Children's Home run by Keys Group Progressive Care & Education Limited in Hampshire

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 make progress while living in the home. In recent months, managers have made several changes in how the home is run to ensure that it fully benefits all who are living there. Young people have greater access to the community and are enjoying new activities and experiences.  All young people attend education or adult day services provisions as programmed. There is close liaison with school and activity providers to ensure that young people have as positive an experience as possible when accessing these settings.  Staff are becoming more skilled in the day-to-day running of the home. They are increasingly engaged in writing young people’s review reports and attending more meetings with external professionals. Staff are feeling more valued and confident in their skills and abilities.  The new home manager is experienced and is demonstrating strong skills in challenging partner agencies. Her focus is on young people’s needs and

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The children's home provision is good because:

ensuring good access to the services they need.  The décor and maintenance of the home has significantly improved. It now feels homely and much less institutionalised. It is less cluttered and provides more space for young people to spend time individually or as a group. The use of symbols and communication boards is now uniform and in line with individual communication styles.  Areas which require improvement include: young people’s plans being less muddled and repetitive, and including clear goals and targets; risk assessments to be clear on how the risk will be mitigated, rather than simply describing the issue; staff to be trained promptly in specific communication techniques and styles; reports in relation to Regulation 45 to be completed within the timeframes specified in the regulation; the child protection policy to include female genital mutilation and child sexual exploitation; and for the

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The children's home provision is good because:

young persons’ guide to be updated to reflect the current service.

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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 protection of children standard the registered person must ensure that staff—

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Requirement Due date

(2)(a) (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; (ii) help each child to understand how to keep safe.

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Requirement Due date

This relates to completing effective risk assessments which identify the risk, and state how staff are to manage this. 31/03/2017

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Requirement Due date

13: The leadership and management standard

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Requirement Due date

In order to meet the leadership and management standard the registered person must enable, inspire and lead a culture in relation to the children's home that—

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Requirement Due date

(2)(c) ensures that staff have the experience, qualifications and skills to meet the needs of each child.

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Requirement Due date

This relates particularly to staff being trained in young people’s communication styles. 31/03/2017

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Requirement Due date

13: The leadership and management standard

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Requirement Due date

In order to meet the leadership and management standard the registered person must enable, inspire and lead a culture in relation to the children's home that—

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Requirement Due date

(2)(b) ensures that staff work as a team where appropriate; (e) ensures that the home's workforce provides continuity of care to each child; 31/03/2017 (h) uses monitoring and review systems to make continuous improvements in the quality of care provided in the home.

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Requirement Due date

This relates to clarity of information in children’s in-house plans; ensuring that records are clear and that the manager’s oversight of the home and monitoring is in line with Regulation 45.

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Recommendations

To improve the quality and standards of care further the service should take account of the following recommendation:  The registered person has specific responsibilities to prepare and implement policies setting out: arrangements for the safeguarding of children from abuse or neglect; including female genital mutilation and child sexual exploitation. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards, page 44, paragraph 9.19)

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Information about this children's home

The home is owned and run by a private organisation. The company has four other homes in the local area in addition to others across the south of England. The home provides care and accommodation for up to four young people who have learning disabilities.

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Recent inspection history

Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement 21/09/2016 Interim Sustained effectiveness 12/01/2016 Interim Sustained effectiveness 17/09/2015 Full Requires improvement 29/12/2014 Interim Sustained effectiveness

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Good

Young people make progress while living in the home due to their strong relationships with staff. There have been several changes in personnel, including a new home manager, but this has had little negative impact on young people’s progress and outcomes. The core staff team has an excellent understanding of young people’s needs and are supporting those new to working in the home to build effective relationships with them. Staff are keen to know how young people’s days have been, and they communicate through books and telephone calls with school and adult day services staff.

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Good

Young people are treated with dignity and respect at all times. Their plans, while muddled, repetitive and lacking clear goals and targets, do allow staff to understand how to care for each young person. They also promote opportunities for young people to do as many tasks for themselves as possible. Young people are encouraged to spend time together and have learned to tolerate those they live with.

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Good

Staff are interested in young people’s views and take opportunities throughout the day to gain their views on a variety of subjects, including what activity they would like to do, what they would like for dinner, and also choosing the décor for their bedrooms. When possible, staff consult young people on their feelings for reviews, but staff are also great advocates for young people in this instance. The new manager is empowering staff to have more influence over decisions made for young people. She is also seeking independent visitors or advocates for young people, but has had limited success so far.

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Good

The home is becoming more focused on the young people living there and how they would like to home to be, to best meet their needs. This has included redecorating and reorganising storage, with recognised communication symbols on the doors rather than hastily written stickers, as was done previously. Additional tables for young people to sit at to eat and to do activities are now available, so they have choice whether they are close to their peers or not. Communication strips and boards are used within the home, but despite the young person who uses them being in placement for several months, staff are yet to have formal training in how to use these specific communication tools with him.

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Good

Young people of school age attend education as planned. The staff have challenged one school that was sending a young person home without valid reasons, and this has now reduced. One young person attends some adult day services during the week to boost his independence skills. Staff also provide supplementary activities to enhance these skills ready for his upcoming move to an adult placement.

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Good

Young people are engaged in a range of emotionally and socially stimulating activities. The new manager has focused on young people accessing the community more and encouraging staff to make dynamic risk assessments to determine if new activities could be tried at that time. Staff say that they feel more confident in doing this and recognise the benefits for young people. Parents are positive about the home and their child’s experiences. Contact is actively encouraged and staff support this to ensure that children’s time with their parents and other family members is enjoyable and rewarding.

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Good

Young people are supported to understand healthy lifestyles and what this means for them. They learn cooking and portion control, as well as reducing processed food in favour of fresh ingredients. They often exercise in the garden, using the trampoline, and go for walks in the community. The vegetable plot has been replanted by staff and young people ready for a fresh crop.

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Good

Young people access the local surgery for general health appointments and, when needed, also attend paediatric and other specialist appointments. Medication is stored safely in the home and procedures are robust when administering medication.

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Good

Young people’s actions and demeanours demonstrate that they feel safe in the home. They are confident in their surroundings and approach staff to support them in completing a task, or to spend time together. Staff are watchful without being overbearing and allow young people to try things for themselves. They monitor relationships, and recognise and reduce the impact of power imbalances or when one young person is attempting to dominate the environment.

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Good

Staff have a good understanding of child protection and safeguarding, and their role in protecting young people. They are aware of individual vulnerabilities and how to reduce risk. They are now accessing training via an external organisation in order to broaden their understanding. Staff are positive about this opportunity. The in-house policy is sound, but does not include female genital mutilation or child sexual exploitation; staff are fully aware of these issues, though. All safeguarding incidents have been referred to appropriate external agencies as required.

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Good

Young people are protected from leaving the house unaccompanied by a keypad on the front door. This is assessed in line with each young person’s skills and abilities, including road sense and danger awareness. All have access to the outside spaces around the home, which are secured from the road.

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Good

Young people are now being allowed to take more controlled risks through accessing new activates in the community and trying new tasks around the home. Staff make dynamic risk assessments and are becoming much less risk averse, without being lax in their approach to safety. Written risk assessments are not sufficiently direct for staff. They focus on a description of what the risk is, repeating information from care plans, rather than focusing on how to prevent any potential harm to the young person.

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Good

Staff work effectively as a team to help young people manage their behaviour. Consistency in approach ensures that young people know what is expected of them. Restraint is rarely used, and usually only to redirect the young person to another area. Due to duplication of records, as both an incident report and bound record are completed, information is not effectively recorded in both. This could lead to information being poorly documented over the two records, rather than succinctly and completely in just one. Joint working with partner agencies enables effective sharing of techniques to be used across settings, such as home or school. Young people’s behaviour management plans are a missed opportunity because they repeat a lot of information already available in other plans. This results in it being difficult to identify what approach is being explained among information which is not relevant or directly linked to behaviours.

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Good

Young people are protected from avoidable harm through regular checks on the environment and fire safety equipment. Additionally, recruitment procedures are sound, and pre-employment checks and verifications ensure that only appropriate staff are employed in the home.

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Requires improvement

The home has been without a registered manager since September 2016. The current manager has been in post since September at the time of this inspection was completing registration with Ofsted. During her time in post, the manager has made many changes in the approach to care for young people. She has spent time with staff encouraging them and developing their skills to be more child-centred, while upskilling them in the administrative tasks in the home, such as updating and contributing to care plans and liaising with other professionals. Staff are feeling more valued and confident in their skills and abilities. The manager has been focused on the care of young people, developing staff and familiarising herself with the organisation’s policies and procedures during her time in post. This has inadvertently led to the requirements and recommendations set at this inspection regarding records and policies, because the focus has been on the

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Requires improvement

quality of staff practice. The quality of care for young people is good. The manager and service manager are both aware of the shortfalls in care plans, behaviour and medical plans and risk assessments, and the repetitive nature of these. They are seeking to remedy this. However, many of the formats and templates are organisation-wide and do not readily fit with the care or needs of the young people in this home. The manager and service manager are also in the process of updating the young persons’ guide.

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Requires improvement

The manager is continually evaluating the quality of care provided and how well the service is running. In addition to the changes already made, she utilises reports by the independent visitor to determine further changes required. She has completed a manager’s evaluation in line with Regulation 45. This was extremely late, due to the fact that she had not been in post for most of the reporting period. The report due in the coming months is well underway, though.

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Requires improvement

The home is run and staffed in line with its statement of purpose and has a core team of staff. New staff have said they were made to feel welcome. Of the team in post, three hold a relevant level 3 qualification, three have an equivalent qualification and three are currently undertaking a qualification. Staff now have access to a wider range of training, beyond web-based courses, and they are feeling valued as a result. Staff also report that supervision is regular and helpful in evaluating their practice and considering their progress.

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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 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, 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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