Children's Home run by Appletree Treatment Centre Limited in Westmorland and Furness

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:

 Transitions both into and out of the home are well managed with some extremely high-quality work undertaken in preparing children to move on to foster families or to return to their parents’ care.  Children build close relationships with staff and learn to develop trust. This supports them in developing healthy attachments to adults and prepares them well for moving on from the home.  Contact with children’s families is supported, and staff travel very long distances to ensure that contact takes place.  Children make very good progress from their starting points across all developmental areas due to care that is tailored to their specific needs. There are systems in place to ensure that children’s progress is monitored and recorded.  The home’s staffing levels have improved and, as a result, children get plenty of adult time and attention and can access a wide variety of off-site activities. Staff morale is improved, due to the previously identified

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The children's home provision is good because:

recruitment issues having been addressed.  Staff are supported and receive good-quality training. The Appletree diploma is successful in further developing staff knowledge and skills in meeting children’s needs.  Children are safe and feel safe. They have comprehensive individual risk assessments in place, which clearly evidence their areas of risk and how these are to be managed.  The home robustly responds to any safeguarding issues arising, although has not always notified HMCI of all events in line with regulation.  Good attention is paid to children’s cultural needs. They are helped to understand where they come from and the culture associated with that area.  The home has good working relationships with placing authorities. Feedback from social workers is consistently positive about the impact that the home has on children placed there.

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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

40: Notification of a serious event The registered person must notify HMCI and each other relevant person without delay if there is an allegation of abuse against the home or a person working there; and a child protection enquiry involving a child (i) is instigated or (ii) concludes (in which case the notification must include the outcome of the child protection enquiry). (4)(c) and (d)(i) and (ii) 30/09/2016

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Recommendations

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

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Recommendations

 Staff should be familiar with the home's policies on record-keeping and understand the importance of careful, objective and clear recording. Particularly, the recording of physical interventions. (‘The guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 62, paragraph 14.4)

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Information about this children's home

This is a private children’s home registered to provide care and accommodation for up to 12 children, who are experiencing emotional and behavioural difficulties. This company also runs a school, registered with the Department for Education, within the same grounds as the children’s home, which currently all the children attend.

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Recent inspection history

Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

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Recent inspection history

05/02/2016 Interim Improved effectiveness

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Recent inspection history

26/02/2015 Interim Improved effectiveness

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Good

The home provides children with high-quality care in line with their carefully developed individual placement plans. As a result of this, children make good progress across all areas. Children are helped to settle quickly on arrival at the home, and placing authorities note how children make noticeable positive progress. One independent reviewing officer reported in feedback, ‘[The placement] seems to be an amazing environment for children who have had adverse experiences, to flourish and thrive. Evidence is seen with the progress children make.’ Children who have experienced multiple placement breakdowns prior to their move to this home settle, and the home successfully sustains their placements until they are ready to move on. This improves children’s sense of self-worth and helps them to develop the ability to positively attach to adults who provide consistent care to them. Relationships between children and staff are crucial to the success of placements.

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Good

Children have warm and positive relationships with all staff and particular attachments to individual staff. They are shown emotional warmth and are comforted when they are anxious or distressed. This helps them to learn to trust adults and to address any attachment issues that they may be experiencing. The home also provides therapy to children, which is tailored to their needs, and staff work closely alongside therapists to support children. Children are encouraged to be healthy. They have healthy diets and participate in activities that support their fitness and physical development. Children are supported to develop their own interests and engage in a wide variety of sports and leisure activities. All children took part in a making-music video, which they thoroughly enjoyed, and the resulting DVD is excellent. The home works hard to integrate children into activities outside the home, when possible, to enhance their

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Good

social skills and opportunities. There is a nurse employed by the company to oversee the children’s health needs. Health needs are clearly recorded in children’s plans, and medication is carefully administered. When minor errors in medicine administration occur, appropriate advice is sought and the situation rectified without impact on the child. All children attend the on-site school where their achievements are celebrated. The home has developed links with the local primary school, and some children participate in lessons there, which promote their social integration. Regular meetings between house tutors and school teachers ensure that children’s learning is supported in the home as well as in the school. Particular successes of the home are the transitions of several young people into foster care or returning home to their parents. The home works well with placing authorities, parents and carers to ensure smooth transitions and continues to offer

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Good

support beyond the transition period, both to children and their carers. Children’s views are regularly sought. They have frequent key-worker sessions and regular community meetings, where they can put any items on the agenda. They are encouraged to express their views and to understand their feelings through reflection work. Children are supported to maintain contact with their families. For those who live a long distance from home, staff undertake long car journeys to ensure that the contact can take place. Some parents visit their children in the home and they are made to feel welcome and are supported to ensure that the visit is positive for the child. Additionally, children are helped to understand their cultures and are engaged in gathering information about the areas they come from, which helps to promote positive senses of identity.

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Good

Children report that they feel safe at the home. They have comprehensive risk assessments that clearly identify their areas of risk and actions taken to reduce the risk. The home has recently made some changes to the risk assessment format, which improves the structure and clarity of the form. This will shortly be rolled out to all children’s assessments. For most children, risks reduce significantly from the point of placement. For those children whose risks do not reduce or are increasing, there is recognition of this, and attempts to understand what may be impacting on the child to increase their risks. The home works closely with placing authorities when risks are concerning, as well as child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) and therapists, to try to reduce the risk-taking behaviours. The home takes effective action when risk is identified and implements stringent risk-management strategies, thereby keeping

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Good

the child safe. Children do not go missing from this home. They are not involved in drug or alcohol misuse, child sexual exploitation or criminal behaviour. One child has put himself at risk on numerous occasions by running off the home grounds into the adjacent road. There are procedures in place to manage this risk and to ensure his safety. The home no longer uses consequences as a behaviour management tool but encourages children to reflect on their behaviours and to understand how they and others feel as a result of their actions. This helps children to identify their own emotions and to use other means to express themselves, thus improving their ability to self-regulate. There continues to be a high number of restrictive physical interventions used to manage behaviour for particular young people, although there is a current significant downward trend for the child involved in the highest number of

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Good

restraints. The manager works closely with the headteacher to analyse the patterns and trends of interventions, in order to work on reducing the frequency. Children can sustain red marks as a result of physical intervention, and these are always reported to the local safeguarding hub and notified to HMCI, in order to promote transparency. In these instances, the marks have been found to be consistent with activity within the intervention. Staff are all trained in physical intervention techniques and receive yearly refreshers. Recording of physical interventions can be variable, and opportunities for reflection by the child are sometimes not optimally utilised. Furthermore, the records do not always fully explain why an intervention was necessary and the handwritten reports are not always legible. A recommendation is made in this area, to improve recording practice. Allegations against staff are dealt with appropriately, with the relevant authorities

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Good

consulted and action taken to immediately protect children while any investigation is underway. The outcome of any investigation into an allegation is clearly recorded. However, the requirement to notify HMCI of an allegation is not always fulfilled. Likewise, when a child protection enquiry has been instigated, the home’s response from a safeguarding perspective is robust, but the requirement to notify HMCI is not always met. A requirement to address this issue is therefore made. Children do not have unsupervised access to the internet. The home’s computer has parental controls installed, and their portable devices are only connected to the internet by staff for short periods, in order to download games or applications, and then disconnected. The children have safe-use contracts. This ensures that they are not exposed to unsuitable content. Safe recruitment practices are in use, which ensures that all staff are suitably

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Good

vetted and do not pose a risk to children. Judgement grade

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Good

The home’s manager is suitably qualified and experienced. He has continued to develop the service and has implemented a number of improvements since the last full inspection, in line with the requirements and recommendations made. The children are prioritised in the home with all aspects of decision-making and improvement centred around ensuring that their needs are met to a high standard. Children make good progress throughout their placements, and there are clear processes in place for measuring progress and identifying any areas where progress could be improved. The staffing of the home is much improved since the last full inspection, with the home almost fully staffed at present and retention rates being good. As a result, staff morale is much higher, and staff report good levels of satisfaction with the supportive environment in place at the home. Induction and training are given high importance and all staff have the opportunity to complete the Appletree diploma,

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Good

which they enjoy and find beneficial. Most staff are trained to national vocational qualification (NVQ) level 3, and those who are not are undertaking the training. There are clear lines of delegation and a firm team structure in place, which allows the manager to be confident that the home can run in his absence. Matching of children being admitted to the home is carefully considered. Managers make appropriate decisions based on a thorough review of a wide range of documentation relating to any potential placement of a child. Similarly, transitions out of the home are very well managed and have been highly successful over the past year. Record-keeping is generally of a high standard, and there is good managerial oversight of the records completed by staff. Some issues in respect of recording of restrictive physical interventions are noted in the previous section of this report. Internal and external monitoring takes place on a regular basis. In respect of the

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Good

external monitoring, some changes are planned to the structure of the reports and the length of time that the independent visitor spends on site, in order to enhance the thoroughness of the reports. Internal monitoring is well developed and ensures that the registered manager has a good oversight of the home and any emerging areas for development or improvement, as well as any strengths. The home develops strong links with external agencies and has very good relationships with placing authorities. Reports from social workers and independent reviewing officers are consistently positive. Managers have the needs of children as their main priority and are unafraid to challenge other agencies when they believe that they are not working in a child’s best interests. The physical environment of the home is maintained to a high standard and provides a homely environment for young people. The home provides care in line with its statement of purpose, which is regularly

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Good

reviewed, and sets out the objectives of the home in a way that is helpful to placing authorities and families.

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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

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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