Children's home run by City of Wolverhampton Council

Requires improvement

The children’s home is not yet delivering good help and care for children and young people. However, there are no serious or widespread failures that result in their welfare not being safeguarded or promoted.

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The children’s home provision requires improvement because:

 Staff do not work creatively with education providers to maximise each young person’s learning and to minimise any underachievement.  Young people’s risk assessments are basic.  Staff do not ensure that assessments relating to managing risks around young people going missing from care stay up to date.  Some behaviour management records are incomplete.  The registered manager does not use information from safeguarding forums to develop staff practice.  Staff appraisals do not show how they are supported to develop their practice.  Admissions and discharges are not always managed effectively.  Record-keeping requires further development. This includes contact records, responses to missing incidents, adding the Children’s Commissioner’s details to the ‘Young people’s guide’ and the home’s workforce plan.

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The children’s home strengths

 Staff work well with families.  The staff make sure that the home remains a pleasant and homely environment in readiness for young people’s short breaks.  Staff are effective in applying de-escalation and consequently sanctions and restraints are rarely necessary.  A dedicated team of staff cares for young people.  Staff are committed to the care of young people.  The health needs of young people are positively promoted.

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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

In order to meet the education standard, the registered person must ensure–

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Requirement Due date

(2)(a)(vi) maintain regular contact with each child’s education and training provider, including engaging with the provider and the placing authority to support the child’s education and training and to maximise the child’s achievement. 28/02/2017

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Requirement Due date

14: The care planning standard includes that children have a positive experience of arriving at or moving on from the home.

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Requirement Due date

In order to meet the care planning standard, the registered person must ensure:–

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Requirement Due date

(2)(c) that each child’s relevant plans are followed. 28/02/2017

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Requirement Due date

In order to meet the protection of children standard, the registered person must ensure that staff:–

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Requirement Due date

(2)(ii) help each child to understand how to keep safe. 28/02/2017

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must ensure that, within 48 hours of the use of the measure, the registered person, or a person who is authorised by the registered person to do so (‘the authorised person’) has spoken to the user about the measure; and has signed the record to confirm it is accurate. (Regulation 35 (b)) 28/02/2017

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Recommendations

To improve the quality and standards of care further, the service should take account of the following recommendations:  Ensure that the home works closely with the placing authority to understand the child’s relationship history and the impact that the child’s arrival may have on the group living in the home. Staff should understand, for each child, what the placing authority has recorded in the relevant plan as an appropriate level of contact with family and friends. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 38, paragraph 8.3)

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Recommendations

 Ensure that the registered manager is skilled in anticipating difficulties and reviewing incidents, such as learning from disruptions and placement breakdowns. They are responsible for proactively implementing lessons learned and sustaining good practice. Specifically, the service should ensure that safeguarding information is available showing decisions made. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 55, paragraph 10.24)

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Recommendations

 Ensure that, when a child returns to the home after being missing from care or away from the home without permission, the responsible local authority must provide an opportunity for the child to have an independent return home interview. Homes should take account of information provided by such interviews when assessing risks and putting arrangements in place to protect each child. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 45, paragraph 9.30)

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Recommendations

 Ensure that the registered person has a workforce plan which can fulfil the workforce-related requirements of regulation 16, schedule 1 (paragraphs 19 and 20). The plan should: detail the necessary management and staffing structure, (including any staff commissioned to provide health and education), the experience and qualifications of staff currently working within the staffing structure and any further training required for those staff, to enable the delivery of the home’s statement of purpose; detail the processes and agreed timescales for staff to achieve induction, probation and any core training (such as safeguarding, 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. The plan should be updated to include any new

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Recommendations

training and qualifications completed by staff while working at the home, and used to record the ongoing training and continuing professional development needs of staff – including the home’s manager. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 53, paragraph 10.8)

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Recommendations

 Ensure that the children understand their rights as a looked-after child, or child living in a children’s home. Children must be informed of how to contact the Office of the Children’s Commissioner for advice and assistance about their rights and entitlements. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 23, paragraph 4.19)

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Recommendations

 Ensure that all staff have their performance and fitness to carry out their role formally appraised at least once annually. This appraisal should take into account, where reasonable and practical, the views of other professionals who have worked with the staff member over the year and children in the home’s care. As part of the performance management process, poor performance should be addressed by a timely plan to bring about improvement. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 61, paragraph 13.5)

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Information about this children’s home

The home is registered for up to six young people who stay at the home for a short break. The home is managed by the local authority and accepts young people who have emotional and/or behavioural difficulties.

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Recent inspection history

Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement 28/01/2016 Interim Sustained effectiveness 19/05/2015 Full Good 11/07/2014 Full Adequate 21/05/2014 Full Inadequate

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Requires improvement

The home’s remit of providing short-stay placements is a new and developing area. Staff are yet to develop sufficient skills to respond to this new evolving service. Consequently, some admissions and discharges have not been managed effectively and not every young person has experienced a positive stay.

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Requires improvement

A majority of young people are benefiting from their short breaks, including attending school. However, other young people have increased their challenging behaviour in response to the influence of other young people in the home. This is due to emergency placements when insufficient admission information is available and poor matching occurs. Consequently, young people’s education has suffered, with increased refusal to engage in a planned school placement or within the home. The management has not made sure that placing social workers are sufficiently responsive in organising moves from the home in some emergencies. This has created increased anxiety for some young people when awaiting decisions about their future plans.

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Requires improvement

When young people have experienced positive stays, they have described their experience as ‘It is really great here’, ‘Staff have helped me a lot’, and ‘It’s been good to get a break’. One young person told the inspector that: ‘It’s better being here than at home. The staff are helping me and my family to get along.’

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Requires improvement

Arrangements for activities are good. Staff create plans in response to young people’s interests and this helps them to enjoy experiences that improve their health and increase their self-esteem.

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Requires improvement

Staff promote contact with young people’s families. However, information regarding young people’s permissible contacts is not consistently completed. This leaves staff with a lack of clear guidance regarding possible inappropriate contacts.

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Requires improvement

Staff make sure that health plans are in place that support the short break remit. Staff check that young people receive medication and take them to medical appointments if necessary.

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Requires improvement

The home is a pleasant and homely environment. Young people are encouraged to bring their own possessions to enable them to personalise their rooms during their stays.

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Requires improvement

Staff are able to discuss how young people have settled into the home. This includes the use of a ‘journey book’ that helps to capture young people’s experiences.

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Requires improvement

Staff support the safety of young people, but risk assessments are basic and do not consistently show that young people understand the dangers relating to their behaviours.

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Requires improvement

Staff check health and safety areas regularly and fire drills are completed as part of young people’s admissions. This helps to support young people’s welfare and safety.

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Requires improvement

Staff are trained in child protection, and are able to discuss the process for reporting concerns to senior staff. However, the registered manager does not receive sufficient information from the local authority or investigating staff, including the minutes of key decisions. This hinders him from learning from these situations and reassessing staff practice to help keep young people safe.

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Requires improvement

Some young people have been absent and gone missing from the home. On such occasions staff have been diligent both in searching for them and in investigating possible places that they may have gone to. This action supports young people’s safety and involves their families in establishing clear communication relating to the possible whereabouts of their child. However, records of young people going missing do not consistently show the involvement of an independent visitor in conducting a follow-up interview. This missed opportunity means that young people have not been able to discuss the reasons for their absence.

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Requires improvement

Sanctions and incidents requiring the restraint of young people are rare. Staff are good at using a wide range of de-escalation techniques to defuse situations when a young person displays challenging behaviour. When such events do occur, records are not completed in full. This includes no recording of the effectiveness of the sanction and the manager not dating their monitoring actions. This does not show that behaviour management systems are sufficiently strong.

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Requires improvement

Staff recruitment records show that all necessary checks are completed prior to them working at the home. This helps to secure the safety of young people. Judgement grade

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Requires improvement

The registered manager has completed his level 5 diploma in leadership and management for care services and has worked within residential services for a significant period. He has been the manager at the home since 2011. The remit of the home has changed significantly since the last inspection and therefore the previous recommendations do not link to the way the home works currently.

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Requires improvement

The manager has been unsuccessful in making sure that all social workers understand the different role of the home and that they keep to the plans made for young people. This has resulted in young people being placed at the home with a lack of future planning. This has increased their anxiety at the home. Some staff identified the change in remit as being a challenge.

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Requires improvement

The home is well staffed, with a good range of experienced and qualified staff, with the majority of staff having completed the level 3 diploma, and all others in the process of completing their award in the required period. However, there is no clear workforce plan to demonstrate how the staff work together and how training is planned.

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Requires improvement

The home’s statement of purpose clearly states the service provided by the staff team. The staff’s flexible approach has helped to support young people in crisis and helped bring some families back together.

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Requires improvement

The ‘Young person’s guide’ includes basic information regarding the home. However, it does not have information relating to the Children’s Commissioner. This hinders young people should they wish to raise concerns externally.

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Requires improvement

Good monitoring systems are helping to keep the manager aware of the way that the home is evolving. Assessment tools are used to examine possible outcomes for young people throughout their visits. The independent visitor visits regularly and talks both to staff and to the young people, as well as contacting social workers to gain an awareness of differing views relating to the provision. The staff have responded well to issues raised as part of this monitoring.

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Requires improvement

Professionals involved with the home speak highly of the provision. One social worker commented that: ‘Communication is high; planning meetings, discussions and mediation have been done well.’ The manager is involved with the placements panel and has good links with the multi-agency child sexual exploitation team to gain information regarding the needs of the young people.

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Requires improvement

Staff are well supported through regular supervisions and annual appraisals. However, the appraisal record does not consistently give a clear picture of how staff can develop further.

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Requires improvement

The management team is aware of the need to keep professionals updated following significant events at the home. Information relating to incidents that have taken place is clear and shows the actions taken by staff. This shows that staff are responding to incidents effectively.

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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 children looked after 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 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 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 whom 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 Textphone: 0161 618 8524 E: enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk W: www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ofsted

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