Children's home run by Keys Group Progressive Care & Education Limited in Birmingham

Inspection report for children's home - monitoring visit: SC433286 1 SC433286

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Information about this children’s home

Gem Cottage is an attractive detached building set in its own grounds. There is ample space inside and out for the young people to enjoy. The countryside location provides a multitude of wildlife in the garden and a peaceful space for young people. The home is registered to care for up to two young people who may have emotional and/or behavioural difficulties.

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Information about this children’s home

The home is a part of a large national organisation that has both children’s and adults’ homes.

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This monitoring visit

A number of concerns were identified during both of the last two full inspections of this home. This visit took place in order for inspectors to ensure that the standards of care for young people had been raised, and that the matters of compliance were addressed.

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This monitoring visit

This inspection found that the registered manager has been robustly tackling the issues raised. The newly appointed manager has begun to embed a child-focused and therapeutic approach to care in the home. He acknowledges that this will take some time to develop. His approach has supported young people to manage their behaviours better and start to talk to the staff about their previous experiences and abuse. The newly appointed manager accepts that these changes now need to be further embedded into practice.

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This monitoring visit

The newly appointed manager knows the children who live in this home well. He has taken the time to understand them and to learn how they communicate. This has resulted in a change in approach regarding the care they receive and a reduction in the number of incidents.

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This monitoring visit

Inspectors found that the matters of compliance which were identified at the last Inspection report for children's home - monitoring visit: SC433286 2 inspection have been addressed.

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Recent inspection history

Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement 08/03/2017 Full Inadequate 14/12/2016 Full Inadequate 04/02/2016 Interim Declined in effectiveness 08/10/2015 Full Good Inspection report for children's home - monitoring visit: SC433286 3

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Statutory requirements

This section sets out the actions that the registered person(s) must take to meet 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

6: The quality and purpose of care standard

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Requirement Due date

In order to meet this standard the registered person must ensure that:

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Requirement Due date

(1) The quality and purpose of care standard is that children receive care from staff who: (a) understand the children’s home’s overall aims and the outcomes it seeks to achieve for children; (b) use this understanding to deliver care that meets children’s needs and supports them to fulfil their potential. (2) In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to: (a) understand and apply the home’s statement of purpose; (b) ensure that staff: (i) understand and apply the home’s statement of purpose; (ii) protect and promote each child’s welfare; (iv) provide personalised care that meets each child’s needs, as recorded in the child’s relevant plans, taking account of the child’s background; (v) help each child to understand and manage the impact of any experience of abuse or neglect; (vi) help each child to develop resilience and skills that prepare the child to return home, to live in a new placement

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Requirement Due date

or to live independently as an adult. 30/04/2017

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Requirement Due date

7: The children’s views, wishes and feelings standard

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Requirement Due date

In order to meet this standard the registered person must ensure:

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Requirement Due date

The children’s views, wishes and feelings standard is that children receive care from staff who: (a) develop positive relationships with them; (b) engage with them; and 30/04/2017 Inspection report for children's home - monitoring visit: SC433286 4 (c) take their views, wishes and feelings into account in relation to matters affecting the children’s care and welfare and their lives. (2) In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to: (a) ensure that staff: (i) ascertain and consider each child’s views, wishes and feelings, and balance these against what they judge to be in the child’s best interests when making decisions about the child’s care and welfare; (ii) help each child to express views, wishes and feelings; (iii) help each child to understand how the child’s views, wishes and feelings have been taken into account and give the child reasons for decisions in relation to the child;

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Requirement Due date

(v) help each child to understand how the child’s privacy will be respected and the circumstances when it may have to be limited; (e) ensure that the views of each relevant person are taken into account, so far as reasonably practicable, before making a decision about the care or welfare of a child. 11: The positive relationship standard

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Requirement Due date

In order to meet this standard the registered person must ensure:

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Requirement Due date

(1) The positive relationships standard is that children are helped to develop, and to benefit from, relationships based on: (a) mutual respect and trust; (b) an understanding about acceptable behaviour; and (c) positive responses to other children and adults. (2) In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to ensure: (a) that staff: (i) meet each child’s behavioural and emotional needs, as set out in the child’s relevant plans; (ii) help each child to develop socially aware behaviour; (iii) encourage each child to take responsibility for the child’s behaviour, in accordance with the child’s age and understanding; (iv) help each child to develop and practise skills to resolve conflicts positively and without harm to anyone; (v) communicate to each child expectations about the child’s behaviour and ensure that the child understands those expectations in accordance with the child’s age and

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Requirement Due date

understanding; (vi) help each child to understand, in a way that is 30/04/2017 Inspection report for children's home - monitoring visit: SC433286 5 appropriate according to the child’s age and understanding, personal, sexual and social relationships, and how those relationships can be supportive or harmful; (vii) help each child to develop the understanding and skills to recognise or withdraw from a damaging, exploitative or harmful relationship; (viii) strive to gain each child’s respect and trust; (ix) understand how children’s previous experiences and present emotions can be communicated through behaviour and have the competence and skills to interpret these and develop positive relationships with children; (x) are provided with supervision and support to enable them to understand and manage their own feelings and responses to the behaviour and emotions of children, and to help children to do the same; (xi) de-escalate confrontations with or between children,

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Requirement Due date

or potentially violent behaviour by children; (xii) understand and communicate to children that bullying is unacceptable; and (xiii) have the skills to recognise incidents or indications of bullying and how to deal with them; and (b) that each child is encouraged to build and maintain positive relationships with others.

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Requirement Due date

In order to meet this standard the registered person must ensure:

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Requirement Due date

(1) The protection of children standard is that children are protected from harm and enabled to keep themselves safe. (2) In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to ensure: (a) that staff: (i) assess whether each child is at risk of harm, taking into account information in the child’s relevant plans, and, if necessary, make arrangements to reduce the risk of any harm to the child; (ii) help each child to understand how to keep safe; (iii) have the skills to identify and act upon signs that a child is at risk of harm; (iv) manage relationships between children to prevent them from harming each other; (v) understand the roles and responsibilities in relation to protecting children that are assigned to them by the registered person; (vi) take effective action whenever there is a serious 05/04/2017 Inspection report for children's home - monitoring visit: SC433286 6 concern about a child’s welfare; and

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Requirement Due date

(vii) are familiar with, and act in accordance with, the home’s child protection policies; (b) that the home’s day-to-day care is arranged and delivered so as to keep each child safe and to protect each child effectively from harm; (c) that the premises used for the purposes of the home are located so that children are effectively safeguarded; (d) that the premises used for the purposes of the home are designed, furnished and maintained so as to protect each child from avoidable hazards to the child’s health; and (e) that the effectiveness of the home’s child protection policies is monitored regularly. 13: The leadership and management standard

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Requirement Due date

In order to meet this standard the registered person must:

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Requirement Due date

(1) The leadership and management standard is that the registered person enables, inspires and leads a culture in relation to the children’s home that: (a) helps children aspire to fulfil their potential; and (b) promotes their welfare. (2) In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to: (a) lead and manage the home in a way that is consistent with the approach and ethos, and delivers the outcomes, set out in the home’s statement of purpose; (b) ensure that staff work as a team where appropriate; (c) ensure that staff have the experience, qualifications and skills to meet the needs of each child; (d) ensure that the home has sufficient staff to provide care for each child; (e) ensure that the home’s workforce provides continuity of care to each child; (f) understand the impact that the quality of care provided in the home is having on the progress and experiences of each child and use this understanding to

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Requirement Due date

inform the development of the quality of care provided in the home; (g) demonstrate that practice in the home is informed and improved by taking into account and acting on: (i) research and developments in relation to the ways in which the needs of children are best met; and (ii) feedback on the experiences of children, including complaints received; and

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Requirement Due date

(h) use monitoring and review systems to make 05/04/2017 Inspection report for children's home - monitoring visit: SC433286 7 continuous improvements in the quality of care provided in the home. In particular, managers are given the autonomy to manage the day-to-day care of the home and oversee the care provided to children.

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Requirement Due date

In order to meet this requirement the registered person must ensure that:

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Requirement Due date

(1) No measure of control or discipline which is excessive, unreasonable or contrary to paragraph (2) may be used in relation to any child. (2) The following measures may not be used to discipline any child: (a) any form of corporal punishment; (b) any punishment involving the consumption or deprivation of food or drink; (c) any restriction, other than one imposed by a court or in accordance with regulation 22 (contact and access to communications), on: (i) a child’s contact with parents, relatives or friends; (ii) visits to the child by the child’s parents, relatives or friends; (iii) a child’s communications with any persons listed in regulation 22(1) (contact and access to communications); or (iv) a child’s access to any internet-based or telephone helpline providing counselling for children; (d) the use or withholding of medication, or medical or dental treatment; (e) the intentional deprivation of sleep;

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Requirement Due date

(f) imposing a financial penalty, other than a requirement for the payment of a reasonable sum (which may be by instalments) by way of reparation; (g) any intimate physical examination; (h) withholding any aids or equipment needed by a disabled child; (i) any measure involving a child imposing any measure against another child; or (j) any measure involving punishing a group of children for the behaviour of an individual child. (3) Nothing in this regulation prohibits: (a) the taking of any action by, or in accordance with the instructions of, a registered medical practitioner or a registered dental practitioner which is necessary to protect the health of the child; or 30/04/2017 Inspection report for children's home - monitoring visit: SC433286 8 (b) taking any action that is necessary to prevent injury to any person or serious damage to property. 32: Fitness of workers

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Requirement Due date

In order to meet this requirement the registered person must ensure that:

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Requirement Due date

(1) The registered person must recruit staff using recruitment procedures that are designed to ensure children’s safety. (2) The registered person may only: (a) employ an individual to work at the children’s home; or (b) if an individual is employed by a person other than the registered person to work at the home in a position in which the individual may have regular contact with children, allow that individual to work at the home, if the individual satisfies the requirements in paragraph (3). (3) The requirements are that: (a) the individual is of integrity and good character; (b) the individual has the appropriate experience, qualification and skills for the work that the individual is to perform; (c) the individual is mentally and physically fit for the purposes of the work that the individual is to perform; and (d) full and satisfactory information is available in relation to the individual in respect of each of the matters in

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Requirement Due date

In order to meet this requirement the registered person must:

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Requirement Due date

(a) ensure that each employee completes an appropriate induction; (b) ensure that each permanent appointment of an employee is subject to the satisfactory completion of a period of probation; (4)(a) undertake appropriate continuing professional development; (4)(b) receive practice-related supervision by a person with appropriate experience. 30/04/2017

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Requirement Due date

35: Behaviour management policies and records

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Requirement Due date

In order to meet this requirement the registered person must ensure that: 30/04/2017 Inspection report for children's home - monitoring visit: SC433286 9 (1) The registered person must prepare and implement a policy (‘the behaviour management policy’) which sets out: (a) how appropriate behaviour is to be promoted in the children’s home; and (b) the measures of control, discipline and restraint which may be used in relation to children in the home. (2) The registered person must keep the behaviour management policy under review and, where appropriate, revise it. (3) The registered person must ensure that: (a) 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: (i) the name of the child; (ii) details of the child’s behaviour leading to the use of the measure; (iii) the date, time and location of the use of the measure;

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Requirement Due date

(iv) a description of the measure and its duration; (v) details of any methods used or steps taken to avoid the need to use the measure; (vi) the name of the person who used the measure (‘the user’), and of any other person present when the measure was used; (vii) the effectiveness and any consequences of the use of the measure; and (viii) a description of any injury to the child or any other person, and any medical treatment administered, as a result of the measure; (b) 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’): (i) has spoken to the user about the measure; and (ii) has signed the record to confirm it is accurate; and (c) within five days of the use of the measure, the registered person or the authorised person adds to the record confirmation that they have spoken to the child about the measure.

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Requirement Due date

(4) Paragraph (3) does not apply in relation to restraint that is planned or provided for as a matter of routine in the child’s EHC plan or statement of special educational needs.

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Requirement Due date

*These requirements are subject of a compliance notice.

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Information about this inspection

Inspection report for children's home - monitoring visit: SC433286 10 The purpose of this visit was to monitor the action taken and the progress made by the children’s home since its last Ofsted inspection.

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Information about this inspection

This inspection was carried out under the Care Standards Act 2000. Inspection report for children's home - monitoring visit: SC433286 11

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: New Horizon Centre Limited

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: Part Ground Floor & First Floor, Two Parklands, Great Park, Birmingham, B45 9PZ

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Inspector(s)

Ms Ledder, social care inspector Polly Soper, social care inspector Inspection report for children's home - monitoring visit: SC433286 12 to 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, further education and skills, adult and community learning, and education and training in prisons and other secure establishments. It assesses council children’s services, and inspects services for looked after children, safeguarding and child protection.

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Inspector(s)

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Inspector(s)

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Inspector(s)

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