Children's Home run by One To One Crisis Intervention Ltd in Devon

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 overall experience and progress for the current young person is good. Good care planning is in place and supports the young person’s needs well, helping his development.  Staff have good relationships with the present young person. The help they give to him has resulted in him making good progress in a short space of time.  The manager took appropriate action in response to serious concerns about a previous young person’s safety and their involvement in an abusive relationship and possible child sexual exploitation.  The manager demonstrates a strong understanding of what is going well for young people and which areas they require support in.  The manager demonstrates effective learning from the previous inspection and implements an excellent service development plan.  The manager strives to constantly improve the service for young people and is innovative in her approach. Monitoring exercises are used effectively to

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The children's home provision is good because:

address issues with staff’s practice and pursue young people’s wishes.  The home is an exceptional environment for young people to live in. It is homely, well-furnished and has a clear sense of belonging to each young person. Staff are nurturing and sensible with house rules, that are akin to good parenting.  The manager works collaboratively and efficiently with other agencies involved with young people’s care and education, as well as including their families as much as appropriately possible.  The deputy manager is required to complete the appropriate qualification for a residential childcare worker’s role.

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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

32: Fitness of workers (4) For the purposes of paragraph (3) (b), an individual who works in the home in a care role has the appropriate qualification if, by the relevant date, the individual has attained— (a) the level 3 diploma for residential childcare (England) (‘the level 3 diploma’); or (b) a qualification which the registered person considers to be equivalent to the level 3 diploma. (5) The relevant date is— (a) in the case of an individual who starts working in a care role in a home after 1st April 2014, the date which falls two years after the date on which the individual started working in a care role in a home; or (b) in the case of an individual who was working in a care role in a home on 1st April 2014, 1st April 2016. (Regulation 32 (4) (a) (b)) 31/12/2016

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Information about this children's home

The children’s home is run by a private company. It is registered to provide care and accommodation for one child or young person who may have emotional and/or behavioural difficulties or with a learning disability.

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Recent inspection history

Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement 22/03/2016 Interim Declined in effectiveness 01/10/2015 Full Good 17/02/2015 Interim Not judged 27/11/2014 Full Good

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Good

The current young person states that he ‘enjoys living at the home’ and that he ‘likes the staff’. He has settled quickly and made good progress in many areas. Staff provide good, nurturing care that gives him the same opportunities and support networks as all young people. The present young person’s social skills and confidence have greatly improved since living at this home. He attends clubs and events in the community and is making friends locally. The young person goes to army cadets, a trampolining class and took part in a wide range of activities over the summer holidays. He enjoys it when his friends come to his house to play and they will sometimes stay for tea. Staff give him lots of guidance on how to make friends and to share with them. As such, his new friendships are a positive influence on him. The current young person has excellent attendance at school. Staff work collaboratively with school staff to ensure that he is effectively supported and that

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Good

communication between both parties is good. The young person’s behaviour at school has settled down over the last term, which coincides with him moving into this home. The manager ensures that the placing authority fulfils its duties for arranging educational review meetings and that school staff complete the daily ‘home to school’ book. The young person’s school tutor reports that ‘the manager has been fantastic’ and ‘shows good intentions to work together with school staff to help the young person’. School staff praise the young person’s progress in the last year, considering he has had three placements changes. The present young person is in good health. Staff ensure that he attends his basic medical check-ups and that he had a recent medication review with the child and adolescent mental health service. The young person attended his school sports day and achieved really well at basketball. He enjoys numerous outdoor activities, such

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Good

as fishing, crabbing, carting and going on a zip wire. Staff’s work has resulted in the young person’s diet improving. He now eats balanced diet that includes a good variety of fruit and vegetables. The young person enjoys his food and helps staff to cook meals and bake cakes. Since being at the home, the current young person has significantly decreased his frequency of self-harming that was prevalent before he moved in. Attempts by the placing authority to engage the young person in life story work have not been productive. Therefore, the manager has arranged for the young person to see a therapist to help him with some of his difficulties. The present young person is making good progress at developing his independence skills and personal development. He recently went on a school residential trip to France and attended a ball on a summer activity programme. The young person saves his pocket money and participates with incentive programmes to earn extra

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Good

money. He recently saved enough money to buy himself a new games console that he is very proud of. Staff work effectively with the placing authority to promote good family contact opportunities for the current young person. His mum has visited the house on numerous occasions and she feels that it is an improvement on his last placement. She reports that ‘the home is lovely’ and that the young person is ‘thriving since he has been living there’. The manager is pursuing the young person’s wishes to have more contact with his family. Good-quality care planning enables staff to promote improved outcomes for the present young person. This planning includes a thorough examination of the young person’s needs and the overall aims of the placement. The admission process is strong, which meant that the young person had a well-planned and considered move into the home. The current young person lives in a lovely home, which is unrecognisable as a

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Good

children’s home. He has personalised it with his own choices and belongings. Staff maintain good boundaries with the young person, with regards to bedtimes and mealtimes, and give him a hug when he needs it.

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Good

The manager responded appropriately to a previous young person’s actions that were putting her at risk of child sexual exploitation. This work included challenging the placing authority decision to allow the young person unlimited unsupervised time. The manager provided good boundaries for the young person and tried hard to engage her to keep safe. The manager worked closely with the agencies involved in her care and attended weekly strategy meetings to determine risk management strategies. There were six episodes of the previous young person going missing from staff’s care. Each time staff responded to these incidents effectively. They searched for her and stayed in touch by text. Staff would go and meet the young person for a drink and talk to her in an effort to bring her back home. The young person was engaged in an independent return to home interview following each occasion she went missing. The manager worked well with the police, the young person’s family

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Good

and her social worker to try and keep the young person safe and find out where she was going. The current young person has not gone missing from staff’s care. There is an appropriate risk assessment for staff to follow should they need to. The use of restraint and sanctions are minimal. Staff have physically intervened on one occasion and used one sanction since the previous inspection. The manager’s monitoring of these incidents is good. She concluded that the member of staff did not need to use the sanction and as such this led to an escalation in the young person’s behaviour that warranted a restraint. The sanction was overturned and the young person was given some extra time on his games console as recompense. The member of staff was debriefed to discuss better ways of responding to the young person’s behaviour to improve their practice. The young person was also spoken to following the incident to ensure that they were OK. Otherwise, the

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Good

behaviour management strategies used by staff are effective and support the young person without escalating the incident beyond their control. The manager has reported child protection concerns to the local authority and completes notifications to Ofsted about significant incidents. Consequently, all relevant parties are kept informed of events at the home. Staff are safely recruited and vetted to ensure that it is difficult for unsuitable individuals to work alongside vulnerable children and young people. The young people’s medication is stored and recorded correctly. The manager ensures that all necessary health and safety audits of the home are conducted within the appropriate timescale.

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Requires improvement

The impact and effectiveness of leaders and managers requires improvement, because a staff member who was employed prior to 1 April 2014 has not completed the necessary qualification within the stated two year timeframe. This does not ensure that the current young person is looked after by fully qualified team of staff. The manager is closely monitoring the staff member’s completion of the award and to date this weakness has not had a negative impact on the young person’s progress or welfare. The manager implements an excellent service development plan to ensure that learning from the previous year combined with her existing knowledge is used to secure improvements. An area the manager has identified as requiring development is the transition and planning for the placement of young people. The manager and staff are currently working successfully towards their development plan, which is benefiting the present young person.

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Requires improvement

The manager has competently addressed the five requirements made at the previous inspection. As such, the local authority are engaged and challenged to fulfil their duties, safeguarding concerns are identified and escalated appropriately, staff’s practice and recording are thoroughly monitored and young people are responded to safely when they return from being missing from care. Staff have a breadth of training and experience which enables them to support the young person’s needs. They receive monthly supervisions and have annual appraisals. This ensures that they receive support and reflective feedback to constantly improve their practice. There are good systems to monitor the quality of care provided and the outcomes for young people. The manager completes a monthly overview of what is going well for the current young person and what he needs help with. This work feeds into the young person’s targets and then staff provide support in these identified

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Requires improvement

areas. The manager can demonstrate that the young person benefits from living at the home, through behavioural analysis data and reviewing specific outcomes. The home is visited each month by an independent person to audit the quality of care. The manager uses this service to good effect and ensures that any areas for improvement identified are actioned promptly. Feedback from a social worker is positive. This social worker comments that ‘staff are meeting the young person’s needs’ and that this is the ‘right placement at the right time for him’. The current young person’s advocate also praises the manager and staff by reporting that the young person seems ‘really happy’ and that staff are ‘very supportive to him’.

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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 looked after children 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 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

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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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