Children's home run by SWAAY Child & Adolescent Services Ltd in Sutton

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:

 The home has a strong manager running the home on a day-to-day basis, who is supported by an able deputy and a well-qualified staff team. They have engaged young people quickly and effectively.  Young people benefit hugely from the joined-up work across the residential and therapy teams operated by the company, and education if the company’s school is also attended. This approach helps to ensure that young people are understood and receive consistent responses across settings.  The understanding that managers and staff have is clearly articulated in effective and thorough behavioural and risk management plans. All staff know and follow these plans, and this ensures that young people are kept safe.  Young people who sometimes present significant challenges to their own or others’ safety are effectively safeguarded and, with due caution, aided to enjoy the benefits of the local community.  Young people learn to understand themselves and take responsibility for

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The children's home provision is good because:

their actions through the persistent and well-directed work undertaken with them.  Young people enjoy an attractive domestic environment with good-sized bedrooms and ample communal space. The home is well furnished and maintained.

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Information about this children's home

This children’s home may accommodate up to two children and young people. It is operated by a private company which has other similar homes in the area. The company specialises in the care and therapeutic intervention of young people (males) who have a history of sexually harmful behaviour. This home was inoperative between July 2016 and the end of January this year. This inspection has reviewed practice only since the recent reopening.

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Recent inspection history

Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement 09/09/2016 Interim Sustained effectiveness 27/01/2016 Interim Sustained effectiveness 04/08/2015 Full Good 29/01/2015 Interim Sustained effectiveness

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Good

This home was unoccupied for the period from July 2016 until late January 2017. One young person moved in then, and another young person moved in one month later. This inspection has only reviewed this brief period of practice. In the time that the home was closed it underwent a thorough refurbishment, and it now provides a good, attractive domestic environment, including a new kitchen. There is good personal and communal space for the two young people. The home is in very good order throughout.

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Good

Both young people moved here from other homes operated by the same organisation. For one, the move is to help him to become more independent. This is working very well, and the young person has fully appreciated the help given to him. ‘They have made me a better person’, he said, reflecting on his time with this company. He believes the relationships he has with the manager and staff are all beneficial. It is notable that some staff moved from his previous in-company placement to work in this home with him. The second young person moved here following a period in a secure unit and an initial six-week placement in a slightly larger home operated by this company. He is still settling in, but staff are beginning to forge a relationship with him. Again, some staff moved from his previous in- company placement to give continuity of care to him when he moved.

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Good

This careful planning of admissions, and the willingness of staff to move with the young people, has helped to build successful and trustful relationships between staff and young people. Young people are encouraged to engage with the company’s cognitive-behavioural therapy based programme. They attend weekly sessions, and staff understand the process well and reinforce key messages from these sessions. Young people, who have often presented very challenging behaviours in the past, learn to take responsibility for their actions. They have high levels of supervision until they are assessed to be safe enough to have free time, but within the supervised time they are engaged with, and are encouraged to think about the choices they might make.

p.5

Good

Young people are engaged well in education. The older young person has a college placement in motor mechanics. This motivates him to study, and offers good training for future employment. His attendance has been sporadic, but this is a testing environment for him since leaving the company’s school. The young person of compulsory school age attends the company’s school, but does not yet have a full 25-hour-per-week programme. He attends the school four days per week, so the managers are utilising the remaining day to do life skills which, experience within this company indicates, will improve the young person’s self-esteem. It is too early in his time here to assess academic or social progress, but staff from the home liaise frequently with the school.

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Good

Young people are encouraged to engage in activities, including participating in the wider community. One young person has joined a football team and will enrol on the Duke of Edinburgh award scheme. One is able to have free time and has forged relationships with others in the community. Staff are ‘good parents’, offering advice and support to him, with the objective of ensuring that he learns to engage with others on an equal footing.

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Good

Young people are supported to have family contact in line with their agreed plans. Staff are flexible, and are willing to be involved in transporting young people and supervising contact when this is deemed to be in the young person’s interest. Staff are consistently interested and respectful of the families and backgrounds of young people.

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Good

The young people accommodated here may present significant risks both to themselves and others due to their behaviour. The managers and staff in the home place great importance on the safety of all, and monitor this diligently. Young people are protected, in part, through the very good supervision levels. There is one-to-one staffing both in the home and in the wider community, unless there is a clearly signed-off risk assessment. Staff supervise young people as discreetly as is practical, to ensure that they feel the support, rather than oppression, as a result of the supervision. On occasions young people may object, but their contracts to stay here are clear regarding how boundaries are maintained, and they generally accept the supervision. The result is that young people who may present high risks have as normal a growing-up experience as possible, and incidents are few.

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Good

There have been some minor incidents since the home reopened. These involved young people reacting against the expectations of the home and included two, relatively brief, episodes of a young person going missing. Staff follow clear plans to respond to these incidents, and all were brought to a successful resolution. Information from the incidents is used to promptly inform an updated risk management plan, so that all staff learn and apply any lessons or newly implemented strategies arising from the event. This ensures that the risk management plans are genuinely up to date, with the input of both the managers and staff in the home, and other senior managers in the company, quickly incorporated.

p.6

Good

The manager has forged a useful link with the local authority designated officer; all issues requiring notification to that office, HMCI or placing authorities are dealt with promptly.

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Good

Recruitment is well managed. At this inspection two files relating to newly recruited staff were examined. Both contained good evidence of detailed safe recruitment practice. No staff commence work until all checks are completed.

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Good

All members of the staff team, which has been put together from staff across other homes, are up to date in their safeguarding training. They have a thorough understanding of their responsibilities, contemporary safeguarding issues including child sexual exploitation, and the detail of the risks affecting young people placed here. An excellent example of working together was the sharing of information with foster carers whose foster family member was close to a young person, to ensure that they could make informed parental decisions.

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Good

While the home was closed this home had no manager or staff, and had no need for them. In preparation for reopening, a senior manager within the organisation has moved into the manager’s post and commenced the application process to become registered with Ofsted. She is an able manager who is qualified to level 5, and has the respect and support of her staff team.

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Good

The staff team is very experienced and staff all have, or are working towards, a level 3 qualification in residential child care. This is a very good situation for such a new team. It is noted that the dissolution of the external training provider delayed the progress of the NVQ training, but this has quickly been rectified.

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Good

The staff are well supported through supervision and appraisal. Supervisions are appreciated by staff who value the structure and certainty that underpins practice here.

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Good

The home has a substantial workforce development plan. This covers all aspects of training, including ensuring that all staff acquire a guided understanding of the dyadic development psychotherapy model. This contributes hugely to the consistency and professionalism of the work undertaken.

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Good

The home has very effective links with the wider professional networks, including close liaison with placing authorities, with the police when necessary and integrated practice with the company’s therapy team. Staff within the home all feel part of this professional network supporting the young people.

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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 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 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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