Children's home run by Area Camden Limited in Haringey

Inspection report children’s home: SC473639 1 SC473639 Registered provider: Area Camden Limited

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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 is registered to care for up to 10 young people who have emotional and/or behavioural difficulties. The home is situated on two separate sites in close proximity to one another.

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Overall experiences and progress of

children and young people , taking into account

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outstanding

How well children and young people are helped and protected outstanding

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outstanding

The effectiveness of leaders and managers outstanding

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outstanding

The children’s home provides highly effective services that consistently exceed the standards of good. The actions of the children’s home contribute to significantly improved outcomes and positive experiences for children and young people who need help, protection and care.

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outstanding

Date of last inspection: 19 December 2016

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outstanding

Overall judgement at last inspection: Sustained effectiveness

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Enforcement action since last inspection

None Inspection report children’s home: SC473639 2

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Key findings from this inspection

This children’s home is outstanding because:

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Key findings from this inspection

 Leaders, managers and staff place paramount importance on meeting the individual needs of young people.  The home has a simple principle of ‘this is where young people live’. This ethos permeates all aspects of care and ensures that young people are at the centre of decision making.  The tenacity and professionalism of the staff team results in outstanding outcomes for young people.  Young people make excellent progress in education. They also engage in a wide variety of additional support services which meet their needs exceptionally well.  Young people benefit from the excellent working partnerships that exist between the home and key local agencies, such as the police.  The staff team advocates exceptionally well on behalf of young people. This means young people receive excellent support and guidance. As a consequence young people receive the services they require.  An energetic and inventive management team strives to improve the outcomes

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Key findings from this inspection

for young people at every stage.  Young people dramatically reduce their risk-taking behaviour. Young people with extremely poor histories of criminal behaviour have not offended for two years.

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

19/12/2016 Interim Sustained effectiveness 02/08/2016 Full Outstanding 25/01/2016 Interim Sustained effectiveness 01/09/2015 Full Outstanding Inspection report children’s home: SC473639 3

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

Young people are happy in this home. They attribute their progress to the care and devotion offered to them by the staff team. Enrichening children’s lives and empowering them to reach their potential is at the heart of the home. One young person comments, ‘This is the best home I have ever lived in, you arrive with a clean slate. Why can’t homes be more like this home?’ Young people build strong and meaningful relationships with staff. This excellent staff practice helps to ensure that young people can explore their specific issues in a safe and trusting way. The benefit of such strong relationships also means that young people feel able to keep in contact with staff even after they have moved on from the home. This adds another layer of support as young people progress towards adulthood.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

Outcomes for young people are excellent. A placing social worker states, ‘The home has achieved genuine miracles.’ Staff are justifiably confident in the quality of their work. For example, staff recently managed a young person’s family contact, including additional outreach work, in an exemplary way. The impact of the reintegration work undertaken by staff resulted in the young person returning home to their parents. This is particularly impressive given that the young person’s placing authority had previously considered such a move ‘impossible’.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

The level of educational achievement for young people is outstanding. The home has excellent relationships with the host local authority. This helps to ensure that young people receive the correct type of support, guidance and education programmes. Young people benefit from a wide choice of courses and programmes to suit their differing needs. Staff work closely with school and college staff to address any problems with school attendance, such as poor peer relationships. When necessary, staff offer extra support to young people to help them stay on track with their learning. One young person recently completed seven GCSE examinations, while another young person has attained 95% attendance with a tutoring programme after being absent from school for the previous three years. In addition, a young person has recently started attending a vocational course after missing the majority of his secondary education. These

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

achievements are a source of pride for young people and staff alike and rightly celebrated. For example, staff celebrated the educational achievement for one young person by attending her ‘prom’ night and by purchasing her a new laptop computer.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

Young people benefit from living in a home that provides them with a large number of exciting leisure opportunities. This encourages young people to explore new experiences and expand their horizons. Young people receive an activity pass that offers them access to a vast array of attractions around the London area. They also have the opportunity to bring along an additional friend should they wish. Young people recently enjoyed a ‘fright night’ experience at a local amusement park, which provided an excellent bonding experience between them and staff. Inspection report children’s home: SC473639 4 The views and opinions of young people matter in the home. For instance, young people made their opinions known as to the quality of the living environment. As a result, new double-glazed windows and blinds were installed. Furthermore, alterations to the front doorbell system mean that the door alarm no longer sounds in the bedroom areas. This

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

reduces disturbance and disruption for young people.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

Detailed information concerning independent advocacy services is available to young people. This enables them to benefit from additional support and guidance should they need it. This approach recently helped a young person to successfully challenge a local authority’s decision to change their social worker. Keeping the same social worker means the young person maintains an important relationship and receives a consistent level of support.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

Staff understand the importance of family contact and placement stability. One young person re-commenced contact with their parent after a lengthy period. The deputy manager comments, ‘Before and after the session he was grinning from ear to ear… We have never seen him so happy.’ Excellent planning for this particular meeting included the availability of a taxi. This waited nearby in case the contact session was required to be ended abruptly. Photographs of the session were subsequently uploaded to a private social media account; this is specifically set up for young people’s life story photos and memories.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

Independent skills work is outstanding. Young people worked with staff to design a life skills workbook which is colourful and engaging. One young person fondly recalls how staff showed him how to sew a button onto his shirt and taught him how to budget his money effectively.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

Culture and difference is widely celebrated. Young people recently prepared welcome packs for new asylum-seeking young people. The welcome packs include vouchers for sports shops and helpful tips for learning English. This offers young people a unique insight into the needs of other young people arriving from situations of extreme adversity, such as war zones from around the world.

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

The approach to safeguarding young people is highly effective at keeping them safe. Staff have developed excellent multi-agency partnerships. For example, staff have established meaningful relationships with the local police youth liaison service. This service offers a number of activities such as boxing for young people. This initiative helps to challenge the negative stereotypes that some young people hold about people in authority and encourages positive interactions. In addition, staff worked with local trading standards officials to address issues of local shops selling illegal knives to young people.

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

Risk assessments are of an extremely high quality and include the involvement of young people. Staff accurately risk assess the changing needs of young people on a daily basis. This ensures that staff are aware of how to respond to young people at any given time. Inspection report children’s home: SC473639 5 The layout of the risk assessments also allow staff the ability to easily assess and evaluate the progress made by young people in reducing their negative behaviours. Young people participate in the completion of their own risk assessments. This increases the effectiveness of staff strategies to keep young people safe. For instance, one risk assessment outlines a ‘coping strategy’ that one young person prefers when he becomes angry. Staff use this strategy regularly. This has led to a considerable reduction in the frequency of the young person’s negative outbursts.

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

Staff advocate strongly for young people and challenge any perceived discrimination. For instance, when the number of police visits to the home started to disrupt and unsettle young people, staff acted swiftly to liaise positively with the police. This resulted in an agreed reduction in police visits. In addition, staff recently liaised with youth offending service staff to ensure that an extended curfew was agreed for one young person to ensure that he could celebrate a religious festival with his parents. This meant the young person not only complied with their court order but also was allowed to attend an important family occasion. These examples exemplify the proactive nature of staff practice and their promotion of equality for young people.

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

The approach to behaviour management is outstanding. Staff use the excellent relationships they share with young people to de-escalate negative behaviours. As a result, staff have not been required to use physical restraint or give young people sanctions for misbehaviour. When conflicts occur between young people, staff mediate very effectively and encourage the young people to resolve their differences among themselves. Young people respond very well to this approach, often settling their disputes by apologising to the young person or staff member concerned. The continued good behaviour of young people means the atmosphere of the home is settled.

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

Young people make excellent improvement in reducing their offending behaviours. One young person has recently celebrated two years without committing any offences. This represents exceptional progress as he arrived at the home with a concerning pattern of offending behaviour. A placing social worker attributes this to the exceptional quality of relationships in the home. One social worker comments, ‘The relationships with staff are so good in the home that it acts as a pull factor towards the home.’ Therefore, the young person avoids potential problems in the community and remains positively engaged at the home.

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

There is an extremely strong and proactive staff response when young people go missing from the home. Young people rarely go missing or leave without staff permission. When missing episodes do occur, staff analyse the patterns and if possible link them to key events such as family contact. They then share these findings with the young people’s social workers. This ensures that excellent preventative work takes place on a multi-agency level to lessen missing behaviour and keep young people safe.

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

Internet safety is highly promoted in the home. Staff regularly discuss the potential dangers posed by the internet and encourage young people to indicate their age on social media profiles. Inspection report children’s home: SC473639 6

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

The home benefits from an exceptional management team. The registered manager has been in post since the opening of the home some three years ago. She is a former foster carer and is also a qualified social worker who holds the required management qualification in residential care. In addition, she has an extensive knowledge of the resources available for young people in the local area. The registered manager’s extensive experience offers her a full understanding of social care practice. In particular the positive and negative aspects of the care system. The registered manager’s knowledge allows her to advocate very effectively on behalf of young people and challenge any issues of care placement drift or delay. The registered manager receives extremely good support from her two deputy managers; both deputy managers are suitably experienced and also hold the required management qualification.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

Managers have excellent relationships with young people and lead the staff team by example. Managers consistently go the ‘extra mile’ and recently offered to pay for additional educational tuition, through the summer months, to allow one young person to catch up on his education. A young person said managers are, ‘Really fair and always there for you.’

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

The home has a comprehensive service development plan. Managers continually seek to improve the home. For example, a recent review of ‘shift planning’ resulted in a decision that one consistent member of staff works in the home from early morning until late afternoon. This means that one member of staff oversees important issues through the day and thus provides a consistent approach to care practice. In addition, the home has created a social media account which allows staff to obtain updates on current events in the local area and inform young people accordingly.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

Managers benefit from the increased scrutiny offered by a new independent visitor. Her observations and action points, allied with the home’s rigorous management monitoring systems, have resulted in rapid improvements to the home. The robustness of monitoring helps to maintain a very high standard of care for young people.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

The staff team is multi-talented and well trained. The staff team is complemented by the addition of three qualified social workers and a qualified teacher. All are committed and proud of the caring ethos of the home. The social workers and teacher provide excellent guidance to the staff team when it is necessary for them to challenge care-planning decisions made by placing authorities. This improves the social and educational progress for young people and ensures that the overall needs of young people come first.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

The staff team is very settled. There have been no staff departures since the last full inspection. Staff recruitment is robust and ensures that only adults deemed suitable care for young people. New staff benefit from effective induction and probation procedures. Staff know and understand each other well and work together cohesively. This supports excellent and consistent staff practice. Inspection report children’s home: SC473639 7 The home’s policies and procedures provide a comprehensive and accurate guide to care practices in the home. A new computer system incorporates new government initiatives, legislation and policies alongside the home’s own procedures. Consequently, staff are extremely well informed and go about their work with confidence, knowledge and authority.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

The process for admitting young people to the home is excellent. Managers ensure a rigorous analysis of the needs of young people already in the home prior to considering new referrals. Wherever possible young people visit the home before they move in. After these initial visits staff start to establish positive relationships with young people on the telephone, prior to their arrival. This establishes trusting and positive relationships and ensures the ongoing stability of the young person group as a whole.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

The living environment is outstanding. Accurate risk assessments and health and safety checks are conducted regularly. This means the home is safe for all to live and work in. The interior of the home is redecorated on a regular basis. This ensures that young people continue to live in surroundings that are homely and well maintained. Following requests by young people, a running machine was recently purchased. This further enhances the high quality of facilities available to young people.

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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: SC473639 8

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Area Camden Limited

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: 1 Turnpike Lane, London N8 0EP

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Children’s home details

Responsible individual: Nuala Harrington

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Inspector

Barnaby Dowell, social care regulatory inspector Inspection report children’s home: SC473639 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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