Children's home run by The Percy Hedley Foundation

Inspection report children's home: 1250842 1 Registered provider: The Percy Hedley Foundation

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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 situated on the campus of a school operated by The Percy Hedley Foundation. The home specialises in providing short-term breaks for children from the school who have complex special needs. The home is registered to provide a service for up to five children or young people. This is the first inspection of the home since registration.

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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 requires improvement to be 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

Overall judgement at last inspection: Not applicable

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good

Enforcement action since last inspection: None

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Key findings from this inspection

 The children and young people using the short-term breaks service are cared Inspection report children's home: 1250842 2 for in a warm and comfortable environment.  Staff at the home know the children and young people very well and are able to respond sensitively to their special needs.  Staff are good at communicating with the children and young people so that they can enjoy their short-term break and have fun.  The children and young people receive exceptional added value due to the home being located on the campus of their school. School staff know the children very well and the home’s ability to work in partnership with the school is a significant advantage in a range of areas, such as family liaison, access to a team of therapists and membership of the school’s Behaviour Intervention Team (BIT).  Senior leaders know the services they provide and the children and young people who use them well, and are committed to continuously improving the

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Key findings from this inspection

service to ensure that the children’s and young people’s experiences keep on getting better.

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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

 One record of physical intervention was not properly logged. This means that the child’s parents were not aware that it had taken place, as they should be.  One file had not been audited in accordance with the home’s auditing system. As a result, the home’s case records were seriously out of alignment with the local authority’s plans for the child.  Some aspects of the plan to develop the service from a residential school setting to a children’s home are not yet fully embedded. For instance, school staff need to recognise that the home is no longer part of the school and respect the children’s and young people’s privacy when they are enjoying their short-term break.  The scoring system used for risk assessment is potentially misleading and should be reviewed.

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Statutory requirements

This section sets out the actions that the registered person must take to meet the Care Standards Act 2000, (England) Regulations 2015 and the ‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’. The registered person must comply within Inspection report children's home: 1250842 3 the given timescales.

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Requirement Due date

The restraint and deprivation of liberty standard is that restraint in relation to a child is only permitted for the purposes of preventing –

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Requirement Due date

injury to any person (including the child); or

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Requirement Due date

serious damage to the property of any person (including the child). (Regulation 20(1)(a) and (b))

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Requirement Due date

In particular, staff should be aware that any restriction of movement is a physical restraint and should be recorded as such. 10 August 2017

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Recommendations

 Staff should continually and actively assess the risks to each child and the arrangements in place to protect them. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 42, and paragraph 9.5) In particular, any assessment of risk must reduce the risk of harm to the children and young people. The home’s current risk assessment format should be reviewed, with particular reference to the scoring system, which is not fit for purpose.  For children’s homes to be nurturing and supportive environments that meet the needs of their children, they will, in most cases, be homely, domestic environments. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 15, and paragraph 3.9) In particular, staff from the school should be aware that for the duration of the short-term break, the children’s home is the child’s or young person’s home and staff should respect their privacy.

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Recommendations

 Regulations 35-39 detail the records that must be kept in children’s homes. All children’s case records (regulation 36) must be kept up to date and stored securely whilst they remain in the home. Case records must be kept up to date and signed and dated by the author of each entry. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 62, and paragraph 14.3) In particular, the plans to introduce additional quality assurance processes should be accelerated following the organisational restructuring. The children’s and young people’s records must be kept up to date so that the children’s home’s placement plans align with the local authority’s plans for the welfare of the children and young people.

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Inspection judgements

Inspection report children's home: 1250842 4

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The children and young people using this short-term break service experience a high standard of personalised care. Staff ensure that the children’s and young people’s bedrooms are individualised prior to their stay. Good use of communication methods, such as British Sign Language and laminated picture books, with children and young people for whom verbal contact is limited means that they are able to choose for themselves what they want to enjoy doing during their stay, from a wide range of activities. Sometimes they choose to stay on campus and play with their school friends who are looked after in the adjacent children’s home, making use of the school’s extensive leisure provision. On other occasions they choose an outing, and the evening’s activities are based entirely around the children’s and young people’s personal wishes and feelings. Staff’s skills are deployed effectively. Some of the children and young people require the

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

comfort of being cared for by familiar adults, and the same staff group is regularly rostered to cover a particular child or young person’s stay. This means that staff can get to know the children and young people really well and ensure that they are cared for consistently, for instance by using proven distraction techniques when they become distressed. Staff speak of the children and young people in their care with great understanding and warmth. One parent said: ‘I am absolutely thrilled that my child gets short-term breaks here because it is a home from home. Staff are like our extended family.’ The home is centrally located on the campus of a school for children who have special needs, and children and young people using the service are invariably students at the school. Sharing the school’s facilities gives the home access to a range of additional services that add exceptional value to the children and young people’s experience of

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

short-term breaks. The school’s team of specialised therapists appropriately advises staff and parents on methods to use to support the children’s and young people’s progress. Effective family liaison arrangements mean that parents can be informed of, and encouraged to use, techniques to help their children grow and develop. This means that the children and young people receive care of a consistently high quality. The routine use of care teams means that professionals in the children’s and young people’s lives get together regularly and review their plans to ensure they are getting the best possible value from their short-term breaks. The children’s and young people’s health needs are carefully considered as part of the planning process, and any specialist medical professionals involved are routinely invited to offer their expertise, either through attending care team meetings or providing reports. Partnership working is

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

enhanced by detailed Education, Health and Care plans that clearly express suitable outcomes for the child or young person. The home’s use of personalised care-planning documents, such as ‘About Me’, is appropriate. However, more could be done to align the home’s placement planning documentation with overarching plans for children’s care, particularly planning around children’s special educational needs.

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improvement to be good

Inspection report children's home: 1250842 5 The children and young people are generally well safeguarded in the home, and measures such as adjustments to staffing ratios to provide two-to-one care when appropriate mean that the home is customarily calm and that the children and young people are safe. However, not all of the home’s measures to keep the children and young people safe are routinely applied, and although this does not place them directly at risk, practice in this area could be more consistent to ensure their safety. A particularly strong aspect of the home’s partnership with school is membership of the school’s virtual BIT. The BIT deploys analysis and planning measures of an exceptional quality to ensure that the children and young people’s behaviour is managed effectively. Detailed understanding by staff of negative behaviour and its possible triggers means that incidents are kept to a minimum, and when they arise they are mostly dealt with

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improvement to be good

using calming or distraction techniques. In the small number of cases when physical intervention is required, it is usually properly documented. However, one record was reviewed where a young person’s movement had been restricted for his own safety but this had not been logged as a physical restraint. As a result, his parents had not been informed of the incident as they should have been. This is uncharacteristically poor practice for this establishment. Assessment of risks to the children and young people is mostly thorough, with hazards, controls and contingencies clearly identified across an appropriate range of situations, such as ‘in the kitchen’ or ‘at the shops’. However, the scoring system used to quantify risk is flawed, as it is heavily weighted towards identifying risk as ‘medium’. This means that potential risk might not be identified as very ‘low’ or very ‘high’ and staff may not react appropriately to perceived risky situations.

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improvement to be good

Generally, the physical environment of the home is safe, homely and welcoming within the confines of the institutionalised appearance of a building that is at the centre of a school campus. However, not all school staff are as yet recognising the transition to a children’s home from the school’s ‘residence’. They inappropriately allow themselves access during the children’s and young people’s short-term break, which does not promote the privacy of the children and young people staying at the home.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Senior leaders of the charity that runs the home have been far-sighted in transitioning the former ‘residence’ of the school to become a home providing the children and young people with short-term breaks. This transformation has been achieved as part of a detailed restructuring of the charity’s business, although some aspects of this development should be accelerated to ensure that additional quality assurance processes are routinely set in place. For example, while children’s files looked at had mostly been audited and brought up to date, in one case the home’s case records were seriously out of alignment with the placing local authority’s plans for the child, but this deficit had not been identified as the child’s file had not been audited. The home is run by an experienced registered manager who is currently completing her relevant qualifications in tandem with the organisation’s sponsored leadership course.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

One parent said: ‘The home’s manager is brilliant. She bends over backwards and no problem is too difficult for her. When one arises, she is a huge support.’ The recent appointment of a head of service with a track record of transforming children’s homes Inspection report children's home: 1250842 6 provides further confidence that the home’s mostly good service will become standardised, and current inconsistencies will be addressed. In due course, the very recently registered home will receive support through independent visits under Regulation 44 of The Children’s Homes (England) Regulations 2015. Governance arrangements have been strengthened by the recent formation of a residential board, and this provides trustees of the foundation and the senior leadership team with the opportunity for closer scrutiny of the charity’s children’s homes. A key aspect of the home’s transition has been an improved training offer. This includes,

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

for example, the school’s therapeutic team offering staff from the children’s home a comprehensive training course on children’s special needs and how these can be met effectively. As staff’s skills develop, the experiences of the children and young people in their care improve, meaning that short-term breaks become a safer, more consistent and more enjoyable experience.

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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 differences 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 whom 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: 1250842 7

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: The Percy Hedley Foundation

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: Forest Hall, Newcastle Upon Tyne NE12 8YY

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Inspector

Ian Young, HMI Inspection report children's home: 1250842 8 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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