Children's home run by Chartwell Care Services Ltd in Islington

Inspection report children's home: SC468325 1 SC468325 Registered provider: Chartwell Care Services 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

The home is privately owned and is registered to provide care and accommodation for up to three children who have learning disabilities.

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Overall experiences and progress of

children and young people, taking into account

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good

How well children and young people are helped and protected good

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good

The effectiveness of leaders and managers good

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good

The children’s home provides effective services that meet the requirements for good.

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good

Date of last inspection: 31 January 2017

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good

Overall judgement at last inspection: Sustained effectiveness

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Key findings from this inspection

 Children and young people in this home benefit from good, structured care, with a high level of support and monitoring by staff.  Children are supported to attend school and are making progress. There is good Inspection report children's home: SC468325 2 liaison between school staff and home staff that benefits children.  Staff are promoting and meeting children’s health needs effectively, including their emotional health needs.  There are good mechanisms in place to consult with children about their views and wishes. This also helps to promote children’s self-esteem.  Children are accessing resources in the community and enjoying social and recreational activities, which they enjoy.

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Key findings from this inspection

The children’s home’s areas for development:

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Key findings from this inspection

 There is a high level of agency staff, supporting permanent staff, to care for the children. The manager needs to recruit to vacant posts and use familiar, experienced agency staff, in order to ensure continuity of care for the children.  The manager needs to ensure that the home has documentary evidence of the qualifications of agency staff.

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

31/01/2017 Interim Sustained effectiveness 19/10/2016 Full Good 15/03/2016 Interim Sustained effectiveness 25/11/2015 Full Good Inspection report children's home: SC468325 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

32: Fitness of workers 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 the matters in Schedule 2. (Regulation 32(1)(3)(d)) This is with specific reference to ensuring that records in respect of agency staff include documentary evidence of any relevant qualifications. 08/09/2017

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Recommendations

 The use of agency staff should be carefully monitored and reviewed to ensure that children receive continuity of care. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 54, paragraph 10.16)

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children in this home are receiving good care. They are developing positive relationships with carers and with peers. They participate in and enjoy a range of social and recreational opportunities, as a result of support and careful monitoring by staff. Children are in full-time education. For one child, this is exceptional progress, as he had spent some time out of school due to his emotional health. Staff liaise closely with colleagues in schools. Staff observe children in school to help them inform children’s placement plans. Staff contribute to education meetings and plans. As a result, children benefit from a consistent approach to communication and behaviour management, which supports them to reach their potential. Staff support children to arrive at school ready for the day. For example, staff arranged with school for one child to attend breakfast club; this has helped reduce his anxieties about arriving at the same time as large numbers of children. Where there have been

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Inspection report children's home: SC468325 4 difficulties with transport arrangements, the manager has been proactive in meeting with transport providers to address and reduce concerns so that children have a safe, calm journey to school. Children have good routines. They have visual aids for the day’s routine and this is supported by reminders of ‘now’ and ‘next’ prompts to support transitions. When children return from school, staff review their school diary with them. Achievements are celebrated and good behaviour reinforced. Staff also reinforce any areas for improvement by helping children to understand the area of concern. This is done carefully, using each child’s preferred method of communication. Staff are promoting health needs for children, including emotional health needs. The manager has been tenacious in ensuring that one child receives bereavement counselling. Staff have used consistent strategies in addressing a child’s health needs,

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

which have resulted in the child’s improved personal care. Staff have also implemented strategies that have successfully reduced self-injurious behaviours. Children have been supported to attend preventative health appointments. As a result, children have improving health. One child has had a review of his health needs due to the sharing of detailed observations and information from staff, regarding his behaviours. His health needs continue to be subject to assessment; however, there has been a change to essential medication, as a result of this review. This has had a positive impact to his behaviours, so far. Children are being supported to develop independence skills. They choose clothes with staff and are supported by staff to present themselves well. Children choose the weekly menus and staff promote healthy choices. They also help staff with weekly shopping. One child is learning how to prepare a meal, with supervision. One child has developed

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

the skills to make his bed every day. This is enhancing children’s confidence and self- esteem. Staff promote contact with families. Children do not like changes to routines and can become anxious before contact. Staff ensure that there are reliable and predictable arrangements in place. They support and manage these arrangements to ensure that contact is positive. A parent reported that she is very happy with the care her son receives. She believes her son’s behaviours have calmed due to staff using consistent behaviour strategies. She added: ‘I would know if he was unhappy and he is not, he loves living there.’ Children are consulted with and have weekly meetings. They have a complaints leaflet that staff read through with them weekly. Their views and wishes are sought using visual aids. They discuss meals, activities, and any changes to their likes and dislikes. At the end of the meeting, staff and children fill in a leaf with a positive thought. This leaf is

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

then added to the kindness tree. This enhances children’s self-esteem and promotes positive relationships, as it is often a positive remark about peers and staff. There are planned admissions to the home. At the time of the inspection, preparation was taking place for a child to move into the home. There had been detailed sharing of information and consideration of the other children’s needs as part of the referral Inspection report children's home: SC468325 5 process. The child had visited the home and was visiting again. The inspector observed a member of staff undertaking an exercise with a child about sharing the home, preparing him for this change. The manager has raised in multi-agency meetings the need to progress planning transitions for two children currently living in the home. They have recently been allocated transition workers to work alongside their social workers. The home staff will share information with professionals and any identified resource in order to support

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

Staff support children to keep safe. Staff are aware of the children’s additional vulnerabilities as a result of their needs and disabilities. There are detailed risk assessments, risk management plans and behaviour management plans to support staff to keep children safe. As a result of risk assessments, there is a high level of monitoring. All monitoring arrangements are agreed with case responsible social workers and parents. Risk assessments cover each area of risk and include information to anticipate and prevent risks. There are risk assessments in place to ensure that staff respect the dignity and privacy of children when supervising their personal care. Staff have been trained in the appropriate use of physical restraints. The records show that they intervene as a last resort to prevent children harming themselves, peers or staff. Many of the recorded restraints are low level interventions, for example to prevent

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

children grabbing staff hair or biting themselves. Staff try to anticipate escalations of behaviours by assessing moods and using distraction techniques. They also use strategies to calm children that have been effective in other situations, for example in school. As a result, staff are managing behaviours in a safe way. The manager reviews any records of restraint and incident reports and will revisit the information with staff to ensure that procedures have been followed. The inspector observed a detailed discussion following an incident. This had been a protracted incident in which the child had targeted, and was physically aggressive to, a particular member of staff. All staff on duty at the time completed detailed records. Staff and the manager discussed events leading to the incident. This demonstrated a thoughtful reflection on the incident, including whether anything could have been done differently.

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

Staff know how to respond to self-injurious behaviours. Any incidents are recorded in detail, including completing a body map which evidences any marks to a child. As a result, accurate records are available to inform safeguarding assessments and meetings. Information is prepared and kept up to date for each child in the event of an emergency, such as a child going missing. There have been no missing incidents as a result of high levels of monitoring. However, staff are aware of missing procedures and protocols, and the local police and vulnerable person’s officers are aware of the home’s location. The local community officer has visited the home. Inspection report children's home: SC468325 6 This home has a good track record of reporting concerns appropriately to the local authority designated officer. One child has made a number of allegations about a range of professionals. Procedures are understood and followed by staff and managers in a

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

timely way. Good-quality detailed records are maintained and the manager ensures that relevant people are notified. There has been very good liaison between the home manager, the local authority designated officer and the child’s social worker. This supports staff to keep children safe. One child used digital technology regularly, to the degree that there were concerns about this, before he moved into the home. This has reduced as a result of increasing his confidence and social interaction. He has developed interests and skills in a range of physical activities and activities in the home, such as board games. However, the relevant filters are in place for children accessing digital technology and there is careful supervision of children’s use of digital technology by staff. All staff receive safeguarding training and have received additional training about the safeguarding needs of disabled children, risks to children of sexual exploitation, and

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

radicalisation. There are arrangements in place for the safe recruitment of staff, and permanent and agency staff had appropriate checks in place. However, for some agency staff, there was no clear information about their qualifications. A requirement is made about this. Staff complete daily checks to ensure the home provides a safe environment for the children. These checks are reviewed by the manager. Maintenance issues are responded to promptly. The independent visitor always reviews any health and safety checks.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The registered manager is experienced in working with children and she is undertaking the relevant qualification in leadership and management. She is enthusiastic, has an appetite for learning and development and supports her staff to develop their practice. She is a ‘hands on’ manager, spending time with the children and staff on shift. Staff report that she is accessible and supportive to staff and that she challenges and stretches staff about their practice. Since the last inspection, the manager and senior staff member have developed and improved children’s records. Files have up-to-date children’s plans. Records have been amended so that recording systems incorporate up-to-date quality standards and the care children receive is measured against these. The statement of purpose has also been reviewed and updated. It sets out clearly the purpose and function of the home as well as the ethos of the service, for children to have access to what they need to achieve

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

their potential. There are high staff to child ratios in the home due to the children’s needs. The manager has had difficulty recruiting good-quality staff. She has received support from her manager and they have made changes that they hope will reduce the difficulties. However, the impact of this is that there has been a high number of agency staff working in the home. There is a core group of experienced, skilled permanent staff. The manager mitigates the impact to children’s care of the use of agency staff by ensuring Inspection report children's home: SC468325 7 that, on all shifts, there are experienced staff, and by requesting agency staff who are familiar to the children. However, a recommendation is made to ensure that the manager prioritises recruitment to fill vacant posts, and carefully scrutinises staff rotas to ensure that there is a balance of experienced and familiar staff on shifts. Staff receive regular supervision, and safeguarding is always discussed. There are

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

regular team meetings where children’s needs and plans are discussed and up-to-date development information is shared. The manager believes that there is good team morale and, as a result, there is limited staff sickness and no staff performance issues. The manager ensures that there is proactive partnership working with health and education staff. This has resulted in good sharing of information about children’s needs and a better understanding of children’s needs. This has contributed to assessments and planning meetings for children, with social care. There are a range of quality assurance mechanisms. The manager acts on any recommendations in the monthly reports by the independent visitor. There are internal auditing systems that the manager and the senior complete. The manager is currently reviewing the senior management structure in the home in order to enhance it, with a view to improving the monitoring of the quality of care.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The manager has grown in confidence in challenging partners where necessary and in requesting meetings in order to progress plans for 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: SC468325 8

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Chartwell Care Services Ltd

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: Leigh Carr Chartered Accountants, 12 Helmet Row, London EC1V 3QJ

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Children’s home details

Responsible individual: Patricia Branson

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Inspector

Cathey Moriarty, social care inspector Inspection report children's home: SC468325 9 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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