Children's Home run by Broadlands Hall Limited in Suffolk

Inspection report children’s home: SC060936 1 SC060936 Registered provider: Broadlands Hall Ltd

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Full inspection Inspected under the social care common inspection framework

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Information about this children’s home

This privately owned children’s home provides care, accommodation, and education for up to 11 children who have learning and/or emotional and/or behavioural difficulties. There is a registered education provision on the site of the children’s home. Ofsted undertook an inspection of the education provision between 9 and 11 May 2017.

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Overall experiences and progress of

children and young people, taking into account

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requires improvement to be good

How well children and young people are helped and protected requires improvement to be good

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requires improvement to be good

The effectiveness of leaders and managers requires improvement to be good

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requires improvement to be good

The children’s home is not yet delivering good help and care for children and young people. However, there are no serious or widespread failures that result in their welfare not being safeguarded or promoted.

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requires improvement to be good

Date of last inspection: 8 February 2017

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requires improvement to be good

Overall judgement at last inspection: Sustained effectiveness

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Enforcement action since last inspection

None Inspection report children’s home: SC060936 2

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Key findings from this inspection

This children’s home requires improvement to be good because

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Key findings from this inspection

 The range of ability in the current group of children is vast and this compromises the staff’s ability to meet their respective plans.  There has been a reduction in the number of experienced, permanent staff. Shifts rely heavily on agency staff and this reduces the quality of the care.  The system for ensuring the suitability of the agency staff requires evidence of the manager’s oversight.  The written risk assessments for the children are not updated consistently and some are of poor quality.  For one child recently admitted, the provider did not implement the home’s child missing policy because they failed to notify the police that the child had moved into the area.  The information contained in the children’s records is muddled. The quality of the work in the files is inconsistent. Case records are not stored in a confidential manner.  Staff supervision is inconsistent and the quality is variable. Induction for new

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Key findings from this inspection

staff lacks consistency.  The registered manager is not making an effective impact. The home lacks consistent, focused and clear direction.  The records relating to restrictive physical intervention are unclear.  The systems for consulting all children on their views are not sufficiently embedded to meet the spectrum of needs.  The provider could not sufficiently demonstrate that staff involved in medication administration and disposal have refreshed their training in managing medicines in care homes.  The manager has failed to meet three regulations and one quality standard raised at the last inspection.

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Key findings from this inspection

 Children feel safe. They like their bedrooms, the building and the garden.  Feedback from parents who visit the home is positive.  Feedback from placing social workers is positive. They are impressed that children who would not previously engage with education settle into the school.  The children have good daily term-time routines and all of the children attend school. Inspection report children’s home: SC060936 3  The provider has introduced online training to enable staff to access a wider variety of subject areas.  The children are busy. They enjoy activities in the home and in the local community.  The permanent staff who have worked in the home for a long time have excellent relationships with some of the children.  There are some strong examples of good practice which result in progress for some children.  The registered manager has very good relationships with the children.

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

08/02/2017 Interim Sustained effectiveness 17/05/2016 Full Good 30/11/2015 Full Requires improvement 26/05/2015 Interim Sustained effectiveness Inspection report children’s home: SC060936 4

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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

The protection of children standard is that children are protected from harm and enabled to keep themselves safe. In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to ensure— that staff 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 and help each child to understand how to keep safe. (Regulation 12(1) and (2)(a)(i)(ii)) In particular, to improve the quality and relevance of the information recorded in written risk assessments and to demonstrate, through written risk assessments, that the impact of new children coming to live in the home has been assessed. 31/08/2017

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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 home that— helps children to aspire to fulfil their potential and promotes their welfare. (Regulation 13(1)(a)(b)) 31/08/2017

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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)) In particular, to ensure that the children have the opportunity to know their plan and that the staff have the skills to competently update and contribute to the plans. 31/08/2017

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must recruit staff using recruitment procedures that are designed to ensure children’s safety. (Regulation 32(1)) This is with specific reference to agency staff. 31/08/2017

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must ensure that each employee completes an appropriate induction and consistently receives practice related supervision by a person with appropriate experience. (Regulation 33(1)(a) and (4)(b)) 31/08/2017 Inspection report children’s home: SC060936 5 The registered person must implement ‘the missing child policy’. (Regulation 34(4)) 31/08/2017

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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. Case records must be kept securely in the children’s home during the period when the child to whom the case records relate is accommodated there. (Regulation 36(1)(b)(c) and (2)(c) 31/08/2017

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Recommendations

 Children must be consulted regularly on their views about the home’s care, to inform and support continued improvement in the quality of care provided. Due consideration should be given to the child’s cognitive ability in the development and implementation of any consultation processes. Children should be able to see the results of their views being listened to and acted on. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations and quality standards’, page 22, paragraph 4.11)  Ensure that staff involved in medication administration and disposal refresh on ‘managing medicines in care homes’. (March 2014) (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations and quality standards’, page 35, paragraph 7.17)  Ensure that each member of staff has been adequately trained in the principles of restraint. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations and quality standards’, page 49, paragraph 9.57) This is with particular reference to refresher training and ensuring that all records

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Recommendations

provide accurate information about an individual’s participation in any incident of restrictive physical intervention.

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improvement to be good

Overall, the care and the quality of individualised support is being compromised. This is because the provider has made a decision to accept referrals for children without first ensuring that there are sufficient qualified and experienced staff to meet all of the children’s needs. The recent cohort of newly admitted children present differently from some of the older and more established children. For example, the older children, some of whom will move on to adult services, have diagnosed learning disabilities and communicate through sound and movement. Some of the newly admitted children, who have social difficulties and health diagnoses, have strong verbal skills. They have the ability to articulate reason and intention and are, therefore, more likely to present with teenage behavioural challenges. Inspection report children’s home: SC060936 6 For example, shortly before admission one child had been arrested. This means that the

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improvement to be good

kind of support individual children need and behaviours being displayed across the group varies hugely. Individual staff do the best that they can, but the few experienced workers are stretched. There are some new permanent staff, but this is alongside an increase in agency workers. There is an over-reliance on verbal handing over between all staff. The children have written placement plans and the goals for each are personalised, but those sampled were not up to date and, therefore, progress for children is difficult to identify. The result is that there is no consistency in implementing the plans for the children. Out of school hours, the home can be busy with adults, some of whom are following the children around. On occasions, some of the adults present are without purpose or do not have a good enough understanding of the needs of the child for whom they are caring. There are no photographs displayed in the home to show the children which staff are on

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improvement to be good

duty that day or overnight. This is a large home and this lack of information is unsettling for the children. It leaves children unclear about which staff will be coming into their home to care for them. The recent departure of two senior residential workers means additional pressure on the experienced staff to oversee and coordinate shifts. The staff are well meaning. There are some good pieces of work undertaken by some patient, kind and compassionate individuals. The home seeks to use consistent agency staff. However, the quality of the agency staff’s approach varies considerably and this adds to the pressure for the permanent experienced staff group. It also means that newer members of staff are not getting the right kind of opportunities to reflect on the impact of their time spent with the children. This does not help children to reach their potential. One child said, ‘Yes, it is good that we are out a lot and kept busy doing things, but that does not mean that I am going

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improvement to be good

to suddenly understand or accept why I am living with boys who have autism.’ The home has a dedicated cook who prepares homely and nutritious evening meals in advance for the staff to reheat. There is more than one kitchen in the building and this means that there is choice about what happens at meal times. The ethnicity of the group is diverse and some of the parents choose to provide preferred food for their child. Children are encouraged to learn about meal planning and cooking. They sometimes make dishes that reflect their culture, or they make what they like to eat. This encourages skills for greater independence and independent living. The children receive money and allowances for clothes and toiletries. This enables those who use particular skin products to purchase what they need. One member of staff said, ‘The children came with good habits for looking after their skin and hair and we help them

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improvement to be good

to maintain those routines.’ This helps children to maintain their cultural identity. Some of the children have regular contact with their parents and those who are significant to them. These key adults are very welcome to visit the home. Children who are living further away from their family home have help to maintain links with their families, and this helps them to settle. Parents who visit provide good feedback about the service overall. They are particularly impressed with the onsite school. One parent said, ‘My son looks happy in the home and I believe that he is getting the help that he needs.’ Inspection report children’s home: SC060936 7 The school inspection took place at the same time as this inspection of the children’s home. Every child attends school and attendance for all of the children living in the home is 100% since the last inspection. The school makes a positive and significant contribution to the

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improvement to be good

children’s daily term-time routine. The headteacher has high expectations. Homework, talent shows, music lessons, trips and after-school clubs help to provide additional structure to the school day. The home has the use of its own cars. This means that a number of children can go out after school and at the weekends to the local town as staff can drive them. House gatherings, called resident meetings, take place weekly. During the meetings, the children have the opportunity to have their say to a certain extent. For example, those more able to speak out in a large group can make suggestions about any food that they would like to eat during the week, or activities that they would like to do, such as swimming or going to the local trampoline centre. However, the systems for consulting all children on their views are not sufficiently embedded to meet the spectrum of need. There is no agreed system to show the children the results of their good suggestions, or that their suggestions are being

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improvement to be good

listened to and acted on. The expansive building is well maintained. Bedrooms are personalised and most rooms have en-suite facilities. The children have access to computers and game consoles. The setting and location of the home invites children to go outside. Some of the staff are good at encouraging the children, for example to go out on the bicycles or go-karts. There is some large play equipment in the garden and one child said, ‘We have ordered two new trampolines. They could be coming soon.’ Provision of such equipment helps children to release energy and promotes their health and well-being. For some of the new children, being outside in a positive way is a new and good experience. One member of staff said, ‘We took the children out and it was the first time that one of them had seen a yellow flowering field.’

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improvement to be good

Children do not go missing from this home. However, one child is known to have gone missing from a previous placement. The home has failed to implement their missing from home policy because the manager did not notify the local police that the child had moved into the area. This failure to anticipate, alert relevant agencies and plan for the unexpected has the potential to result in delays in the event of a significant incident. In this instance, there has been no impact because the child has not made an attempt to leave. The child said, ‘If I was going to leave, I would go in a planned way and do my research first.’ During waking hours, the children either have one-to-one staffing or supervision from two staff. Not all of the children who have two staff are sure how this arrangement is helping them to make progress. This does not enable the children to understand their care plans. Generally, the children have a nice time. They can receive financial rewards for doing

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improvement to be good

different jobs around the home. This helps to modify the behaviours of those who can do jobs with some independence and be motivated to earn money. Inspection report children’s home: SC060936 8 The staff who have worked in the home the longest have excellent relationships with the individual children who have also lived there for some time. These staff know the children well. The staff can predict their behaviours and know what they need to do to support the children in situations, such as after a home contact or managing the impact of the transition between school and home. This helps some of the children to feel safe and helps to reduce the number of situations that could escalate into incidents. The children say that they feel safe and that they like living in the home. Those who do not readily use speech were observed to be going about their day, and gave the inspector a thumbs up to indicate that they were happy. The parents and social workers spoken to say

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improvement to be good

that their children like, and feel safe at, the home. There are written risk assessments in each of the children’s files. The manager has not signed these risk assessments. The quality of the information is variable. For example, some are poorly constructed and do not show sufficient steps to reduce the risks. One risk assessment says that a child should not go near any train stations. This is not realistic and does not demonstrate how the home uses the information that they have to educate and teach children about making safe decisions. The majority of risk assessments have not been updated to reflect learning from new information about the child, or changes in circumstances. Also, the provider could not demonstrate the steps taken to assess the impact of each new child coming into the home on the existing group of children. This is a repeated failure to meet this regulation. The provider is not going far enough to evidence

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improvement to be good

how safeguarding is embedded throughout practice. When required, the staff physically intervene to prevent children from hurting themselves. Sometimes, the children hit out at the staff. Incidents of physical intervention are reducing, but they do continue. These incidents involve a very small number of the children. Following these incidents, the staff put effort into writing the records to explain the triggers and the actions taken to avoid the intervention. Incident reports show that there are situations when staff use their relationship or skill to de-escalate situations. However, the written records relating to physical intervention are not consistent. They do not go far enough to make clear the specific role of each staff member when two or more adults are involved in holding a child, such as when the child has been held on the floor. This failure to record accurate information does not provide children or parents with enough

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improvement to be good

information should they request it. This practice also leaves staff, particularly those who have not been involved in refresher training, vulnerable to allegation and does not safeguard children.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: requires improvement to be good

The registered manager has been in post for over a year. He has struggled to implement new systems and to provide robust oversight of the quality of the records and staff’s direct work with the children. This has contributed to a number of the shortfalls identified at this inspection. The way in which this sizeable home is run overall is not helping every child to fulfil their potential in all areas of their lives. The three regulations raised at the last inspection, relating to leadership and management, risk assessments and case records, are repeated. One quality standard is raised again Inspection report children’s home: SC060936 9 because the provider could not sufficiently demonstrate that staff involved in medication administration and disposal have refreshed their training in managing medicines in care homes. The second quality standard raised at the last inspection, in relation to the quality

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: requires improvement to be good

of care planning, is now raised as a regulation. External monitoring continues and does identify some areas to help the manager to make improvements. However, internal monitoring is inconsistent. Lately, the registered manager has been spending time on shift because of the difficulties in staffing. The size of the home, and the reduction in the number of the senior residential workers, reduces the manager’s capacity to delegate, plan and engage in managerial tasks. The manager is clear about the local authority plans and develops good relationships with the placing social workers. His aspiration for each of the children is impressive. He has a good relationship with the children and they look around the home to seek him out. The registered manager demonstrates sensitivity to their needs and has a helpful understanding of the role that other agencies, such as health services, play in supporting children who have additional

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: requires improvement to be good

social and learning needs. One placing local authority social worker said, ‘It is very clear that the registered manager knows our child very well and is responsive to his needs.’ Sections of the children’s records continue to be muddled and the quality of the information contained in them varies. There are good examples of practice, including some thoughtful key work sessions with children. The ‘all about me’ booklet gives a pen picture of the child’s individual profile. The majority of the children have these booklets, but it is not clear who has read them. Most of the information in the children’s files is either not signed, not dated, or the signature is illegible. The main office has been tidied, but the result is that the children’s files are sitting on open shelves. Around the home, the staff leave daily records out in the hallways. This fails to respect children’s confidentiality and demonstrates that the

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: requires improvement to be good

home has not made the necessary adjustments for the new, more able children coming in. The permanent members of the team increasingly use word of mouth to pass on advice about how best to work with individual children. Staff receive supervision, but the quality and timing between supervisions varies from staff member to staff member. The content of some supervision records shows some good advice. Other supervision records fail to show how staff concerns about how to work with a particular child are taken forward. Records show that some of the new staff have completed some part of an induction, but that others have not. This means that there is a lack of consistency in induction, formal advice and support. This does not help staff to approach their role with confidence and has an impact on staff retention. Less than half of the staff have the required level 3 diploma because some of the staff are new and have just enrolled, or are about to enrol, on the course. There are a number of

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: requires improvement to be good

staff vacancies. This means that many of the staff are using this job to build their experience. This limits the extent to which the children can be effectively supported because some of the staff are not sure of what to do. The provider has invested in an online training resource. This helps staff to increase their understanding of current issues in social care, such as radicalisation and exploitation. The recruitment and vetting processes for the staff employed by the provider are efficient and pose no concern. The responsible individual says, ‘We are always working to recruit new staff.’ However, the process for the vetting of agency staff is not as robust as it needs to be. The service level agreement between the agency and this provider was requested, Inspection report children’s home: SC060936 10 but it was not produced by the provider during this inspection. The agency completes checks and provides the home with a brief overview of the individual’s skills and

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: requires improvement to be good

qualifications. A number of the agency staff have not previously worked with children. The internal system in the home does not give an indication of the manager’s response to the information received from the agency. This includes when checks about individuals mean that further scrutiny may be necessary. The managerial oversight of this system is not sufficiently robust, which means that not enough is being done to prevent unsuitable individuals from having access to children.

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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 who 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: SC060936 11

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Broadlands Hall Ltd

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: Garland House, Garland Street, Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk IP33 1EZ

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Inspector

Rosie Davie, social care inspector Inspection report children’s home: SC060936 12 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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