Children's home run by St Christopher’s Fellowship in Wandsworth

Inspection report children’s home: 1159755 1 Registered provider: St Christopher’s Fellowship

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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 home is registered to provide care and accommodation for four young women. It is owned and managed by a charitable organisation. The home provides care for young women who are at risk of, or who are subject to, child sexual exploitation, and aims to keep them within the community.

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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: 16 November 2016

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good

Overall judgement at last inspection: Sustained effectiveness

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Key findings from this inspection

 There are thorough admission processes involving both risk and matching Inspection report children’s home: 1159755 2 assessments.  Young people choose to remain in touch with the home after they leave.  There are timely, well-practised missing from home procedures.  There is an effective ongoing bank of resources to keep high-risk young people as safe as possible.  Behaviour management is effective in most crisis situations.  Monitoring of any restrictive practices is thorough and effective.  There is a strong and stable management team.  Staff feel appropriately supported by supervision, appraisal and training.

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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

 A small minority of staff do not keep timely and clear records.  The statement of purpose lacks clarity about the therapeutic offer.

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

16/11/2016 Interim Sustained effectiveness 06/06/2016 Full Good 12/01/2016 Full Good Inspection report children’s home: 1159755 3

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Recommendations

 Ensure that the statement of purpose is kept under review. (‘Guide to the children home’s regulations including the quality standards’, page 14, paragraph 3.5). This specifically refers to the section on accessing professional therapies.  Ensure that all staff consistently follow the home’s policies and procedures for the benefit of children in the home’s care. (‘Guide to the children home’s regulations including the quality standards’, page 54, paragraph 10.20). This specifically relates to ensuring that all files are clearly kept and updated appropriately.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

This home only admits young people after an initial assessment process and matching risk assessment. This is followed by a further, thorough assessment process which helps determine aspects of their daily care. Young people can be at different stages in their care journey so, for example, the key-working focus may differ depending on the particular risks, as may the levels of free time and phone access. This individualised approach gives young people maximum opportunities to make progress.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Local authority colleagues are generally very positive about the quality and timeliness of staff communication. Detailed reports about young people’s progress are sent on a routine basis. Staff attend and are well prepared for meetings. Urgent meetings are willingly accommodated. Staff also have effective working relationships with other key professional partners, notably the police and health workers.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Young people’s health improves while they are in this home. Long-standing conditions are appropriately treated, and some young people’s substance misuse is significantly reduced. Other young people develop better sleeping routines and their diet improves. The home has access to the wider organisation’s teacher, and she advises on education programmes and obtains suitable resources. Most young people are enrolled locally in education. A minority are educated using virtual school resources and professional colleagues think that, ‘The home has been proactive in getting appropriate resources and putting a programme in place.’

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

One young person made it clear that this home is not the right place for them, saying ‘they prefer to be less bubble-wrapped’. Staff have listened to this and supported the young person’s social worker in seeking a more independent placement. This means that relationships between the staff and the young person have remained mainly positive, making for a smoother and planned transition .

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Young people have structured, individual daily planners, which are created in partnership Inspection report children’s home: 1159755 4 with them. They reflect the core educational activity on weekdays, as well as external appointments and activities, such as boxing or visiting art installations. Food choices are well catered for, and some young people enjoy practising their cooking skills, and sharing the results with others. Key-work sessions are regular and individually designed. They may involve quizzes or board games or watching particular videos. They are focused on increasing a young person’s understanding and knowledge of how to keep safe, and will include areas such as grooming and consent.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff work well with young people, to prepare them for their placement change. This means that most young people leave the home on a positive note and all recent leavers have revisited the home since leaving. Some visits have been informal and friendly, while others have been because of a crisis for that young person, or to receive specific further guidance from staff. This demonstrates the key role that the home plays in these young people’s lives.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

This home has begun to admit young people with appropriate needs from a wider geographical area. Bespoke arrangements are made in relation to contact with family members, transport and education, and virtual meetings are successfully held between professional colleagues where necessary. This development means that a wider pool of young people is potentially available to assist good matching in the home.

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

Young people living in this home are chosen because they present high levels of specific risk. As such, each young person has an individualised overarching risk plan, which details possible triggers and risk-reduction strategies, as well as a daily risk plan. Daily plans are usually well completed. Some young people’s risks have much reduced since moving into the home. They are no longer putting themselves at serious risk of harm, and have learned some useful strategies to protect themselves. Other young people are still at significant risk in the community, but are more willing to share their experiences, including incidents of historic abuse, which enables some protective measures to be put in place.

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

Staff are experienced in and appropriately knowledgeable about bullying, self-harm and the risks of radicalisation. Staff have carefully considered whether radicalisation was an issue in a certain situation, and were very aware of referral processes if this had proved to be the case. Internet safety is also a major consideration in this home, and staff are regularly updated in staff meetings over issues, such as updates to common applications, which increase risk.

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

The primary issues for this home relate to young people going missing from the home and the risk of sexual exploitation. Staff are well versed in initiating missing from home protocols, and because of the risks involved, all such practice involves the police at an early stage. There is now a good bank of effective practice related to keeping high-risk young people as safe as possible. This involves ongoing direct work with young people about risk, as well as practical measures, such as mobile phone and travel card safety plans, and internet screening. Crucially, each young person has an allocated, identified, specialist police person. Among other areas, this person handles intelligence about Inspection report children’s home: 1159755 5 individual perpetrators, which has led to effective action, such as the serving of restrictive notices.

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

In the majority of incidents, staff rely on their knowledge and understanding of young people to promote harmony. This is underpinned by a positive reward system, and consequences for poor behaviour if necessary. Young people think that the consequences are ‘OK’, and they are encouraged to comment on them or suggest alternatives. However, staff are willing and able to enforce firm boundaries as necessary. For example, staff insist that young people undertake education during the school day before screen-time, and if indicated, staff will undertake room searches.

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

Sometimes, staff will use the layout of the home effectively, and the appropriate staffing levels, to keep young people separate from each other and gainfully occupied. The home does have satisfactory arrangements for when they should call the police to the home to help manage situations, and this helps minimise these events. On rare occasions staff will use more restrictive practices to urgently keep young people safe. These interventions are thoroughly considered and recorded appropriately.

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

The home environment is a safe one. Regular health and safety checks and fire evacuation practices involving young people are routinely programmed. Safe recruitment procedures ensure that agency and permanent staff are suitably vetted to work with young people. Young people currently living in the home do not always appreciate that the safeguarding measures in place are to promote their welfare, but young people who have recently left are able to say that they now appreciate that measures in place were there to keep them safe.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

This home has been managed effectively by the same registered manager since registration. She is ambitious for excellence, and has continued to develop and improve practice. For example, staff now have access to a ‘toolbox’ of approaches which have been particularly successful in keeping young people safe. The manager is now developing a standard offer to all ex-residents to help them stay in touch, and enable ongoing monitoring of their progress.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Monitoring systems are effective in maintaining and, where appropriate, improving practice. For example, the external visitor has now expanded her scrutiny of any restrictive practices to include more analysis and judgement. This offers a further safeguard. The manager completes her monthly monitoring routinely, and summarises these for her bi-annual reports to Ofsted. These are detailed, thorough documents with effective analysis of trends and issues.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The manager is well supported by members of her wider management team, who all offer strong leadership to care staff. Young people are at the centre of this home, and their particular needs and wishes are very familiar to all the management team. The team will intervene with other agencies to influence care planning, for example, over placement decisions and over schooling. Generally, relationships with other agencies are Inspection report children’s home: 1159755 6 positive and effective. This reflects the team’s belief that the best way of ensuring a young person’s success is to build up an effective multi-disciplinary team around them.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

There have been significant staffing deficits in this home. This has been dealt with by maintaining and supporting a core of experienced agency staff to provide continuity to young people. However, these staffing shortfalls have placed an additional strain on permanent staff. The management team has dealt with this creatively by using the expertise of the team to craft a bespoke job description, which has resulted in some successful recruitment.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Supervision and appraisal practice is effective. Supervision is timely and well targeted. Good support and encouragement are given to staff, and, if appropriate, shortfalls are closely monitored. However, there is a risk that the impact of shortfalls could adversely affect the care of young people, for example a lack of clarity and timeliness in recording in young people’s files. Training is readily available, and mandatory training, such as behaviour management, is regularly refreshed. In addition to this, staff benefit from a wider range of relevant courses, as well as routine psychological consultation which helps them ‘see under the presenting behaviour’. Staff value this, and particularly benefit from the reflective culture in the home, which enables them to pause and reflect on events after each shift.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The home is meeting its stated aims and objectives, but the statement of purpose requires further clarification to ensure that the services offered by the home are transparently reflected.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Young people’s cultural preferences are strongly reflected in this home, particularly in relation to the range of food choices on offer. Links with organised religions are encouraged when appropriate, and any unwitting racism is gently but firmly rebutted. Young people are involved in recruitment activities, and have had a valuable opportunity to talk to the Department for Education about their views on 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 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: 1159755 7

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: St Christopher’s Fellowship

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: St Christophers Fellowship, 1 Putney High Street, London SW15 1SZ

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Inspector

Bridget Goddard, social care inspector Inspection report children’s home: 1159755 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 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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