor and they are not making progress.

p.2

The children’s home provision is inadequate because:

 Young people who live in this home make little or no progress in managing their behaviour, both within and outside the home.  There are insufficient staff available to care properly for the young people.  Relationships between the staff and young people are poor. Staff have been unable to influence improvements in young people’s behaviour.   Several incidents of bullying have occurred, which have not been appropriately dealt with by staff.  The recruitment of new staff, which was previously subject to a compliance notice, sometimes remains unsafe.  The home has not had a registered manager in post since 6 November 2015.  There is an absence of consistent leadership and management.  There is no internal monitoring of the home and external monitoring by the independent visitor has not addressed several key issues.  Changes made that improved the service have not been sustained.

p.3

The children’s home’s strengths

 There is an interim manager in post who has developed an action plan to improve the service.  Young people now report that they feel safe.

p.3

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.

p.4

Requirement Due date

9: The enjoyment and achievement standard

p.4

Requirement Due date

In order to meet the enjoyment and achievement standard, the registered person must ensure: (2)(a) that staff help each child to: (i) develop interests and hobbies (ii) participate in activities that the child enjoys and which meet and expand their interests and preferences, and (iii) make a positive contribution to the home and the wider community. (Regulation 9 (1)(2)(a)(i)(ii)(iii)) 31/10/2016

p.4

Requirement Due date

In order to meet the positive relationship standard, the registered person must ensure that children are helped to develop, and to benefit from, relationships based on: (1)(a) mutual respect and trust (b) an understanding about acceptable behaviour, and (c) positive responses to other children and adults. (Regulation 11 (1)(a)(b)(c)) 31/10/2016

p.4

Requirement Due date

In order to meet the protection of children standard, the registered person must ensure: 2(a) that staff: (vii) are familiar with and act in accordance with, the home’s child protection policies (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, and (e) that the effectiveness of the home’s child protection policies is monitored regularly. (Regulation 12 (2)(a)(vi)(b)(e)) 31/10/2016 13: The leadership and management standard

p.4

Requirement Due date

In order to meet the leadership and management standard, the registered person is required to: (2)(d) ensure the home has sufficient staff to provide care for each child, and (e) ensure the home’s workforce provides continuity of care to each child. (Regulation 13 (2)(d)(e)) 31/10/2016

p.5

Requirement Due date

The registered provider must compile in relation to the children’s home a statement (‘the statement of purpose’) which covers the matters listed in schedule 1 of these regulations. (Regulation 16 (1)) 31/10/2016

p.5

Requirement Due date

The registered provider must appoint someone to manage the children’s home (Regulation 27 (1)) 31/10/2016

p.5

Requirement Due date

The registered person must recruit staff using recruitment procedures that are designed to ensure children’s safety. In particular, ensure that full and satisfactory information is available in relation to the individual recruited in respect of each of the matters in Schedule 2. (Regulation 32 (1)(3)(d)) 31/10/2016

p.5

Requirement Due date

The registered provider must appoint, at the registered provider’s expense, a person (‘the independent person’) to visit and report on the children’s home carried on by the registered provider. (Regulation 43 (1)) 31/10/2016

p.5

Recommendations

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

p.5

Recommendations

 The registered person should ensure that children are provided with nutritious meals suitable for each child’s needs. When appropriate, children should be involved in choosing and preparing meals, and opportunities to sit and act together should be promoted (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 15, paragraph 3.8).

p.5

Recommendations

 Staff should have the skills and confidence to communicate easily and understand the importance of listening to, involving and responding to the children they care for. Staff should understand they that they have a responsibility to observe, notice and respond to children who are expressing their views, acknowledging that it is not the sole responsibility of the child to ‘tell’. They should also understand how children might communicate their feelings through behaviour (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 22, paragraph 4.10).

p.5

Recommendations

 Staff should understand what they must do to prevent bullying of children by other children or adults. Staff should be able to recognise and address different types of abuse such as peer abuse, cyber-bullying and bullying in day-to-day relationships in the home. The registered person must ensure that procedures for dealing with allegations of bullying are in place and staff have the skills required to intervene, protect and address bullying behaviours effectively (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 39, paragraph 8.16).

p.6

Information about this children’s home

The home is run by a private organisation. The home is registered to provide care and accommodation for up to four young people with emotional and behavioural difficulties.

p.7

Recent inspection history

Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement 12/07/2016 Monitoring 18/05/2016 Full Inadequate 17/03/2016 Interim Sustained effectiveness 11/11/2015 Full Requires improvement

p.7

Inadequate

Young people in this home do not receive good quality care. Inconsistent management arrangements and a lack of committed staff have resulted in young people having poor relationships with staff. Staff do not influence young people sufficiently to prevent episodes of bullying, drug misuse or challenging behaviour.

p.8

Inadequate

There has been a decline in the service since the monitoring visit of 12 July 2016. At that stage, reasonable progress was being made towards meeting the requirements and recommendations of the previous inspection. However, the changes were not maintained, in part because a manager that was appointed in June was dismissed two months later. Recently the majority of the staff team have left their posts. The home has operated without stable leadership and remains unable to deliver consistent staffing to care for the young people.

p.8

Inadequate

There are insufficient staff employed to care for the young people. This has led to one young person going to court alone and prevents other young people taking part in some normal day-to-day activities. Staff have not provided young people with appropriate boundaries and guidance. Some young people said that they did not have trusting relationships with the staff that left or with those remaining. Some of the young people could not identify any member of the staff team that they have a good relationship with. A young person said, ‘They don’t treat me with respect. I don’t like living here.’

p.8

Inadequate

The staff have been unable to discourage young people from smoking cannabis. There is little to no support provided by the staff to deter young people from this. Interventions have been ineffective in preventing cannabis use, even within the home.

p.8

Inadequate

Good quality healthy meals are not provided for the young people. The fridge was not stocked during this inspection and the young people complained to the manager that they were hungry. Young people were observed eating fast food purchased by the staff. This is a failure to provide a basic standard of care. There is no dependable structure, for example, for mealtimes or daily routines for young people to draw security from. Young people are not helped to engage in meaningful or purposeful activities. They often remain in their rooms or wander around the home with little to do. ‘I wish we had staff that like to do things besides staying indoors,’ said a frustrated young person.

p.8

Inadequate

Records are mostly satisfactory. Each young person does have an individualised care plan and documents such as court orders and information from their placing authorities.

p.8

Inadequate

The very high turnover of staff means that staff working with young people do not know them well. There are insufficient staff to cover every shift. The owner has given assurance that there is a working roster, but the volume of leavers, and staff simply failing to turn up for work, has rendered this unreliable.

p.9

Inadequate

The safeguarding polices of the home are not up to date or available for the staff to refer to. The recruitment of new staff is unsafe. This was identified as an issue at the full inspection of 18 May 2016 and a compliance notice was issued. Recruitment practice had improved at the subsequent monitoring visit (12 July 2016). However, this was not sustained and a member of staff was appointed recently without references being suitably followed up or concerns of a former employer being properly explored. These concerns were identified by the most recently appointed manager and the member of staff’s employment was ended during inspection. This failure to sustain improvement is a worrying feature of this inspection.

p.9

Inadequate

Many staff, both current and recent, do not have the skills needed to help the young people understand or improve their negative behaviour. Some interventions by staff have resulted in escalation in young people’s behaviour and resulted in the police being called.

p.9

Inadequate

Some staff, who have since left, did not respond properly to incidents of bullying. They did not directly address the issue and sometimes relied on police intervention or appeasement. There were no discussions with young people to enable them to gain a better insight into the negative consequences of their behaviour.

p.9

Inadequate

If young people go missing, staff actively work with the police, local authority and other agencies to find them and help them return to placement. A placing social worker said, ‘The staff responded well to a young person with a history of going missing. They communicated well and kept me informed. They did all they could.’ This positive action has not significantly reduced the extent to which young people go missing. Judgement grade

p.9

Inadequate

There has been inconsistent, and often poor quality, leadership in the home since its opening. There has been no registered manager in post during any of four inspection visits. Those managing the home, without registration, have not had the knowledge and ability to effectively lead or accurately prioritise the needs of the young people. The current interim manager has significant experience running children’s homes, but has not yet had time to have a positive impact on this home. It is noted that at the time of this visit she is also offering direct support to another children’s home in the vicinity, which limits her availability to this home to half days.

p.10

Inadequate

The responsible individual lacks knowledge and understanding of running an effective children’s home. As a registered provider, she has not effectively overseen the service. She has been largely guided by whoever is in the post of manager, and has, on one occasion, relied on Ofsted’s inspection to revise her view of them. The responsible individual has no one in place to oversee her development. For example, she is without a suitable person to provide her with formal or informal supervision, nor can she provide this effectively for her manager.

p.10

Inadequate

There is no established system of monitoring in place. The interim manager has not had enough time to learn the strengths and weaknesses of the home. Previous managers did not prepare any monitoring reports under regulation 45. The specific targets that are set for young people are not monitored at all. The change in managers, coupled with the lack of monitoring, means that managers cannot confirm if young people are, or are not, progressing as a result of the support provided by the staff. Anecdotal information and observations indicate that the home is now more settled, but with only limited discernible progress for one of the three children on roll at this inspection.

p.10

Inadequate

External monitoring of the home is unsatisfactory. There have been two different independent visitors for the home in the last four months. There is currently no independent visitor attached to the home. All previous reports submitted to Ofsted failed to offer a realistic appraisal of the home. Consequently they did not contribute to the development of plans to improve the quality of care for young people.

p.10

Inadequate

The current manager has developed an action plan that potentially could improve the service. It is too early to gauge how successful this most recent plan of action will be. Historically, improvements made to the service have not been sustained.

p.10

Inadequate

It is unclear if purposeful relationships have been established with professionals. There was no opportunity to explore these relationships on inspection, as professional contact information was not readily available.

p.10

Inadequate

The home has continually lacked confident, competent staff and this has greatly inhibited building constructive relationship-based support for young people. The interim manager advised that the current staff team ‘will need to be retrained’. At the current time there are barely enough staff to provide adequate cover across the week and the home is reliant on some agency personnel.

p.11

Inadequate

The current statement of purpose for the home is not up to date or accurate. This means that it does not give commissioners a true reflection of the services which it can offer.

p.11

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’.

p.12

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

p.12

What the inspection judgements mean

harmed or at risk of harm or result in children looked after not having their welfare safeguarded and promoted.

p.12

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

p.13

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 .

p.13

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 children looked after 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,

p.14

Information about this inspection

The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: psi@nationalarchives.gsi.gov.uk .

p.14

Information about this inspection

Interested in our work? You can subscribe to our monthly newsletter for more information and updates: http://eepurl.com/iTrDn .

p.14

Information about this inspection

T: 0300 123 1231 Textphone: 0161 618 8524 E: enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk W: www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ofsted

p.14