Children's home run by Unity Residential Care Services Limited in Newcastle-under-Lyme

Outstanding

The children’s home provides highly effective services that consistently exceed the standards of good. The actions of the home contribute to significantly improved outcomes for children and young people who need help, protection and care.

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The children’s home provision is outstanding because:

 The immense progress made by young people during their stays at the home is a direct result of the manager’s and his staff team’s dedication.  Staff work from a strong theoretical foundation.  Young people develop strong and positive relationships with staff. This is because staff use effective communication skills and have a genuinely caring attitude.  The staff team’s encouragement and support mean that young people have 100% school attendance and make remarkable progress in their learning.  Young people love their home, and have amazing experiences and opportunities as a direct result of their placement.  The staff ensure that the home is extremely well maintained. The decor and furnishings are of a very high standard. These give the home a cosy, calm and homely feel.  Staff have an excellent understanding of young people’s presenting risks and take all the necessary steps to keep them safe.

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The children’s home provision is outstanding because:

 Staff are resourceful in helping young people to build up understanding around the importance of sustaining healthy lifestyles and taking responsibility to manage their own health.  Staff ensure that care plans are tailored to match the individual and diverse needs of each young person.  Arrangements for safeguarding young people are stringent. All staff are suitably vetted, with meticulous attention paid to their recruitment.  The registered manager is extremely passionate, focused on and committed to providing young people with high-quality care so that they continue to make progress across all areas of their development. This includes using research to help to inform his practice.

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Information about this children’s home

The home can provide care and accommodation for up to two children with emotional and or behavioural difficulties. The home is owned by a private provider.

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Recent inspection history

Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement 16/02/2016 Interim Improved effectiveness 06/10/2015 Full Good 17/03/2015 Interim Improved effectiveness 30/04/2014 Full Adequate

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Outstanding

This home currently offers solo placements. One young person has recently moved on after living at the home for nearly three years. Another young person has recently joined. The young person who moved into semi-independent living made excellent progress, given the extent of his complex needs and behaviours. The new young person who has recently transitioned into the home is already making exceptional progress.

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Outstanding

The immense progress made by young people during their stay at this home is a direct result of the manager and staff. They have extremely high aspirations for young people, and value their progress and experiences. Staff work from a strong theoretical foundation. This positively underpins the staff team’s actions, which aids development of young people’s behaviours and provides exceptional individualised care. For example, young people are involved in every aspect of their care. Care plans are written in the young person’s own words. This helps to bring their care planning ‘alive’ and give the staff a clear vision of the young person, including their hopes and dreams.

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Outstanding

Young people develop strong, positive relationships with staff. This is due to the staff team’s marvellous communication skills and amazingly caring attitude. They are passionate in everything they do and say. Staff spend time with the young person and are adaptable to their changing needs. They will ‘go the extra mile’ to provide personalised and valuable lifelong memories for the young person. These include going backpacking around Europe, taking a young person with a talent to recording studios, travelling long distances to meet their idols and helping them to secure a place in a band. Talents are further recognised by the organisation, and achievement awards are given and celebrated. These unique opportunities help to build a young person’s self-esteem, confidence and sense of achievement.

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Outstanding

Young people make excellent progress in all areas of their development. Dog walking is a particular favourite for the current young person, which is helping to keep her physically fit and healthy. Staff have also supported her to give up smoking, using incentives to aid her in this journey.

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Outstanding

Staff value young people’s education. Effective planning means that staff swiftly overcome barriers to learning, even when these have previously been entrenched. The staff team’s overwhelming encouragement and support mean that young people have 100% academic attendance, and have made meaningful progress as a result. The manager is proactive in escalating concerns and challenging decisions if he feels that the young person in his care is not receiving the education that they require and deserve. As a result, young people develop a positive attitude towards their education and have increased chances to reach their full potential

p.5

Outstanding

A young person who has now left the home told the inspector: ‘I loved it, mate, it’s just so child centred. The staff are there for you, both inside and outside of work. It’s the best home I’ve been in ever. They took me abroad and everything.’

p.6

Outstanding

Staff constantly use their in-depth knowledge and understanding of the young person to adapt their practice best to suit their likes and dislikes. For example, the previous young person did not like having house meetings and instead preferred to have informal discussions, so this was implemented. The current young person loves having such meetings. She thrives in chairing these, helping to make the decisions and in obtaining feedback from the team. In-depth key-worker sessions further support the young person’s views and also aid them in their decision making. The staff use evidence-based research to aid them in key-worker sessions. For example, when completing work around smoking, the staff also used information from a well-known public health organisation to help them to deliver facts about the effects of smoking. The young person has since chosen not to smoke.

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Outstanding

Transitions in and out of the home are managed with great success. The staff team has shared information and been on hand for support. Staff have gone out of their way to make themselves available, to offer guidance and reassurance and also to ensure that the young person feels valued and cared for.

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Outstanding

Young people are equipped with the necessary skills for adulthood. Staff use innovative ways to support voluntary work for the young people in their care. This creates a fantastic opportunity for the young people to gain the skills needed for employment in the future.

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Outstanding

Young people are given every encouragement to stay in touch with their family. This includes staff always being ready to give practical support to make this contact possible. These meaningful and well-planned contacts mean that young people enjoy seeing their families.

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Outstanding

The staff make sure that the home stays extremely well maintained. The decor and furnishings are of a very high standard. These give the home a cosy, calm and homely feel. Furthermore, bedrooms are personalised to a high specification and the young person is consulted on the furnishings of the home.

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Outstanding

Young people are safe at the home. This is because the manager and staff team are proactive and highly skilled in dealing with any incidents that occur. As a result, young people say that they feel safe and recognise that any action taken by staff is in their best interests.

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Outstanding

Staff have an excellent understanding of young people’s presenting risks. This includes staff being aware of the potential signs and triggers that can place young people at risk of child sexual exploitation and drug abuse. Staff are extremely alert to such concerns, and take all the necessary steps to manage and reduce the risks. Staff ensure that they supervise young people well and that there are appropriate restrictions on internet access. They use their in-depth knowledge of the young person and transparent practice to monitor any changes in behaviour or to look at emerging patterns and trends. Multi-agency work with the police and social workers, alongside research and specialised training, helps to underpin staff practice in keeping a young person safe.

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Outstanding

Young people’s plans and risk assessments are highly effective. Staff and the young person review these regularly to ensure that they are live documents that reflect their needs.

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Outstanding

Since the last inspection, there have been no cases of self-harm, physical restraint or ‘missing’ episodes. This is down to the staff team’s creative work, which means that young people make safer decisions.

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Outstanding

The home environment is safe and secure. There is an extremely detailed location risk assessment that covers all areas of concern in the locality. Daily health and safety checks help to ensure that the home is a safe place to live in.

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Outstanding

Safe recruitment processes for all new staff ensure that they are suitable to work with young people at the home.

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Outstanding

The registered manager provides strong leadership, and continually appraises the overall function of the home to make sure that it provides the best possible environment for young people to grow and develop.

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Outstanding

The manager has been registered for three years. He has now completed his level 5 diploma in leadership and management for residential childcare. The registered manager is extremely passionate, focused on and committed to providing high- quality care for young people and ensuring that they continue to make progress in line with their plans across all areas of their development.

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Outstanding

A solid foundation at the home is evidence-based research, which has been implemented by the current registered manager. This also underpins supervisions. Supervisions take place monthly and are detailed to enable staff members to reflect on their practice. When staff are in post for more than 12 months, they have an annual appraisal to identify progress and areas for development or improvement. All staff undertake regular training, including courses specific to the needs of the young people under their care. Staff are encouraged to source training packages available outside of the company to enhance knowledge further. Staff either have their level 3 qualification in residential childcare or are working towards the award in the required timescales.

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Outstanding

Team meetings are forums in which young person’s achievements and difficulties are identified. Team meetings consist of guest speakers and research, and include the attendance of the young person, should they wish to attend.

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Outstanding

The staffing levels provided for the young person are excellent and offer continuity of care. Staff rarely cease employment with the home, but when they have done so they have moved within the organisation to gain promotion. Staff say that they are happy working at the home and talk with passion about their time there.

p.8

Outstanding

The registered manager is comprehensively aware of the strengths and areas of development for the service. The registered manager has already brought about a number of improvements, such as implementing practice workshops to help staff to heighten their awareness and improving the way in which staff are supervised.

p.8

Outstanding

The aims and objectives of the statement of purpose are met. Staff understand the ethos and values of the home and deliver them in practice. They have a true sense of care and go above and beyond expectations. Practice is based on the strength of listening to the young person, and on mutual respect and trust. Staff draw on a range of models, including attachment-focused therapy. These approaches to care help the young person to build up the confidence, self-esteem and resilience that they need to begin to overcome the difficulties of the past.

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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’. 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

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What the inspection judgements mean

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 harmed or at risk of harm or 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 0300 123 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, work- based 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

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

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