Children's home run by Leeds City Council in Leeds

Good

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

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The children’s home’s provision is good because:

 Children benefit from a caring staff team with which they form close, appropriate bonds.  Children enjoy living in this home.  Children make good progress in all areas of their development.  Children participate in a wide range of activities.  Safeguarding and recruitment procedures are good.  Clear and consistent boundaries help children to improve their behaviour.  The manager’s child-centred approach ensures that children leave the home with the skills to move back into family life successfully.  The staff team is well-supported through regular supervision.  Staff access a broad range of training courses. This ensures that they have the knowledge to meet children’s individual needs.  All requirements and recommendations set at the last inspection have been met.

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Statutory requirements

This section sets out the actions which must be taken so that the registered person 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 must comply within the given timescales.

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Requirement Due date

(2) In order to complete a quality of care review, the registered person must establish and maintain a system for monitoring, reviewing and evaluating (a) the quality of care provided for children; (b) the feedback and opinions of children about the children’s home, its facilities and the quality of care they receive in it. The system referred to in paragraph (2) must provide for ascertaining and considering the opinions of children, their parents, placing authorities and staff. (Regulation 45 (2)(b)(5)) 01/03/2017

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The protection of children standard

12. In order to meet the protection of children standard, with particular reference to maintaining up-to-date risk assessments which describe the expected steps staff must take to keep children safe, the registered person must ensure: (2)(a) that staff: (i) assess whether each child is at risk of harm, taking into account information in the child’s relevant plans, and if necessary, make arrangements to reduce the risk of any harm to the child. 01/12/16

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Recommendations

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

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Recommendations

 Requires the registered person to ensure that they make suitable arrangements to manage, administer and dispose of any medication (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 35, paragraph 7.15). This is with particular reference to ensuring that staff dispense tablets out of one box at a time.  For children’s homes to be nurturing and supportive environments that meet the needs of their children, they will, in most cases, be homely, domestic environments (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 15, paragraph 3.9). This is with particular reference to ensuring that the building and garden is maintained to a good standard and remains clean and homely while awaiting refurbishment.

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Information about this children’s home

This is a local authority home registered to provide care for up to five children of either gender with emotional and/or behavioural difficulties.

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Recent inspection history

Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement 22/03/2016 Interim Sustained effectiveness 17/07/2015 Full Good 10/03/2015 Interim Sustained effectiveness 16/09/2014 Full Good

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people living in the home are

Children benefit from very warm and caring relationships with staff. This helps them gain a strong sense of security and belonging. All the children report that they enjoy living here and they like all of the staff team.

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people living in the home are

Children progress well with their education because of the support and high aspirations of staff. Staff are committed to helping children with their homework and additional professional tutoring sessions ensure that children achieve their maximum learning potential.

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people living in the home are

Children attend all routine health appointments and enjoy an active lifestyle. They regularly go swimming, and ride their bikes and scooters. As a result, they all have good physical health. Staff work closely with children’s mental health and therapeutic services to make sure that children receive the specialist psychological support they need.

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people living in the home are

Children’s personal medical conditions are well managed. Medication administration records are clear. However, staff members use drugs from more than one packet, making auditing more difficult. Although no medication error has occurred, this current practice raises the risk of such an event happening.

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people living in the home are

Children enjoy a range of activities, including holidays to a farm, cinema and trips to rugby matches. They appreciate spending time with others and benefit tremendously from one-to-one time with staff. This improves their social skills and life experience. It helps them to feel valued as individuals.

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people living in the home are

Children maintain their sense of identity and belonging because staff help them to keep in contact with their families. Staff do this by helping them plan family holidays and weekly contact.

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people living in the home are

The home is awaiting refurbishment. Staff are doing their best to maintain a homely and child-centred environment while they wait for the work to commence. Some areas of the home, particularly the upstairs, remain in need of redecoration.

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people living in the home are

Children have a large garden to play in, but this has not been recently been attended to and the outdoor play equipment has not been cleaned for some time. This affects their enjoyment of the garden and does not provide them with consistently high quality facilities. Judgement grade

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people are helped and protected

Good structure and routine helps children to feel secure in their home. As a result, children are relaxed and their behaviour improves. Some children were having regular outbursts of aggressive behaviour and these have now significantly reduced. Staff are quick to defuse any negative behaviour. Physical intervention is used rarely and only as a last resort. A requirement to record any physical intervention accurately is met. Records are now clear and precise.

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people are helped and protected

Staff have a good understanding of children’s individual risks. However, risk assessments do not always detail clearly the actions that staff should take to prevent injury to children, such as when children remove their seatbelts in moving vehicles. This does not help staff to understand what is expected of them and it is not giving them confidence when they take actions to prevent harm.

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people are helped and protected

Staff have a good understanding of safeguarding and missing from home procedures. As a result, they are able to identify risks to children and are confident to take immediate action when necessary. Staff benefit from training on the wider risks children may face, such as online abuse, radicalisation and child sexual exploitation.

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people are helped and protected

Individual work with children provides them with the knowledge of how to keep safe when using the internet and in the community. This prepares them well for future independence.

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people are helped and protected

Recruitment checks are robust. Consequently, children are cared for by adults who present no threat to vulnerable children.

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leaders and managers

The registered manager has been in post since 2007. She is suitably qualified and experienced to undertake this role. She is dedicated to providing personalised care for very young children. Through this approach, children learn the skills and coping strategies they need to be rehabilitated with their families. Staff feel well supported by the managers. One member of staff commented: ‘You work with the managers every day here. You do not need to wait to discuss any issues. You can get clarity any time.’ Staff receive regular supervision, which helps them to strengthen their care practice.

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leaders and managers

Staff attend a range of mandatory and additional training courses. This ensures that they have the skills and knowledge they need to support children’s complex needs.

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leaders and managers

The manager has good oversight of the home. She monitors care plans effectively. This ensures that children are making progress. She knows the areas of strength of the home and areas for development. Her own review report, which considers the quality of care that the home provides, lacks evaluation with children, other professionals and parents. This means that their views are not taken into consideration when planning further improvements.

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leaders and managers

The manager has excellent links with schools, social workers and health professionals. One social worker commented: ‘They work with us and come to all our meetings. They always tell us everything.’ This ensures that good communication between services is maintained and children receive the support they need.

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leaders and managers

This home is operating within its statement of purpose and provides good child- centred care.

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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 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, 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,

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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 Text phone: 0161 618 8524 E: enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk W: www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ofsted

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