Children's home run by Cambian Childcare Limited in Hammersmith and Fulham

Inspection report children’s home: SC068277 1 SC068277 Registered provider: Cambian Childcare 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 children’s home is owned by a large national private provider. It is registered to provide care and accommodation for up to six children and young people who have emotional and/or behavioural difficulties.

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

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inadequate

Date of last inspection: 31 January 2017

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inadequate

Overall judgement at last inspection: Declined in effectiveness

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Enforcement action since last inspection

Two compliance notices were issued following the last inspection in respect of Regulations 12 and 14. These were found to be met at the monitoring visit undertaken on 5 April 2017.

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Key findings from this inspection

This children’s home is inadequate because Inspection report children’s home: SC068277 2  A lack of stability in leadership and management in the home since the last inspection, has led to the staff in the home failing to improve the quality of the care it provides for young people.  Young people are admitted in an emergency with insufficient assessment of the risks to the young person or other young people already living in the home.  The manager has continued to admit young people with similar individual risks and behaviours. This resulted in some young people becoming involved in new behaviours, such as fire setting due to the influence of their peers.  Not all young people are making progress from their starting points. Not all young people attend education or engage with activities within the home or local community.  The incidence of young people going missing from this home is high this means

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Key findings from this inspection

that some young people are at risk when they are missing. Despite this, staff do not consistently follow or search for young people when they go missing to ensure that they are found and kept safe.  The manager and wider organisation fail to ensure that there are adequate staff to meet the needs of the young people and that the staff group has the skills and experience to meet the needs of the young people they are looking after.

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Key findings from this inspection

 At the time of the inspection, the new manager had been in post for 10 days. He had a good understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the home and presents as motivated to make the required improvements to the service.  Staff have established good links with the police and specialist child sexual exploitation services in the local area.

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

31/01/2017 Interim Declined in effectiveness 01/11/2016 Full Good 21/01/2016 Interim Sustained effectiveness 22/09/2015 Full Good Inspection report children’s home: SC068277 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

In meeting the quality standards, the registered person must, and must ensure that staff— if the registered person considers, or staff consider, a placing authority’s or a relevant person’s performance or response to be inadequate in relation to their role, challenge the placing authority to seek to ensure that each child’s needs are met in accordance with the child’s relevant plans. (Regulation 5 (c)) 14/07/2017

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Requirement Due date

*In order to meet the education standard, the registered provider must ensure that staff— promote opportunities for each child to learn informally; help each child to attend education or training, in accordance with the expectations in the child’s relevant plans. (Regulation 8 (2)(v)(x)) 14/07/2017

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Requirement Due date

The positive relationships standard is that children are helped to develop, and to benefit from, relationships based on— (a) mutual respect and trust; (b) an understanding about acceptable behaviour; and (c) positive responses to other children and adults. that each child is encouraged to build and maintain positive relationships with others. (Regulation 11 (2)(9)(b)) 14/07/2017

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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 in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to ensure— (a) that staff— take effective action whenever there is a serious concern about a child’s welfare. (Regulation 12 (2)(a)(vi)) 14/07/2017

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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 children’s home that promotes their welfare. (Regulation 13 (1)(b)) (2) in particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to— 14/07/2017 Inspection report children’s home: SC068277 4 ensure that the staff have the experience, qualifications and skills to meet the needs of each child; home has sufficient staff to provide care for each child; use monitoring and review systems to make continuous improvements in the quality of care provided in the home. (Regulation 13 (2)(c)(h))

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Requirement Due date

The care planning standard is that children— have a positive experience of arriving at or moving on from the home. (Regulation 14 (1)(b)) that children are admitted to the home only if their needs are within the range of needs of children for whom it is intended that the home is to provide care and accommodation, as set out in the home’s statement of purpose. (Regulation 14 (2)(a)) 14/07/2017

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must ensure that the requirements of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 and any regulations made under it, except for article 23 (duties of employees), are complied with in respect of the home. This is in respect of fire drills being carried out. (Regulation 25 (2)(b)) 14/07/2017

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must ensure that all employees— receive practice-based supervision by a person with appropriate experience. (Regulation 33 (4)(b)) 14/07/2017

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Requirement Due date

* These requirements are subject of a compliance notice.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

There have been three young people admitted to the home since the last inspection. The home continues to admit young people into the home on an emergency basis with insufficient assessment of whether the placement is suitable to meet their needs. Young people are admitted to the home with high-risk behaviours, which staff are not able to manage, and consequently staff are unable to keep young people safe or meet their needs. As a result, young people go missing and engage in risk-taking behaviour, which leaves them at risk of harm .

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

The manager and the wider organisation fail to consider fully, the individual risk factors and the mix of young people in the home when they agree to take new young people into the home. Since the last inspection, a number of young people have been admitted Inspection report children’s home: SC068277 5 to the home with similar behaviours and individual risks. This has led to young people in the home negatively influencing each other, with some young people developing new behaviours, such as fire setting and young people at risk of child sexual exploitation going missing together. One young person was admitted to the home his care plan stating that he should not be placed in the geographical area where the children’s home is. This young person was admitted to the home without any impact assessment being completed or any assessment of the risks to him of being placed in the area, potentially leaving him and the other young people in the home at risk of harm.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

Not all of the young people in the home attend education. Two of them attend school or further education regularly and one young person attends sporadically. The other three young people are not attending education. Staff are not proactive and consistent in working with these young people to get them back into education and are not clear what the plan is to try to improve attendance. There is limited evidence in case files about how staff have liaised with educational professionals to improve attendance for young people.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

When young people are not in school, staff do not provide a sufficient level of structured activity or informal learning, particularly during the day in the absence of formal education or college placement. Some young people remain in their bedrooms until lunchtime and then leave the home, often not returning until after their curfew and on other occasions, they are reported missing because they fail to return home at the expected time. The lack of structure and routine does not help young people to understand the importance of education or provide educational opportunities when young people are not attending formal education. The quality of young people’s experiences in the home is poor. Staff do not develop positive relationships with young people. They are unable to engage them effectively and, as a result, young people spend a significant period away from the home, often engaging in risk-taking behaviours. Staff

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

are not always effective at engaging young people in activities in or outside of the home, and young people do not develop interests or hobbies in the local community. This lack of engagement and structure does not provide an environment where young people make progress and they are not provided with every opportunity to meet their potential.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

Staff spend time with young people on a one-to-one basis in key-work sessions, discussing individual risk factors and behaviour. The quality of this work is poor and it is not effective, as young people do not listen to this advice and continue to engage in risk taking behaviour. Staff obtain young people’s views regularly through key-work sessions and young people’s meetings on areas such as menu planning and activities, but this work has little impact as young people do not eat meals with each other or staff, as they are often out of the home and often refuse to engage in activities that staff offer.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

There is little evidence that staff support young people to develop the skills to prepare them for adult life and work towards independence. The manager reported during the inspection that, ‘We are taking too much responsibility for routine stuff; sometimes it’s the easier option for staff to go around the supermarket than take the kids.’ This approach does not equip young people with the skills they will need to live independently in their adult lives. Inspection report children’s home: SC068277 6 Young people do not yet live in a homely environment, there are no pictures or photos of young people around the home, there is damage to the home and it is in need of redecoration. The new manager commented that one of the rooms looked like ‘something you would find in a prison’. He has identified this as an area for development and has been trying to involve young people in plans for the redecoration of the home to

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

make it a more homely living environment for them to live in.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

Staff’s ability to promote young people’s contact with family members and follow contact plans is variable. For example, one young person was taken to a family member’s home for contact when the plan stated this should not happen, demonstrating that not all staff understand and follow contact plans. This could have left the young person at risk of harm. For another person, staff have promoted family contact in a safe way, which has resulted in him spending more time with his family as part of a plan to return home.

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

The manager has ensured that risk assessments in respect of alcohol and drug use and self-harm now have clear written guidance for staff to follow which staff understand. However, risk assessments in respect of CSE and missing are ineffective at reducing risk. For example, in one young person’s plan it states that she will be encouraged to engage in activities to discourage her from missing behaviour. However, the young person does not engage with staff or the activities offered and the risk assessment has not been reviewed to look at what alternative strategies can be put in place or how staff will work with this young person to keep her safe.

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

Individual risk assessments for young people at risk of child sexual exploitation lack sufficient detail about specific actions staff should take to reduce the risk of harm. This means that there is no clear guidance for staff to follow and young people do not receive a consistent approach from staff in trying to reduce this risk and keep them safe. Staff report that they do not feel that they are keeping young people safe in the home. One staff member commented, ‘I hate it; how does it feel as a staff member when you cannot keep a young person safe.’

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

Staff work with police and specialist teams dealing with child sexual exploitation through attending meetings and requesting strategy meetings, but this work is not always effective at keeping young people safe, as young people continue to go missing and place themselves in situations of risk.

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

The number of incidents of young people being reported missing from care is high. Staff follow missing from home protocols by reporting young people missing to the police and local authority, but they are not always proactive at following and searching for young people to try to locate them as quickly as possible, despite this being identified as an action in young people’s risk assessments. The manager advised that this is because they have insufficient staff to do this. Some young people in the home are at high risk of child sexual exploitation and staff are not sufficiently proactive in trying to find young people to ensure that they are kept safe from harm when they are missing. Inspection report children’s home: SC068277 7 Return interviews are carried out by an external agency. However, staff do not routinely record on missing records that these have been carried out, which makes it unclear whether these have been carried out and by whom . It is also not clear how this

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

information is evaluated to monitor patterns in missing behaviour, or how this information is used to inform work with young people to try to reduce the number of times that they go missing from care.

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

Positive behaviour is not consistently promoted. There is an over-reliance on negative consequences, such as supervised spends, with no evaluation as to how effective this strategy is in changing young people’s behaviour. There is no evidence that young people are involved in developing alternative strategies to manage their behaviour or that alternative strategies are considered by staff. This means that some young people are continually placed on supervised spending money, which has little impact on their behaviour. Because sanctions are ineffective, young people do not learn consequences to actions and continue to make negative choices in their lives. This approach is not consistent with the home’s statement of purpose, which states that, ‘High value is placed on the choice-consequence method; young people are highly praised for making positive decisions and challenged to think about the potential consequences of negative

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

The home does not consistently carry out fire evacuations in line with its policy. There has been no fire evacuation carried out since a new young person has been admitted to the home or the new manager has been in post despite this being the usual practice. Given the difficulties there have been with young people smoking in the home, it is important that all young people and staff are familiar with fire evacuation procedures so that they can ensure the safety of everyone in the home in the event of a fire.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

The home has been without a permanent manager since March 2017. Due to this, there has been a lack of consistent management oversight, which has meant that there has been a period of instability for staff and young people. Due to lack of a stable management team, there has not been effective action taken to address five of the requirements made at the interim inspection on 31 January 2017. As a result, the home has failed to improve the quality of care it provides for young people.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

There is a new manager in post, who had been in post for 10 days at the time of the inspection. The new manager has a realistic understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the home and has a clear vision of how he sees the service moving forward. He commented that the home is ‘not fit for purpose’ and there is a lack of proactivity from staff. He presented as motivated to ensure that the quality of care for young people in the home improves, and had some good ideas during the inspection about how he would achieve this. Staff spoken with during the inspection welcome the change in management and were optimistic that this would bring positive change. One staff member commented that it was ‘not great’ in the home now but said that, ‘Staff genuinely want change, they want it to work and do care for the kids; we need a steady Inspection report children’s home: SC068277 8 team back.’

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

The home is contracted to admit young people from the local authority where the home is situated. The manager and wider organisation have not made child-centred decisions about which children come to live at the home. This has resulted in a number of young people being placed in the home who are not suitably placed, and with no clear plans about what alternative placements are being sought for these young people and what the timescale is. For example, one young person, who was placed in the home on a temporary basis for a week, remains in the placement, having been there for two weeks at the time of the inspection, with no clear plan of an alternative placement being sought. The previous manager identified at the last inspection in January 2017 that the home was not meeting another young person’s needs, but this young person remains in the placement and there is a lack of evidence of effective challenge to the local authority

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

on this. This means that young people remain in placements where their needs are not being fully met and they do not achieve a sense of permanence, as this is not reflected in their plans.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

The home has not had a stable and consistent staff team since the last inspection. This has affected staff’s ability to work together to provide consistency and stability for the young people they are caring for. All staff identified during the inspection said that staffing was an issue, staff sickness levels are high and there is a culture of staff phoning in sick, which happened on the day on the inspection. There continues to be an issue with staff not having the required skills to manage the behaviour of the young people. Staff reported that some of the staff were ‘too young’ and some are not confident in managing the behaviour the young people in placement. The manager reported that some of the staff find the young people’s behaviour difficult to cope with and that some staff are ‘intimidated’ by young people’s behaviour. This does not suggest a solid staff team that is able to provide the robust and consistent guidance and boundaries that

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

young people need to develop and make progress.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Staff do not consistently receive supervision because of recent changes in management. This does not ensure that they have the opportunity to reflect on their practice or that they are supported in this emotionally challenging work.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Staff make good efforts to try to work with stakeholders, such as the police and social workers. Feedback from professionals about the level of communication from the home is mainly positive; however, some professionals acknowledged that this has dipped recently due to a lack of stability in management. One child sexual exploitation worker reported, ‘On the whole X does well with young people and works well with us, but I cannot account for the new managers. The links gone off a little as it hasn’t had stability in management.’ A social worker commented that, ‘X has been sending me up-to-date information on X’s missing’s and attends appointments when there are discussions around this. Sometimes information on X that I send to staff can be missed, but I have always had good contact with the deputy manager to ensure that she is fully up to date with any information.’ Inspection report children’s home: SC068277 9

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

There is limited evidence in case files of how managers promote tolerance, equality and diversity with young people. Staff have recorded on one young person’s case file that she is both White British and mixed race suggesting a lack of attention to detail and a lack of priority being given to young people’s diversity needs on their admission to the home.

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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, 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: SC068277 10

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Cambian Childcare Ltd

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: Cambian, Waterfront, Hammersmith Embankment, Chancellors Road, London W6 9RU

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Inspector

Sarah Billett, social care inspector Inspection report children’s home: SC068277 11 achieve excellence in the care of children and young people, and in education and skills for learners of all ages. It regulates and inspects childcare and children’s social care, and inspects the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass), schools, colleges, initial teacher training, further education and skills, adult and community learning, and education and training in prisons and other secure establishments. It assesses council children’s services, and inspects services for looked after children, safeguarding and child protection.

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Inspector

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Inspector

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Inspector

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