Children's home run by Searchlight Care Services Ltd in Stoke-on-Trent

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:

 Staff work in partnership with specialist agencies, such as police teams and multi-agency safeguarding teams, to make sure that they identify and manage young people’s risks. This promotes young people’s safety.

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The children’s home provision is good because:

 Managers and staff work in partnership with education providers, schools and colleges to challenge any barriers to education that young people may face.

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The children’s home provision is good because:

 Young people benefit from working with an experienced and skilled staff team that provides consistent care and support.

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The children’s home provision is good because:

 Staff complete bespoke training courses that reflect young people’s individual needs. This supports young people’s development.

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The children’s home provision is good because:

 Staff receive regular and reflective formal supervision that supports their development and reviews their practice.

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The children’s home provision is good because:

 Young people have good relationships with staff. These enhance their feelings of safety and security.

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The children’s home provision is good because:

 There are some areas for improvement. These include changes to monitoring systems to better review the quality of care provided by the home and the review of the statement of purpose to clarify procedures for emergency admissions. Further required improvements are to make sure all young people receive well-planned care into the home and to only admit a young person if their needs can be 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

In order to meet the care planning standard the registered person must ensure that children—

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Requirement Due date

(1)(a) receive effectively planned care in or through the children’s home; and

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Requirement Due date

(2)(a) that children are admitted to the home only if their needs are within the range of needs of children for whom it is intended that the home is to provide care and accommodation, as set out in the home’s statement of purpose. 20/02/2017

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must compile in relation to the children’s home a statement (‘the statement of purpose’) which covers the matters listed in Schedule 1. This specifically relates to the emergency admission process. (Regulation 16(1)) 20/02/2017

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Requirement Due date

In order to complete a quality of care review the registered person must establish and maintain a system for monitoring, reviewing and evaluating the quality of care provided for children; the feedback and opinions of children about the children’s home, its facilities and the quality of care they receive in it; and any actions that the registered person considers necessary in order to improve or maintain the quality of care provided for children. After completing a quality of care review, the registered person must produce a written report about the quality of care review and the actions which the registered person intends to take as a result of the quality of care review (‘the quality of care review report’). (Regulation 45(2)(a)(b)(c)(3)) 20/02/2017

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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 staff continually and actively assess the risks to each child and the arrangements in place to protect them. This specifically relates to lone working arrangements to protect children. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 42, paragraph 9.5)

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Recommendations

 Ensure that any sanctions used to address poor behaviour are restorative in nature, to help children recognise the impact of their behaviour on themselves, other children, the staff caring for them and the wider community. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 46, paragraph 9.38)

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Recommendations

 Restraint also includes restricting a child’s liberty of movement. This includes, for example, changes to the physical environment of the home (such as the locking of doors). Restrictions such as these, and all other restrictions of liberty of movement, should be recorded as restraint. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 47, paragraph 9.42)

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Information about this children’s home

The home provides care and accommodation for up to three young people who have emotional and/or behavioural difficulties. A private company owns and operates this service.

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Recent inspection history

Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement 23/02/2016 Interim Improved effectiveness 27/10/2015 Full Requires improvement 25/03/2015 Interim Sustained effectiveness 10/12/2014 Full Outstanding

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Good

Young people receive good quality care and support. Staff work in partnership with other agencies, including the placing authorities, education providers and specialist safeguarding teams. These partnership arrangements result in comprehensive packages of care that enhance young people’s day-to-day experiences and promote their safety and welfare.

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Good

Staff consult regularly with allocated social workers and other professionals to make sure that statutory care plans reflect young people’s individual needs and specific vulnerabilities. Managers use statutory care plans and information records as a starting point to develop internal support plans, risk assessments and incentive programmes. This integrated approach to care planning means that staff monitor young people’s progress appropriately. Staff use this review process alongside one-to-one keywork sessions to encourage young people to recognise and celebrate their achievements. This promotes their self-esteem and confidence.

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Good

Young people say that they have good relationships with staff. Young people say that they feel staff ‘understand and care’ about them. These supportive relationships mean that young people engage well in one-to-one keywork sessions with staff. These sessions help young people to reflect on their personal circumstances, backgrounds and behaviours, and make positive changes to their lives. Furthermore, these sessions provide opportunities for young people to voice their views and opinions regarding their care and support needs. Subsequently, young people are involved in decisions about their care.

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Good

Staff work in partnership with schools, colleges and education professionals to support young people’s attendance and achievements. If young people experience emotional, behavioural or practical barriers to learning, staff liaise with allocated teaching staff and local authority representatives to begin to eradicate these barriers. This means that taking account of their starting point young people make progress in this aspect of their development.

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Good

Staff encourage young people to embrace an active and healthy lifestyle. Young people are involved in menu planning, take regular physical exercise and explore new interests and hobbies. This helps young people grow in confidence and widen their social circles. If young people require additional support to meet their individual physical, emotional or psychological health needs, staff work with partner agencies such as children’s mental health services and substance misuse professionals. This approach promotes young people’s health, happiness and well- being, and supports their development. Young people learn independent living skills appropriate to their age and understanding. Staff encourage young people to assist with household chores and tasks such as cooking, budgeting and laundry. This supports their journey towards adulthood and provides a sound basis for the development of formal independent living plans when young people reach this stage in their placement.

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Good

Supporting young people to maintain or develop suitable and positive relationships with their families is a priority in the home. Staff provide young people with emotional and practical support to help them to remain in contact with their families and not become isolated from the people who are important to them.

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Good

Partnership working arrangements between the service and multi-agency safeguarding teams are effective. For example, a number of young people previously placed in the home presented significant risk taking and dangerous behaviours, such as going missing from the home. The positive and professional relationships between staff, police liaison officers, representatives of the local authority and local safeguarding agencies meant that staff deployed a co-ordinated and comprehensive response to these behaviours to promote young people’s safety until placing authorities commissioned alternative placements. Furthermore, missing-from-home risk assessments take account of the potential for young people to be victims of sexual exploitation. When this risk factor is increased, staff work with allocated police officers to devise bespoke child exploitation risk management plans to arrange and categorise an appropriate multi-agency

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Good

response to protecting young people from harm.

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Good

Staff make sure that they complete risk assessments in detail and define strategies to encourage young people to take responsibility for their own behaviours and safety. This approach helps young people to recognise how their actions may affect their welfare and safety. However, risk assessments pertaining to staff ‘lone working’ with young people only consider risks to staff. These assessments do not reference the potential risks that young people may face. Although to date there have been no allegations of harm or abuse derived from ‘lone working’ arrangements, improvements to this area of practice will promote young people’s safety.

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Good

Staff use personalised incentive programmes to support young people to manage their own behaviours. However, when it is necessary for young people to receive sanctions for negative behaviours, these sanctions are not restorative in nature and are ineffectual in encouraging young people to take responsibility for their actions. This shortfall is detrimental to young people’s progress in this area of their development. Staff complete training in physical restraint although the use of this measure of control is extremely rare. This is because staff have positive relationships with young people. Staff use these relationships to communicate clear and consistent boundaries that young people understand. However, there has been one occasion when staff have locked exit doors to prevent a young person from leaving the home. Although the purpose of this action was to safeguard a young person and prevent immediate harm, staff failed to record this restriction of the

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Good

young person’s liberty as a physical restraint as required.

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Good

Young people say they feel safe in the home and understand how to raise any complaints that they have. There have been no complaints made by young people since the last inspection although staff regularly ask young people if they wish to raise any issues or concerns. This transparent approach promotes young people’s safety.

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Good

Managers verify all employee references and previous employment details for staff. Staff are subject to disclosure and barring service checks that managers update regularly. This means that recruitment processes are effective and young people work with safe adults.

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Good

Staff complete fire safety checks and health and safety checks to make sure that the environment is safe and free from hazards. This procedure protects young people from harm because it means they reside in a well maintained and structurally safe home.

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Good

The manager registered with Ofsted in June 2012. She has suitable experience, skills and qualifications for this role, including the appropriate level of qualifications in management and children’s social care.

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Good

The statement of purpose for the home provides the placing authorities and other professionals with a description of the aims and objectives of the service. However, this document does not provide appropriate clarity in relation to the procedures for admitting young people into the home in an emergency or outside of daytime hours. This shortfall means that on one occasion a young person’s admission to the home took place in the early hours of the morning. This practice is detrimental to young people’s well-being and safety because it potentially causes increased distress and anxiety, and is contrary to the emergency admission process currently defined in the statement of purpose. Furthermore, this means that not all young people admitted to the home benefit from well-planned care at this stage of their placement. In addition, due to a lack of essential background information in these emergency circumstances, the registered manager is unable to assess if the

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Good

individual needs of a young person are compatible with the range of needs that the service is able to accommodate. Since the last inspection, the registered manager has authorised the admission of two young people without the availability of full or detailed background information. On these occasions, the service was unable to meet the young people’s needs and therefore their admission to the home was not appropriate. Although the registered manger took immediate action to address this situation and successfully challenged the placing authorities, this potentially placed young people and staff at risk of harm.

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Good

The registered manager makes sure that staff receive effective support, formal training and reflective supervision. Staff have the skills, experience and abilities to meet young people’s needs and all eligible staff have gained the necessary qualifications required to work with young people. Feedback from other agencies is positive especially in relation to the ‘knowledge, commitment and dedication’ of the staff team. One professional said, ‘All of the managers and staff get to know the young people really well and I think this helps the young people to make real changes to their behaviours’.

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Good

There are a varied range of monitoring tools and systems in place to review the quality of care provided by the service. However, these systems do not allow the registered manager to identify patterns or trends, or highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the service. Furthermore, direct feedback from young people, their families or other agencies is not included. As a result, the impact that the quality of care provided by the service has on young people’s development and progress is not sufficiently analysed. Although the report includes shortfalls, for example, when a placing authority has failed to provide necessary information about a young person, it does not detail the actions taken or those required to rectify these shortfalls. This potentially hinders the home’s capacity for continual improvement.

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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 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 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, workbased 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

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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