Children's home run by New Forest Care Limited in Southampton

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:

 Young people live in a nurturing home environment and are well supported to overcome their difficulties.  Young people's physical and mental health is improving.  All young people have good attendance at school and are making progress in their studies.  Young people are able to develop and improve on their relationships with their family members.  Young people say that they feel safe. Staff ensure that young people are well supervised both within and outside of the home.  Partnership working with educational settings, health professionals and placing social workers is effective.  Managers and leaders offer professional challenge when necessary and advocate on young people’s behalf to ensure that partner agencies consider the young person’s best interests.  Manager’s monitoring of young people’s progress is very evident.  Changes with regards to the registered manager status of the home have not been communicated to Ofsted and shortfalls regarding physical restraint

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The children's home provision is good because:

records have continued since the previous inspection. Requirements are made to address these areas and recommendations are made to address shortfalls in respect of: safeguarding arrangements, risk assessments, staff supervision arrangements, record keeping, the home’s workforce plan and its location assessment.

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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

The registered person must ensure that within 24 hours of the use of a measure of control, discipline or restraint in relation to a child in the home, a record is made which includes—

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Requirement Due date

(ii) details of the child's behaviour leading to the use of the measure; and

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Requirement Due date

(vii) the effectiveness and any consequences of the use of the measure.

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Requirement Due date

(Regulation 35 (3) (a) (ii) and (vii)) 07/02/2017

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must give notice in writing to HMCI, as soon as it is reasonably practicable to do so, if any of the following events take place or are expected by the registered person to take place—

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Requirement Due date

(a) a person other than the registered person carries on or manages the children’s home; and

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Requirement Due date

(b) a person ceases to carry on or manage the home.

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Recommendations

To improve the quality and standards of care further, the service should take account of the following recommendations:  The registered persons must ensure that all staff are familiar with the home's policies on record keeping and understand the importance of careful, objective and clear recording. In particular, ensuring that safeguarding records and complaints evidence manager’s decision making and outcomes of investigations. (‘Guide to the children's homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 62, paragraph 14.4)

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Recommendations

 The registered persons must ensure that they fulfil their responsibilities under Regulation 34 to implement policies setting out arrangements for the safeguarding of children from abuse or neglect and procedures for referring child protection concerns to the placing authority or local authority where the home is situated. (‘Guide to the children's homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 44, paragraph 9.19)

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Recommendations

 The registered persons must demonstrate how staff continually and actively assess the risks to each child and the arrangements in place to protect them to ensure that they remain effective. This is in regards to ensuring young people's risk assessments are updated after incidents. (‘Guide to the children's homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 42, paragraph 9.5)

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Recommendations

 The registered persons must have systems in place so that all staff, including the manager, receive supervision which allows them to reflect on their practice and the needs of the young people assigned to their care. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 61, paragraph 13.2)

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Recommendations

 The registered persons must ensure that notification must include details of the action taken by the home’s staff in response to the event. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 63, paragraph 14.13)

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Recommendations

 The registered persons must have a workforce plan which can fulfil the workforce related requirements of Regulation 16, schedule 1 (paragraphs 19 and 20). The plan must: detail the processes and agreed timescales for staff to achieve induction, probation and any core training (such as safeguarding and health and safety and mandatory qualifications); detail the process for managing and improving poor performance; detail the process and timescales for supervision of practice (see Regulation 33 (4) (b)); and keep appropriate records for staff in the home. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 53, paragraph 10.8)

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Recommendations

 The registered persons must review the appropriateness and suitability of the location and premises of the home at least once a year. Providers should refer to the non-statutory advice about the location assessment process, in particular ‘consultation with appropriate local services’. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 64, paragraph 15.1)

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Information about this children's home

A private company owns and operates this children's home. The home provides care and accommodation for a maximum of four children with emotional and/or behavioural difficulties.

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Recent inspection history

Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement 21/06/2016 Interim Sustained effectiveness 22/02/2016 Full Outstanding 12/08/2015 Interim Sustained effectiveness 27/03/2015 Full Outstanding

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Good

From their starting points, young people have made effective and sustained progress in many areas of their lives. They live in a nurturing home environment, which gives them the confidence to develop their abilities. Consequently, young people have made improvements in their health, education and social relationships, including those with their family members.

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Good

Staff’s close attention to young people’s health needs and their effective liaison with health professionals ensures that young people’s physical health improves. Young people are developing an understanding of their own personal health needs and are taking more responsibility for themselves, resulting in significant improvements to their physical well-being.

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Good

Young people's mental and emotional well-being is also improving. They attend regular sessions with the organisation’s therapy team. As a result, young people are developing better emotional awareness and are learning to understand their emotions and express them more positively. This has led to improvements in their behaviour and social interactions with others.

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Good

Young people increase their self-confidence and self-esteem through positive experiences, taking increased responsibility for themselves. This has enabled them to have the confidence to join clubs, such as rugby, developing their social experiences and supporting their integration into the wider community.

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Good

Staff actively support young people’s education within a culture that values learning. All young people attend the organisation’s school. They have good attendance and are making progress in their studies. Staff have close links with their educational colleagues and are able to track young people’s progress at school through a joint online database. This enables staff to provide young people with the support that they require to improve their chance of achieving their education capability.

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Good

Young people are developing their life and independence skills. Staff provide guidance in practical issues, such as cooking and budgeting. Each young person has individual targets and goals to enable them to develop their independence skills in achievable steps. As a result, young people develop more confidence in caring for themselves and are being prepared for adulthood.

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Good

Positive, trusting relationships allow young people to develop confidence and benefit from the support provided. Young people enjoy good relationships based on humour and play. Support from staff enables young people to develop an understanding of their past and to reflect upon their choices and behaviours.

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Good

Staff are experienced and skilled in supporting the young people. They have a clear understanding of young people’s needs, have insight into the reasons why young people present challenging behaviour and know how best to support them. Their knowledge of the young people enables them to support young people to increase their ability to manage their feelings and frustrations constructively. As a result, young people’s incidents of challenging behaviour have reduced.

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Good

Young people are able to develop and improve on relationships with their family members. Staff recognise the value of young people’s relationships with their parents and siblings. With guidance from the therapy team, staff have worked with young people and their families to repair their relationships. Young people now have regular visits home to their families.

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Good

Care plans are detailed and individualised. They describe young people’s unique needs and personal histories and ensure that staff are consistent in their approach to the young people. Young people have opportunities to share their views on the care that they receive through individual ‘key work’ sessions. However, there is limited evidence of staff working proactively with young people to provide education and support around some of the areas identified within their care plans. Examples include anger management and safe use of the internet. Most discussions are reactive, occurring after an event or incident. As a result, records do not demonstrate that young people are receiving education or guidance from staff to prepare or support them to prevent potentially hazardous incidents from occurring.

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Good

Close liaison and communication between all professionals involved in a young person’s care ensures that young people’s development needs are well coordinated and met. Managers hold six-weekly care plan meetings to monitor young people’s progress. This ensures that young people’s plans of care are dynamic and staff’s strategies of support evolve with young people’s changing needs.

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Requires improvement

Managers and designated safeguarding officers within the organisation have not always appropriately followed safeguarding procedures to protect the young people. Managers have not reported safeguarding concerns appropriately to the organisation’s designated safeguarding officers (DSOs) as per the organisation’s safeguarding policy. DSOs within the organisation have not reported concerns to the local authority designated officer within 24 hours as per the organisation’s policy. Some incidents have been reported days after the event. DSOs and managers are acting to instigate investigations without first seeking guidance from the local authority’s designated officer, contrary to the organisation’s safeguarding policy and the local authority’s procedures.

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Requires improvement

Managers and DSOs within the organisation have not evidenced that safeguarding concerns, allegations against staff or complaints by young people have been effectively addressed. Records of complaints, allegations against staff and safeguarding concerns do not evidence all the actions taken by managers or their decision-making. Some incidents did not have a clear timeline of events. No recordings detailed the outcome of the investigation or the actions that were taken as a result.

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Requires improvement

No young people have come to harm because of these failings. However, these shortfalls are impeding the organisation’s ability to respond to safeguarding concerns appropriately and safely. More positively, when young people raise allegations against staff, management takes steps to protect the young people by removing the staff from the rota and offering all concerned with support until the investigation is completed.

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Requires improvement

Typically, risk assessments are proactive and detail the preventative steps necessary to keep young people safe. Each individual risk assessment is scrutinised regularly by a multi-disciplinary team. However, one young person’s risk assessment was not updated after a recent incident of theft while out in public. Therefore, the risk assessment did not evidence the strategies that staff must use to prevent this from occurring again or of the support that they are providing to help the young person understand the consequences of their actions.

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Requires improvement

The home’s location review considers the many risk factors presented by the local community and surrounding areas. However, it lacks information from external sources and it is not evidenced if the manager had consulted any other professionals when completing the review. The quality and reliability of its content is therefore compromised.

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Requires improvement

All members of staff are trained in the method of restraint used by the organisation which runs the home. The approach focuses on de-escalation techniques and the development of positive relationships. However, a minority of records of physical interventions do not detail the events leading up to a physical intervention sufficiently to understand why a physical intervention was necessary or why a certain type of physical intervention, for example a supine hold, was needed. A number of physical interventions records and a substantial amount of sanctions had not been evaluated for their effectiveness or the evaluation had not been completed within the required timescales, sometimes five or seven days after the incident. A requirement regarding the evaluation of incidents involving physical intervention or measures of discipline was made at the previous two inspections. The managers have still not taken sufficient action to address this. The home’s

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Requires improvement

ability to confidently evaluate the effectiveness of such behaviour management techniques is severely restricted.

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Requires improvement

Young people say that they feel safe. Staff ensure that young people are well supervised both within and outside of the home. As a result, young people rarely get themselves into situations where they are at serious risk of harm.

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Requires improvement

There have been no incidents of young people being reported as missing since the home’s previous inspection. This is an achievement for one young person who has a history of going missing. Suitable procedures are in place if an incident of going missing were to occur, which includes the close supervision and following of a young person if they were to leave the home without permission.

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Requires improvement

Recruitment procedures of new staff are well managed. Managers complete all the required checks prior to a new member of staff beginning employment to minimise the potential risks of recruiting unsafe adults.

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Requires improvement

Staff complete the household environment checks necessary to maintain safety in the home. However, the recordings of fire drills do not detail who was present during the drill. Therefore, the manager cannot evidence if all of the young people or members of staff have completed a fire drill and have the knowledge and experience to ensure that they are prepared for such an emergency.

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Good

The current registered manager is no longer in post and has not been for two months. He has failed to inform Ofsted of this change, as required by regulation. The person who is in day-to-day charge of the home has yet to submit an application to Ofsted to inform the regulator of his intention to register as the manager. He is aware that to manage a home without becoming registered is a breach of the Care Standards Act 2000.

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Good

The new manager has extensive experience in this field and previously managed another home within the organisation. He has completed the level 5 diploma in leadership and management. He has developed a good knowledge of the home and the young people it supports and is taking action to improve the service.

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Good

Young people continue to make good progress in all areas of their lives. Partnership working with educational settings, health professionals and placing social workers is effective. This ensures that appropriate support is in place to assist young people’s progress and to maximise their potential. Managers and leaders offer professional challenge when necessary and advocate on young people’s behalf to ensure that partner agencies consider the young person’s best interests.

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Good

Manager’s monitoring of young people’s progress is very evident. Sophisticated outcome trackers and review processes clearly detail young people's progress. These systems enable the informed analysis of young people over time and create opportunities to assess the value of particular interventions. These are used to good effect to maximise young people's progress. Leaders and managers have a good understanding of the strengths of the home but have been blind to some weaknesses including the quality of records and the implementation of safeguarding practices.

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Good

Staff and managers take action to inform Ofsted of significant events, as required by regulation. However, the quality of the information contained within a minority of these reports has been very poor. In one instance, a notification regarding a serious incident contained one sentence and provided no detail on the concerns or the actions that managers had taken to keep young people and others safe. This does not aid Ofsted in making a decision on the appropriateness of the organisation’s response to the incident.

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Good

Since the previous inspection, a number of staff members have left the team and several members of staff commented that morale had been low. The new manager has taken action to promote a healthy staff environment. Staff spoken with expressed being happy with the changes and the level of support provided by the new manager.

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Good

Staff are equipped with mandatory training in safeguarding, first aid, fire awareness, food hygiene and behaviour management. However, the workforce development plan does not specify timescales for new members of staff’s induction and probation periods or timescales for supervision meetings. Neither does it contain the process for managing poor performance, as is required by guidance. All longer-serving staff members have completed the level 3 diploma.

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Good

Staff now receive regular supervision. These sessions provide staff with an opportunity to review their own performance and training. However, supervision records contain limited exploration on the quality of the care provided to young people, staff’s relationship with them and how they could better support the young people to keep themselves safe and make progress. This restricts and minimises the value and impact of supervision.

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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

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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