Children's home run by Keys Cwc Limited

Inspection report children's home: 1245569 1 Registered provider: Crossways Care Ltd

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Full inspection Inspected under the social care common inspection framework

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Overall experiences and progress of

children and young people, taking into account

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inadequate

How well children and young people are helped and protected inadequate

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inadequate

The effectiveness of leaders and managers inadequate

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inadequate

There are serious and/or widespread failures that mean children and young people are not protected or their welfare is not promoted or safeguarded and/or the care and experiences of children and young people are poor and they are not making progress.

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inadequate

Overall judgement at last inspection: Not applicable Inspection report children's home: 1245569 2

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Key findings from this inspection

This children’s home is inadequate because

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Key findings from this inspection

 The manager has failed to consult the relevant professionals about a plan that could have placed the young people living in the home at risk.  Young people are exposed to risk by using an information technology (IT) system and gaining access to the internet that is not robustly safeguarded.  Some staff have not completed mandatory training, for example on physical intervention, safeguarding and child sexual exploitation.  The recruitment processes are not sufficiently adequate, and in some cases references have not been verified prior to the staff member beginning work.  Young people who go missing are not provided with return home interviews.  The statement of purpose requires updating and submitting to Ofsted as it is currently misleading in respect of the use of the ‘chill-out room’ and of current staffing.  The managers and leaders have not effectively monitored processes and the practices of some staff in relation to caring for young people.

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Key findings from this inspection

 All young people regularly attend school and are making good progress from their starting points; placing social workers report that they are making progress in their education.  Positive relationships have developed between the young people and staff; consequently, challenging behaviours have reduced.  The home has a small annex that provides young people that are moving into adulthood with an opportunity to learn how to become independent safely.

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This is the first full inspection following registration

Inspection report children's home: 1245569 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

5: Engaging with the wider system to ensure children’s needs are met

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Requirement Due date

In meeting the quality standards, the registered person must, and must ensure that staff, seek to involve each child’s placing authority effectively in the child’s care, in accordance with the child’s relevant plans and seek to secure the input and services required to meet each child’s needs. (Regulation 5(a)(b)) 30/06/2017

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Requirement Due date

The protection of children standard is that children are protected from harm and enabled to keep themselves safe. In particular, the standard requires the registered person to ensure that staff help each child to understand how to keep safe and are familiar with, and act in accordance with, the home’s child protection policies. (Regulation 12(1)(2)(ii)(vii)) 30/06/2017

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Requirement Due date

13: The leadership and management standard

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Requirement Due date

The leadership and management standard is that the registered person enables, inspires and leads a culture in relation to the children’s home that helps children aspire to fulfil their potential, and promotes their welfare. In particular, the standard requires the registered person to: 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; ensure that staff have the experience, qualifications and skills to meet the needs of each child and use monitoring and review systems to make continuous improvements in the quality of care provided in the home. (Regulation 13(1)(a)(c)(h)) 30/06/2017

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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. The registered person must keep 30/06/2017 Inspection report children's home: 1245569 4 the statement of purpose under review and, where appropriate, revise it, and notify HMCI of any revisions and send HMCI a copy of the revised statement within 28 days of the revision. (Regulation 16(3)(a)(b)) 32: Fitness of workers

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must recruit staff using recruitment procedures that are designed to ensure children’s safety. The requirements are that full and satisfactory information is available in relation to the individual in respect of each of the matters in Schedule 2. (Regulation 32(1)(3)) 30/06/2017

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must maintain records (‘case records’) for each child which are kept up to date and are signed and dated by the author of each entry. (Regulation 36(1)(b)(c)) 30/06/2017

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Requirement Due date

The care planning standard is that children receive effectively planned care in or through the children’s home. (Regulation 14(1)(a)) 30/06/2017

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Recommendations

 For the children’s homes to be nurturing and supportive environments that meet the needs of their children, they will, in most cases, be homely domestic environments. Children’s homes must comply with relevant health and safety legislation; however, in doing so, homes should seek as far as possible to maintain a domestic rather than ‘institutional’ impression. This in particular relates to the living and communal areas that currently present as stark and lack a personal feel. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 15, paragraph 3.9)  The children’s home must produce a children’s guide. In particular, ensure that it is age appropriate, provided in an accessible format and takes into consideration children’s differing learning abilities. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 24, paragraph 4.21)  When a child returns to the home after being missing from care or away from the

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Recommendations

home without permission, the responsible authority must provide an opportunity for the child to have an independent return home interview. This must take place within reasonable timescales. (‘Guide to children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 45, paragraph 9.30) Inspection report children's home: 1245569 5

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

Some care plans are out of date and require more detail to ensure that staff are kept fully up to date with information, for example, health appointments and medicals. The manager and staff have failed to monitor accurately the health needs of some young people, and this has resulted in health appointments either being missed or not taking place. This has resulted in one young person missing an important assessment, required by the local authority. A requirement to ensure that monitoring takes place is made.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

Staff spend a lot of time with the young people on an individual basis. By the staff providing young people with opportunities to talk and reflect, positive relationships have developed. This has resulted in an improvement in young people’s behaviour. For example, physical interventions and damage to the property have reduced. However, while the one-to-one sessions are recorded regularly, most lack detail, analysis, evaluation and actions. A significant number of all records also lack the date and the signature of the author. Without this level of information routinely being recorded, accurate monitoring of the young people’s progress is not possible. Furthermore, a placing social worker reports that some of the weekly reports lack detailed analysis and that these reports are not written to an acceptable professional standard. For example, some have included the names of other young people in the home. A requirement is

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

made to ensure that staff have sufficient skills and training to be able to competently record information.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

Young people are making and maintaining friendships at school and at home. When these relationships are not seen as appropriate, staff work with the young people in helping them to understand the possible risks and they provide them with strategies to avoid engaging in risk-taking behaviours. Relationships between young people and their family members are improving. Plans to build on these relationships are in place, and staff work hard to encourage, when possible, visits to the home by family members. However, the manager and staff failed to consult the relevant professionals about a young person’s visit with their family. The lack of collaboration between the staff and the local authority places the young people and their family at risk. A requirement is made to ensure that the manager engages with the local authority.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

Young people live in a home that is, overall, comfortable and well equipped. They are able to personalise their own bedrooms and are included and consulted when it comes to decorating or re-furbishing the communal areas. However, the house has some damage to fixtures and fittings. This has resulted in parts of the home looking a little sparse; for example, the ‘chill-out room’ is not fit for purpose and requires some redecoration. A recommendation is therefore made to ensure that a more homely feel is created and that the statement of purpose accurately reflects the accommodation on offer.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

Young people are supported by staff to attend school. They have all made progress from Inspection report children's home: 1245569 6 the time when they moved to the home, and attendance at the company school is 100%. Young people spoken with are proud of their achievements and enjoy going to school. One young person plans to move on to further education and is keen to achieve at GCSE level.

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How well children and young people are helped and protected: inadequate

Young people are being placed unnecessarily at risk as the home’s processes for recruiting staff are not robustly followed and are therefore inadequate. New staff are producing their Disclosure and Barring Service certificates prior to working with the young people, but gaps in employment history exist, and references are not in all cases being verified prior to the member of staff working with the young people. A requirement is therefore made to ensure that the home follows the principles of safer recruitment.

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How well children and young people are helped and protected: inadequate

A number of staff have failed to attend mandatory training, for example on child sexual exploitation, physical intervention and safeguarding. This means that their practice is not up to date and not underpinned by current research. Therefore, young people remain at risk of not receiving appropriate responses when they are either exposed to risk or display challenging behaviours. A requirement is made to ensure that all staff receive and remain up to date with all mandatory training.

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How well children and young people are helped and protected: inadequate

Young people are not sufficiently safeguarded from the risks of inappropriate use of the internet. During the course of this inspection, the inspector identified an IT system that did not have sufficient parental locks and staff being unaware that a young person had knowledge of how to access the system and change the security settings. This issue was addressed during the inspection; however, a requirement is made to ensure that access to inappropriate material and other associated risks are managed more safely.

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How well children and young people are helped and protected: inadequate

There is a wide range of policies and procedures in place regarding young people who go missing from the home. Records are kept, risk assessments are updated regularly and staff work hard to prevent young people from going missing and they encourage them to make good decisions when out of the home and without staff supervision. However, when young people go missing, these records are not all kept up to date; signatures are missing and there are insufficient evaluation and analysis. The previous manager failed to monitor these records and therefore did not identify patterns. Return home interviews are either not taking place or being conducted too late to address risk-taking behaviours. A recommendation is made to ensure that all young people receive an independent interview when they return to the home to ensure that they are safe and supported.

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How well children and young people are helped and protected: inadequate

The home has good links with the designated officer and, overall, social workers spoke positively of their working relationships with the home. All safeguarding concerns are reported to agencies on time and with updates when necessary. Complaints are managed well and within timescales. Inspection report children's home: 1245569 7

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

This is the home’s first inspection since being registered. The home has recently undergone a change in management as the registered manager is now on maternity leave. The acting manager is sufficiently qualified and experienced and is awaiting the approval by Ofsted of her registration. However, there has been a period of inadequate management and leadership, resulting in a number of significant shortfalls and breaches in requirements being identified.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

The acting manager has begun the process of a complete audit of the home’s policies, procedures and staff practices. Nonetheless, since the registration of this home, there have been significant failings by the previous manager and senior management team in respect of monitoring the home, which have resulted in poor and high-risk decision- making taking place. In particular, this relates to a recent event when, in the absence of the current manager, there was no collaboration between the home and local authority in the planning relating to people from outside the home staying overnight. Senior staff failed to consult the young person’s social worker before making this significant decision. Furthermore, no contingency plan or risk assessment had been put in place. As a result, young people living in the home and the young person’s family could have been placed at significant risk.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

The staff group offers a range of experience, skills and knowledge and is very much committed to supporting young people. They receive regular supervision and attend team meetings, which the staff team confirmed as useful and providing ‘good learning opportunities’. However, staff are not demonstrating sufficient skill and understanding of how to complete records to a safe and professional standard. A lack of robust monitoring of these records by leaders and managers has resulted in inaccurate data being recorded, poor evaluation of young people’s progress and poor practice by staff not being addressed. While reports from some social workers are positive and praise the manager and staff for the support and care they provide for the young people, one social worker said that weekly reports are ‘often late’, ‘lack detailed analysis’ and have errors in the narrative.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

These failings have been repeatedly identified by the independent visitor and have now been identified by the acting manager. A requirement is made to ensure that the manager monitors and produces a development plan that identifies how the home will work to keep young people safe and improve their outcomes.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

A number of significant events have occurred since the home was registered. These have all been reported to the correct external agencies in time and with sufficient information. These include complaints and safeguarding matters, all of which have been overseen by a manager and concluded within the appropriate timescale. Inspection report children's home: 1245569 8

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Information about this inspection

Inspectors have looked closely at the experiences and progress of children and young people. Inspectors considered the quality of work and the difference made to the lives of children and young people. They watched how professional staff work with children and young people and each other and discussed the effectiveness of help and care provided. Wherever possible, they talked to children and 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.

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Information about this inspection

Using the ‘Social care common inspection framework’, this inspection was carried out under the Care Standards Act 2000 to assess the effectiveness of the service, how it meets the core functions of the service as set out in legislation, and to consider how well it complies with the Children’s Homes (England) Regulations 2015 and the ‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’. Inspection report children's home: 1245569 9

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: Aspirations Care Ltd, Unit B2, Elmbridge Court, Cheltenham Road East, Gloucester GL3 1JZ

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Children’s home details

Responsible individual: Christine Cameron

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Children’s home details

Registered manager: Melissa Oughton (currently on maternity leave)

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Inspector

Linda Bond, social care regulatory inspector Inspection report children's home: 1245569 10 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 children looked after, safeguarding and child protection.

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Inspector

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Inspector

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Inspector

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