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

Inspection report children’s home: SC456474 1 SC456474 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

A private company owns this children’s home, which is registered to provide care and accommodation for up to five young people on a short-, medium- or long-term basis. One of these placements is a semi-independence flat at the top of the home. The provider also runs a school in a nearby town that young people can access if it meets their needs.

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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

Overall judgement at last inspection: Declined in effectiveness Inspection report children’s home: SC456474 2

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Key findings from this inspection

 Young people make good progress with their education. They develop their interests, enjoy a range of activities, and are safer.  Staff give young people a lot of support, understand their needs, and take an active interest in their well-being. Staff are warm and caring, and treat all young equally, regardless of the challenges that young people present.  Young people have a positive influence on the running of the home and decisions about their care. They have good relationships with staff members.  There is good support for young people to maintain contact with people who are important to them.  Safety is a priority and there is effective risk management to keep young people free from harm.  The manager is child centred and ensures that care focuses on supporting young people to succeed in life. She is an effective leader of the home.

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

08/03/2017 Interim Declined in effectiveness 26/09/2016 Full Good 02/02/2016 Interim Sustained effectiveness 10/11/2015 Full Good Inspection report children’s home: SC456474 3

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Recommendations

 For children’s homes to be nurturing and supportive environments that meet the needs of children, they will in most cases, be homely, domestic environments (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 15, paragraph 3.9). In particular, implement the plans to alter the internal layout of the communal area downstairs.  The registered person is responsible for leading a team, which provides high quality care for all children living in the home. They must lead and manage the home in a way that delivers the ethos, outcomes and approach set out in the home’s Statement of Purpose (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 52, paragraph 10.4). In particular, consistently record all key-working sessions and ensure supervision records are up to date and checked for their quality.  The registered person should actively seek independent scrutiny of the home and

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Recommendations

make best use of information from independent and internal monitoring (including under regulations 44 and 45) to ensure continuous improvement. They should be skilled in anticipating difficulties and reviewing incidents, such as learning from disruptions and placement breakdowns. They are responsible for proactively implementing lessons learned and sustaining good practice (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 55, paragraph 10.24). In particular, use the regulation 44 and 45 review processes to analyse the reasons for unplanned placement endings in an effort to improve future placement stability.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Young people live in a nurturing and supportive home environment. Staff provide them with consistency, structure and routine. Parts of the home are warmly decorated, comfortable and well maintained. Where this is not the case, the manager is taking action to repair and decorate, with a longer-term plan to positively change the internal layout. Young people are able to personalise their bedrooms and are consulted about colour schemes and decor. At the request of a young person, there is a trampoline in the garden.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Young people build positive relationships with staff in their own time and way. Staff members know them well and help them develop a sense of belonging. The staff support young people to mature, make good progress and enjoy a range of positive experiences. Young people have a say in decisions about their care, such as extra contact with relatives, going to their school prom, shopping, activities and the amount of Inspection report children’s home: SC456474 4 free time they have. The staff listen to their requests and will advocate on their behalf. Staff members also take time to explain sensitively to young people reasons why any requests are turned down. Young people know how to complain and the staff will help them to do this.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff regularly assess young people’s ability to keep themselves safe. Consequently, young people achieve more free time to use local community facilities independently. Increases are incremental, and are agreed with social workers as young people show they are trustworthy. Young people also develop and maintain independence by practising their daily living and self-care skills, such as completing their laundry and cooking meals.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The manager and staff work closely with the schools young people attend. There is good communication about their behaviour, emotional well-being and achievements. Young people’s attendance is good and this is especially significant when there has previously been a high level of missed education. Proactive planning helped one young person enormously after moving to the area. At short notice, he received tutoring and support to sit his GCSE exams.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff promote young people’s health and influence their choices about positive lifestyles. Young people take part in regular exercise, swimming and football, as well as more relaxing activities like fishing. Staff are resourceful in using local community services and projects to give young people a range of healthy activities that they enjoy taking part in. Staff ensure health assessments are up to date and support young people to attend their appointments. Additional support from specialist services is available to meet young people’s individual health needs, such as reducing substance misuse and improving their emotional well-being. This includes in-house support from a qualified psychologist and local child and adolescent mental health services. Staff also provide individual support, such as taking young people out for drives and playing music to reduce stress and encourage them to talk about how they feel. Staff work with each young person to

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

promote their emotional resilience and confidence, enabling them to cope with difficult situations.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The manager and staff regularly review young people’s detailed care plans. These plans remain live documents that inform staff about young people’s needs and progress, helping to promote a consistent approach to their care. Key-working sessions with young people are informed by care plans and clinical input to improve young people’s welfare.

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

The home provides a safe environment for young people who have had unpredictable and unsafe experiences in their past. From close supervision by caring staff, young people are helped to feel welcome, settle in, and develop a sense of trust in the adults that care for them. Two social workers confirmed that staff help keep young people safe and strategies to reduce risks are developed in partnership with the home, for example agreeing levels of free time young people have, frequency of room searches and missing-from-home procedures. The manager ensures that risks as well as young Inspection report children’s home: SC456474 5 people’s welfare are considered and balanced. For example, allowing a young person to return to his home area was considered a risk but it allowed him the experience of going to his school prom night. To ban him from going would likely have generated additional risk.

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

Staff are confident in their knowledge and understanding of safeguarding issues. This includes whistle-blowing, child sexual exploitation and extremism. Staff have reviewed risk assessments in light of the local area being a potential target of extremism as it is this year’s City of Culture. Staff regularly talk to young people and encourage them to make positive choices and keep safe, for example persuading a young person to come back from the train station and not to go missing. Staff discuss their concerns about young people with them and give them sensible advice about sexual health, relationships, substance misuse and offending behaviour. Staff do not record consistently all such key-working sessions, which reduces both the evidence of their impact and the amount of young people’s views.

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

The times that young people are missing from the home are infrequent and irregular. Staff use a range of strategies to ensure young people remain safe when they are missing. These include regular attempts at telephone contact, calling relatives, looking for young people and alerting the police. Staff will drive long distances to collect young people and bring them home. They make sure there are other adults independent of the home for young people want to talk to them about why they went missing.

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

The manager always initiates appropriate safeguarding procedures in response to concerns about young people. This includes making sure there are timely planning meetings to address risks, and when young people’s placements are drifting and future plans are weak. The manager refers any issues in relation to staff practice to the local authority’s safeguarding team and she takes prompt action to keep young people safe.

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

The staff team is skilled at giving young people clear boundaries and expectations of behaviour. Consistent behaviour management systems help young people increase their sense of security and well-being. This is evident through improvements in behaviour and reductions in the levels of damage young people cause. There have only been two occasions since the last inspection when staff have physically intervened. This is as a last resort to promote safety and staff use only the minimal level of intervention necessary. Record keeping and management oversight of such incidents is of good quality and ensures practice is safe and suitable.

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

The recruitment procedures for new staff ensure that only safe and appropriate adults work with young people. There are plans to improve the quality of recruitment practice further.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The manager registered with Ofsted three and a half years ago. She holds a level 5 qualification in leadership and management, and has a wealth of experience in working with young people. She knows the young people in her care very well because she Inspection report children’s home: SC456474 6 maintains good oversight of their experiences and progress. She uses this knowledge and understanding to advocate proactively on behalf of young people. Through working in partnership with other agencies, she helps young people benefit from effective all- round support, for example enabling a young person to complain about his placing authority, which led to him moving back to his home area.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The manager is open and transparent about care practice. She welcomed a visit from a placing authority’s commissioning team. This led to improved working relationships, more effective sharing of information and better strategies for managing risks to a young person. The commissioner’s report commented, ‘Changes were over and above expectations, there is good oversight by the regional manager, and the young person is settled and is making good progress.’

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The arrangements for staff induction, training, supervision and appraisal help staff to develop and review their skills and knowledge. Throughout, the focus is on young people’s needs and how best to support them. Staff commented that training ‘has improved and is more realistic’. Frontline staff provide the training and managers attend. This leads to staff having a good understanding of their roles and responsibilities. Staff communicate well, they are supportive of each other and they ensure there is effective teamwork. As a result expectations of young people are consistent and they receive stable care. Staff are confident in raising any concerns with the manager. They consider her to be supportive and understanding and they appreciate a positive, open management style. Although staff supervision takes place regularly, there are gaps in maintaining appropriate record-keeping. Ofsted recommends that the manager ensures

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

these records are up to date and checked for their quality.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The manager knows the strengths of the home and the areas to develop. Her last six- monthly review of the home was an honest and realistic appraisal with a good focus on young people’s progress and experiences. She acknowledges that more consideration should be given to analysing the reasons for a placements ending in an unplanned way. This is a similar weakness in monthly assessments completed by the independent visitor. Ofsted recommends a more in-depth evaluation to help improve the stability of placements further. Otherwise the levels of monitoring and review are satisfactory.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The manager takes action to implement recommendations made by the independent visitor, which are mainly administrative. She has taken steps to comply with the requirements from the last inspection. Consequently, there have been no further incidents of young people hurting each other, notifications of significant incidents are consistently sent to Ofsted and there has been a positive response to concerns raised by young people and external agencies. The manager plans to make the physical environment more homely by splitting a very large downstairs room into two. This will provide the opportunity to have a separate room for private meetings. Ofsted recommends that the manager implements this plan.

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Information about this inspection

Inspection report children’s home: SC456474 7 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: SC456474 8

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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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Children’s home details

Responsible individual: Susan Fitzsimmons

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Inspector

Simon Morley, social care inspector Inspection report children’s home: SC456474 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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