Children's home SC032725

Good

The children's home provides effective services that meet the requirements for good.

p.2

The children's home provision is good because:

 There is a strong, experienced manager in place who is committed to developing the service and has the support of a knowledgeable deputy and staff team.

p.3

The children's home provision is good because:

 Staff understand how to develop strong relationships with young people.

p.3

The children's home provision is good because:

 Staff are permanent and provide stability and consistency. This is important, as many of the young people have experienced a large number of different placements, social workers and professionals in their lives.

p.3

The children's home provision is good because:

 Risks assessments and care plans are comprehensive and up to date.

p.3

The children's home provision is good because:

 The physical environment produces a homely, nurturing and safe atmosphere. Young people feel comfortable and safe.

p.3

The children's home provision is good because:

 The manager prioritises the young people. He encourages the staff team to promote young people’s progress. He is aware of the strengths and weaknesses of the home.

p.3

The children's home provision is good because:

 There are strong links with key professionals, and these underpin a comprehensive approach to young people’s care.

p.3

The children's home provision is good because:

 Young people participate in the daily life of the home. This teaches them life skills, and helps them to feel valued and to develop a sense of belonging.

p.3

The children's home provision is good because:

 Young people are supported to have contact with their families. Staff work closely with parents to ensure that they are fully informed and involved in decisions relating to the care of their young people.

p.3

Recommendations

To improve the quality and standards of care further the service should take account of the following recommendations:  A child's bedroom should not generally be entered without their permission, though it may be necessary to establish routines to allow for rooms to be cleaned regularly. Usually, rooms should only be searched if the child has been informed or asked for their permission. Immediate searching may be necessary where there are reasonable grounds for believing that there is a risk to the child's or another person's safety or well-being. In particular, the record should show whether a young person is present during the search. (‘Guide to the children's homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 16, paragraph 3.20)  When establishing the home, the registered person must ensure that it is suitably located so that children are effectively safeguarded and can access services to meet needs identified in their relevant plans (see regulations

p.4

Recommendations

12(2)(c)). Under regulation 46, the registered person should review the appropriateness and suitability of the location and premises of the home at least once a year. The review should include the identification of any risks and opportunities presented by the home's location and strategies for managing these. Providers should refer to the non-statutory advice about the location assessment process: Children's homes regulation amendments 2014: Advice for children's homes providers on new duties under regulations that came in to effect in January and April 2014. (‘Guide to the children's homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 64, paragraph 15.1)  Regulation 19(2) details sanctions that are prohibited in behaviour management. Any sanctions used to address poor behaviour should be restorative in nature, to help children recognise the impact of their behaviour on themselves, other children, the staff caring for them and the wider

p.4

Recommendations

community. In some cases it will be important for children to make reparation in some form to anyone hurt by their behaviour and the staff in the home should be skilled to support the child to understand this and carry it out. (‘Guide to the children's homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 46, paragraph 9.38)  Staff should continually and actively assess the risks to each child and the arrangements in place to protect them. In particular, general risk assessments should contain an evaluation criteria and a level of risk. (‘Guide to the children's homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 42, paragraph 9.5)

p.4

Information about this children's home

The home is provided by a local authority and is registered to care for up to six young people with emotional and/or behavioural difficulties.

p.5

Recent inspection history

Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement 08/03/2016 Interim Improved effectiveness 24/08/2015 Full Good 19/02/2015 Interim Improved effectiveness 29/07/2014 Full Good

p.5

Good

Young people are settled and achieving overall. The manager and the staff team work hard to develop effective relationships with young people.

p.6

Good

Staff ensure that they have detailed information prior to young people arriving at the home. They assess effectively the associated risks to the individual and the group when a new person arrives. They speak to family members and the professionals involved to gather information about the family dynamics and experiences. This enables them to gain an understanding of how these may have impacted on each young person. Information about past trauma is responded to with understanding and empathy. This enables comprehensive assessments to take place that inform plans for the placement. The impact is that it helps to ensure that young people have good experiences while at the home and achieve their aims.

p.6

Good

The positive ethos in relation to attending school continues with mixed results. The manager and staff team advocate on behalf of young people to enable them to gain relevant placements in school, college or work. A member of the virtual school team said that they work ‘excellently together’ and that the home is ‘very proactive with education’. However, for some young people currently, their external family issues and early life trauma are proving to be a distraction to achievement at school. Every effort is made to address this with the professionals involved in the lives of young people, and some progress is evident.

p.6

Good

Key-worker sessions are regular and incorporate in-depth discussions about issues of concern for young people or staff. These are planned and link with the care plans but can also be spontaneous. This ensures that plans are achieved and young people are afforded flexible opportunities to work through issues when they arise. As a result, young people’s confidence and levels of trust improve.

p.6

Good

Young people are in good health and attend appointments well. Staff support them by talking through issues that are concerning them and by transporting them to appointments. In some cases young people are reluctant to engage with professionals from outside of the home. Staff ensure that they themselves meet with the relevant services to gain knowledge to help the young people day to day. A clinical psychologist said that she feels that the staff ‘see things objectively’ and can see ‘the limits of their care’, which is important in managing some risky behaviours. This ensures that a consistent approach is undertaken that helps those young people who are disengaged with services in a more subtle way.

p.6

Good

Activities are regular, with young people taking part in a wide range of sporting activities, such as climbing and going to the gym. Such activities help to improve their social skills as well as generate a sense of well-being.

p.6

Good

Independent living skills are promoted from the beginning of a placement within the home. A three-step programme is in place to give young people a wide variety of information and skills to help them in their adult life. These range from the basic cooking and personal hygiene tasks to how to budget, access services, apply for a job, make a complaint or get a passport. This helps prepare young people for daily life when they leave the home.

p.7

Good

Contact is recognised as important in the lives of children and young people. Staff keep family members updated regularly. Staff have improved family relationships that had been fractured before coming into contact with the home. The result is that young people feel able to enjoy both living at the home and visiting family.

p.7

Good

Young people are consulted regularly and their views are taken into account. Meetings take place with the group on a monthly basis. Questionnaires are used to gain individual views about the home. The ‘holding the space’ sessions held regularly give young people an opportunity to share with each other how they are feeling, and the impact that they have on each other, in a safe and managed way. This generates a sense of consequential thinking that enables young people to examine their behaviours and adapt or change.

p.7

Good

Young people at the home are safe overall and say that they feel safe in the relationships that they have with the staff team. These relationships allow young people to make progress in their lives and learn how to keep themselves safe. The staff team works with specialist services to a quickly address episodes when young people have experimented with alcohol or drugs. One young person said: ‘The staff are good. It’s much better than my last placement.’

p.7

Good

Risks associated with young people going missing and being at risk of exploitative relationships are understood and acted upon by the staff team. The policies and procedures are adhered to and the staff team is aware of whom they should contact and the actions to be taken. If there are absences, these are for a short period of time and staff make every effort to locate the young people before reporting them as missing to the police. Return interviews are carried out by social workers regularly. This ensures that young people are given an opportunity independent of the home to discuss why they have gone missing. The staff team has developed positive relationships with professionals in the community who help keep young people safe. The links with the local police officer have been developed over time and allow young people to view such services as helpful. The local beat officer said, ‘We work well together.’

p.7

Good

Risk assessments and care plans are comprehensive and give strategies to staff for dealing with individual situations and behaviour. These are updated at regular intervals and in response to new risks or situations. This enables staff to keep young people safe. Care plans concentrate on the voice of the young person and what they want to achieve. This ensures that young people feel listened to.

p.8

Good

Positive behaviour is promoted by the use of incentives, and restorative approaches are being adopted, although sanctions are still used and are high in number. In some cases, sanctions are used punitively and the sanction does not easily fit with the behaviour that needs to be addressed. The result is that learning and opportunities to change behaviour are missed. In addition, the use of sanctions is not equal across the staff team, leading young people to have an inconsistent view of how behaviour is managed.

p.8

Good

Records show a high number of incidents of restraint. They are comprehensively detailed and often do not constitute a full restraint but are incidences of young people being guided away from others. They are regularly evaluated for effectiveness and appropriately signed off by the manager. This ensures such practice is transparent.

p.8

Good

The home is well maintained, safe, and health and safety checks are up to date. Visitors have identification checked and their visits recorded. However, general risk assessments for the home, while offering comprehensive strategies for addressing risk, do not contain a recorded level of risk. This means that there is a blanket approach to the assessments that does not offer the same level of individualised practice seen in young people’s risk assessments.

p.8

Good

The manager with day-to-day responsibility for the home is suitably qualified and has extensive experience working with young people. He manages the home effectively with assistance from an acting deputy. The manager post is shared with another person who is currently seconded to a senior position. This situation needs to be resolved to allow the management team to develop. The home is staffed with appropriately qualified people able to meet the needs of young people living there. Training for staff is recorded and up to date. A plan of training is in place, with regular courses covering mandatory subjects, such as first aid and emerging themes of practice.

p.8

Good

Supervision is held regularly with staff and is recorded in detail, covering individual practice and tasks as well as the needs of young people. Appraisals are carried out annually. This results in a stable staff team which enjoys continuous professional development.

p.9

Good

The manager has systems in place to monitor the quality of care, and these processes are regular and effective. They are shared with senior managers to ensure that the home continues to develop. Such systems include assessments of the locality in which the home is positioned, to ensure the safety of young people. These assessments are reviewed and updated but do not always take into account all relevant information or contain sufficient analysis and evaluation. This may result in staff being unclear about the changing potential risks in the locality.

p.9

Good

The manager and staff work proactively and positively with other agencies and professionals. A social worker said that the home is ‘fantastic and consistent’. The manager and staff build effective working relationships with a range of services involved in the lives of young people, enabling the home to have what a social worker described as a ‘very joined up approach’ to the care that it provides.

p.9

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.10

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.10

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.

p.10

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 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.11

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.11

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,

p.12

Information about this inspection

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

p.12

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.12

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

p.12