Children's home run by Inmind Childrens Services Limited in Wokingham

Inspection report children's home: SC476185 1 SC476185 Registered provider: Inmind Childrens Services Limited

p.1

Full inspection Inspected under the social care common inspection framework

p.1

Information about this children's home

This service is also registered as a residential school and provides care and accommodation for up to 14 children and young people in three small homes on one site. The service is owned by a private company and provides care for children and young people who have emotional and/or behavioural difficulties.

p.1

Overall experiences and progress of

children and young people, taking into account

p.1

inadequate

How well children and young people are helped and protected inadequate

p.1

inadequate

The effectiveness of leaders and managers inadequate

p.1

inadequate

There are serious, widespread failures that mean children and young people are not protected, their welfare is not promoted, and the care and experiences of children and young people is poor.

p.1

inadequate

Date of last inspection: 12 January 2017

p.1

inadequate

Overall judgement at last inspection: Declined in effectiveness

p.1

Enforcement action since last inspection

Ofsted is taking enforcement action. The service is subject to a restriction notice limiting the number of children in the home to seven. This is subject to review by Ofsted. Inspection report children's home: SC476185 2

p.1

Key findings from this inspection

This children's home is inadequate because

p.2

Key findings from this inspection

 The health and well-being needs of children are not prioritised. Children smoke tobacco regularly and have poor diets, consisting of high-fat foods. This is a significant health risk. Children do not receive the help and support that they need to live healthier lifestyles.  Children are at risk because staff do not understand their individual risk factors and vulnerabilities. Individual risk assessments and plans designed to keep children safe are of a very poor quality, are not reviewed and lack any evidence to show that assessments and plans are understood and implemented by the staff.  Incidents involving children being physically restrained have not been managed appropriately. Significant incident reports have not been completed, and no debriefs with the child or staff member concerned have taken place.  Since the last inspection, there has been a medication error meaning that a child did not receive medication as prescribed.

p.2

Key findings from this inspection

 This home has been without a registered manager for 17 months.  The service has experienced significant disruption, with changes to the management and oversight of the home.  Staff members do not have the required qualification for residential care staff. There are poor monitoring processes for staff undertaking this qualification that mean completion has ‘drifted’ unacceptably.  The processes for consultation with children require strengthening to ensure that children’s views are listened to, and that they receive a timely response from the manager.  The processes for monitoring the quality of care in the home are limited, with management oversight being ineffective, and there is no evidence that the manager and provider have the capacity to bring about improvements at the home.

p.2

Key findings from this inspection

 The children make good progress educationally although they have very often experienced difficult and disrupted educational experiences in the past. They quickly settle into school and make good progress.  Children’s relationships with their family and those important to them are promoted by staff, with regular family meetings and contact taking place.  The managers are now ensuring that notifications of significant events are completed in a timely manner and forwarded to the appropriate agencies. Inspection report children's home: SC476185 3

p.2

Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

12/01/2017 Interim Declined in effectiveness 04/05/2016 Full Good 20/01/2016 Interim Declined in effectiveness 01/07/2015 Full Requires improvement Inspection report children's home: SC476185 4

p.3

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 with the given timescales.

p.4

Requirement Due date

* The health and well-being standard is that the health and well- being needs of children are met. (Regulation 10 (1) (a)) 02/06/2017

p.4

Requirement Due date

* The protection of children standard is that children are protected from harm and enabled to keep themselves safe.

p.4

Requirement Due date

In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to ensure-

p.4

Requirement Due date

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. (Regulation 12 (1) and (2) (a) (i)) 02/06/2017

p.4

Requirement Due date

The registered person must arrange for the handling, recording, safekeeping, safe administration, and disposal of medicines received into the children's home. (Regulation 23 (1)) 02/06/2017

p.4

Requirement Due date

The registered person must ensure that an individual who works in the home in a care role has the appropriate qualification (Regulation 32 (3) (b)) 02/06/2017

p.4

Requirement Due date

* The registered person must prepare and implement a policy ('the behaviour management policy') which sets out-

p.4

Requirement Due date

(a) how appropriate behaviour is to be promoted in the children's home; and

p.4

Requirement Due date

(b) the measures of control, discipline and restraint which may be used in relation to children in the home. (Regulation 35(1)(a)(b)) 02/06/2017

p.4

Requirement Due date

* These requirements are subject of a compliance notice. Inspection report children's home: SC476185 5

p.4

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 upon. (‘Guide to the children's homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 22, paragraph 4.11)  The registered person should actively seek independent scrutiny of the home and make best use of information from independent and internal monitoring (including under regulations 44 and 45) to ensure continuous improvement. They should be skilled in anticipating difficulties and reviewing incidents, such as learning from disruptions and placement breakdowns. They are responsible for proactively implementing lessons learned and sustaining good practice. (‘Guide to

p.5

Recommendations

the children's homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 55, paragraph 10.24)

p.5

Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

Children in this home continue to receive inconsistent care from the staff and managers. Overall, their experiences are inadequate because they are not receiving the services that they require to give them the help and support they need to make progress. The staff and managers’ understanding of risk and vulnerability in relation to children is not good and exposes children to risk. At the time of completing this inspection, the home has a restriction notice in place. This was imposed by Ofsted as a result of the home not adequately meeting compliance notices issued following the last interim inspection. This means that the home has not been able to admit new children, restricting it to no more than seven children at any one time. This notice is subject to review.

p.5

Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

The staff and managers do not prioritise the health and well-being needs of children sufficiently. The majority of children continue to smoke tobacco regularly, which is a significant health risk. The managers and staff have not helped children to reduce or stop smoking. For example, there is no health advice provided by medical professionals to help children quit or reduce smoking. There is no evidence of staff completing individual work with children regarding the dangers of smoking, and children’s individual health plans fail to demonstrate how staff will help children with this worrying behaviour. Staff appear to have lowered their expectations regarding how they can bring about change for children in respect of smoking and accepted smoking as the ‘norm’ at this home. Inspectors found that one child was openly smoking a vapour device in the home unperturbed by staff being present. Inspection report children's home: SC476185 6

p.5

Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

The diets of children remain of concern, mainly consisting of meals containing a high fat content and fast foods. For example, children have had numerous trips to fast food restaurants and one child was allowed ice cream for breakfast. In respect of another child, staff and managers were unsure if the child had a food allergy; this has potentially serious consequences. Children do benefit from good help available in relation to their emotional and psychological needs. The service has a psychotherapist available to provide individual work with children and additionally to provide support and advice to staff. This helps staff understand the individual psychological and emotional needs of children and provide support in this respect.

p.6

Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

Children are able to voice their opinions about the overall running of the home. The children meet regularly with staff in house meetings. These meetings enable children to talk about matters affecting their day-to-day lives in the home. However, the recording of these meetings is poor, with notes scribbled in a logbook. Additionally, the manager does not respond to requests made by the children. It is positive that these meetings take place, but improvements are required for this to become a robust process for meaningfully incorporating the views of children into the day-to-day operating of the home.

p.6

Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

Children benefit from good educational provision. The children attend the on-site school. This school provides children with good support to make progress. Most children have experienced a disrupted educational experience prior to coming to the home. This quickly improves as children benefit from low numbers of children in the classroom combined with a higher ratio of education staff to children. Some children are making very good progress; one child has progressed in maths, and is now in a position to take a GCSE maths exam 12 months early. Another child commented to inspectors that prior to coming to the home, she was not attending any education, and she now understands why education is important and attends regularly.

p.6

Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

The staff support children to have safe and positive contact with their families and those important to them. The time children spend with their families is monitored closely, and staff manage any risk positively. The staff work in accordance with the plans of the local authority to ensure that these arrangements are both enjoyable and promote family relationships while remaining safe and in the child’s best interests. Consequently, children continue to maintain relationships with those close to them, and this promotes their emotional well-being and sense of identity.

p.6

Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

The managers and staff are making efforts to improve community relationships. This home has experienced tensions in its relationships with neighbours, resulting in a number of complaints made and the local district council issuing a community safety notice. The complaints from neighbours have decreased, and the managers and staff have made progress in meeting the requirements from the community safety notice. The managers have plans to improve local relationships, with the children and staff helping the community with cleaning and improving a local play area. The managers and staff value the local community and wish to become a valued part of it. Inspection report children's home: SC476185 7

p.6

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

The staff and managers do not identify the risks associated with children and do not take effective action to keep children safe. Individual risk assessments for children are of a poor standard and are not subject to regular review, especially following incidents. For example, one child went missing from the home and was at risk, which required police involvement. The managers were unable to provide inspectors with information regarding the actions that they were taking to prevent further incidents of this nature. The managers could not provide evidence to demonstrate that staff knew, understood, and were able to implement risk assessments and behaviour management plans. This consequently leaves children at greater levels of risk because the staff do not understand children’s individual risks and vulnerabilities or what actions to take to keep them safe. The plans to manage the children’s behaviour lack detail and clarity. The

p.7

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

managers and staff do not record who has written the behaviour management plans, and plans do not set out review dates or what actions staff should take to manage children’s behaviour effectively. These plans are inadequate in relation to providing staff with clear guidance of actions to take to manage behaviour.

p.7

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

The managers and staff have not provided a robust response when children have been missing from care. There have been numerous incidents of children going missing from care and, at times, the response from staff and managers has fallen below expectations. For example, one young person showed signs of illness and vomiting upon return to the home. However, no evidence could be produced by managers to detail what actions were taken to assure themselves that she was well or follow up what had actually happened to her while missing. Following all incidents of missing from care, no child has received an independent missing from care interview by an independent person. These interviews are crucial to understanding the underlying reasons why children went missing and understanding where they had been or with whom. This information provides crucial information for managers and staff to prevent any future incidents.

p.7

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

The staff are not effectively managing and recording incidents of physical intervention. Following such interventions, the staff are failing to complete incident reports and detailed recording of what took place. Managers are failing to ensure that both the staff and children are spoken to and receive detailed debriefs. For example, one such incident which had taken place several weeks previously had not been reported by a team leader. The managers were unaware of the incident, discovering it by chance. A further incident of restraint was in relation to a child being restrained while getting into and out of a vehicle, a restraint which involved a number of staff. However, the recording is of very poor quality, and although the restraint involved a manager, there was no independent oversight of the incident. The poor management and oversight of such incidents mean that Ofsted cannot be confident that incidents of this nature are managed in accordance

p.7

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

with the legislative framework and are proportionate to the circumstances of the incident, and that the safety of the child and staff involved is prioritised.

p.7

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

Managers are not ensuring that good and detailed recording practices are routinely taking place. Additionally, the organising and management of information are very poor. Written information is disorganised and, at times, managers are struggling to find Inspection report children's home: SC476185 8 information or, at times, no recording has taken place. For example, there was a serious incident in the home, resulting in the arrest of a child following an assault upon a staff member. There was no written information available at the inspection, and the manager had to request information directly from the local authority. This poor practice in regard to recording and storing information means that there are gaps in records pertaining to safeguarding incidents.

p.7

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

The staff are not managing children’s medication effectively. Since the last inspection, there has been a medication error. This error involved a failure to ensure that a child received the correct medication in accordance with their prescription and presents a risk to children’s safety. The manager immediately undertook a review of all the processes regarding the administration and safekeeping of medication. Staff are to receive additional medication training, and steps have been taken to ensure that medication storage and monitoring is now secure.

p.8

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

There have been a number of significant incidents at the home since the last inspection. Following such incidents, the managers have notified Ofsted and other agencies immediately. The managers have completed notifications containing all relevant information and the actions that they intend to take. This signifies an improvement from the last inspection and meets a requirement set at the last inspection.

p.8

The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

This home has experienced significant instability in its leadership and management. At the point of this inspection, a new management team was in place, appointed three weeks prior, including a director of operations, responsible individual, and acting manager. The previous managers have left the home. The home has been without a registered manager for 17 months. This is a significant failing in the leadership of the service and is inadequate. The current acting manager is in the process of completing her application to Ofsted to become registered.

p.8

The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

The managers do not understand children’s plans. Plans for children are of poor quality, failing to identify children’s needs adequately. Managers do not know the extent to which the staff understand and implement plans for children. Plans are often undated, so their completion date is unknown. Plans lack any criteria to track and evaluate the progress that children make and mechanisms for review. This lack of monitoring means that children’s plans drift, and fail to help and guide staff in meeting children’s needs.

p.8

The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Children do not benefit from a suitably qualified staff team. The majority of staff members at the service have not yet completed the required qualification, the Level 3 diploma in residential care. Some staff members have been in post for well in excess of 24 months. The managers have not ensured that staff undertaking these crucial qualifications receive the support that they require to complete these programmes, and in some instances the progression through these programmes appears to be drifting. Some staff have received promotions to more senior positions without having completed this programme of study, which is crucial to ensuring the competency of staff in caring Inspection report children's home: SC476185 9 for children.

p.8

The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Staff members have experienced inconsistency in receiving individual supervision and oversight of their work. Some staff have experienced gaps of several months without supervision. There is evidence that this is improving, with staff now supervised monthly by a professional supervisor. The managers have made efforts to secure training and development for managers to provide effective supervision to staff. The staff spoken to at this inspection reported positively on the new management arrangements, and stated that they were receiving improved guidance, support and that they felt that managers were more available to them and more visible. This provides reassurance that the supervision and support arrangements for staff are improving.

p.9

The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Children receive care from a changing staff team. The home continues to place heavy reliance upon agency staff to ensure sufficiency of staffing. Some staff spoken to at inspection, who were more experienced, stated that they had seen ‘literally hundreds of different workers at the home’. The managers have tried, with some success, to ensure that they use the same agency staff if possible. They understand the impact of a changing staff group on children and the children’s ability to form long-term and trusting relationships with those caring for them.

p.9

The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

The manager benefits from a monthly report completed by an independent visitor. The visitor completes a comprehensive review of the service and provides good and thoughtful advice and ideas to improve the service. Although this aspect is strong, the manager has few other mechanisms to analyse and evaluate the home’s strengths and weaknesses to help her take effective action and drive the service forward. External and internal evaluation methods are currently weak and require improvement to enable comprehensive review of the service to take place and support overall service improvement.

p.9

The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

The acting manager has reviewed and updated the statement of purpose of the home. This is now accurate in relation to the staff at the home and the expressed ethos and objectives that the home wishes to achieve. The home, unfortunately, is not achieving its aims and objectives. Poor management practice and a constantly changing staff group have led to children not receiving good and consistent care. This home requires significant improvement, as it is currently inadequate.

p.9

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 Inspection report children's home: SC476185 10 children and young people who it is trying to help, protect and look after.

p.9

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: SC476185 11

p.10

Children's home details

Provision sub-type: Residential special school

p.11

Children's home details

Registered provider: Inmind Childrens Services Limited

p.11

Children's home details

Registered provider address: Unit 7 The Quadrant, Upper Culham Farm, Upper Culham Road, Upper Culham, Reading RG10 8NR

p.11

Inspector(s)

Phillip Morris, social care inspector Inspection report children's home: SC476185 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 looked after children, safeguarding and child protection.

p.11

Inspector(s)

If you would like a copy of this document in a different format, such as large print or Braille, please telephone 0300 123 1231, 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 http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence , write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: psi@nationalarchives.gsi.gov.uk .

p.12

Inspector(s)

Interested in our work? You can subscribe to our monthly newsletter for more information and updates: http://eepurl.com/iTrDn .

p.12

Inspector(s)

T: 0300 123 1231 Textphone: 0161 618 8524 E: enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk W: http://www.gov.uk/ofsted

p.12