Children's Home run by Esland North Limited in Derby

Inspection report children's home: SC478986 1 SC478986 Registered provider: Esland North 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 home is registered to care for up to seven children and young people who have emotional and/or behavioural difficulties. The home is divided between two buildings on the same site.

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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: 12 December 2016

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good

Overall judgement at last inspection: Improved effectiveness

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Enforcement action since last inspection:

None Inspection report children's home: SC478986 2

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Key findings from this inspection

 The positive relationships children and young people have with staff help them to feel safe and secure.  Children and young people report feeling happy and settled. They have fun in the home and enjoy participating in a range of activities within the local community.  Staff have been resilient during a period of change. They have remained committed to children and young people, and they know them well. Staff use individual strategies to meet each child or young person’s needs.  Children and young people are making good progress in many aspects of their lives. All are healthy and all are making educational progress. Children and young people develop life and social skills. The improvement in relation to their emotional well-being is particularly evident.  Children and young people are safe. Comprehensive risk management and behaviour support plans implemented by staff, alongside multi-agency support

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Key findings from this inspection

packages, help to reduce significantly children and young people’s risk-taking behaviours.  Good, effective training, specific to the needs of the children and young people living in the home, enhances the staff team’s skills. It helps staff to maintain good standards of care for all children and young people.  The new manager is very child focussed and passionate about improving outcomes for children and young people. She is very reflective. She knows what the home’s strengths and areas for development are and has plans in place to promote continual improvement.

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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

 When children or young people return home from periods of absence, the manager and staff need to take into account any information provided during return home interviews to inform future risk management plans.  The quality of the service could be enhanced by improving systems relating to recruitment, staff supervision and staff performance management. Inspection report children's home: SC478986 3

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

12/12/2016 Interim Improved effectiveness 31/05/2016 Full Good 22/12/2015 Interim Sustained effectiveness 12/05/2015 Full Good Inspection report children's home: SC478986 4

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Statutory requirement

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

The registered person must maintain records (‘case records’) for each child which— include the information and documents listed in schedule 3 in relation to each child; are kept up to date; and are signed and dated by the author of each entry. (Regulation 36(1)(a)(b)(c))

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Requirement Due date

In particular, ensure that a copy of each child or young person’s local authority care plan is on their file and ensure that internal placement planning documents are kept up to date, signed and dated by the author of the updates. 04/10/2017

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Recommendations

 When a child returns to the home after being missing from care or away from the home without permission, the responsible local authority must provide an opportunity for the child to have an independent return home interview. Homes should take account of the information provided by such interviews when assessing risks and putting arrangements in place to protect each child. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 45, paragraph 9.30)  The registered person is responsible for maintaining good employment practice. They must ensure that the recruitment of staff safeguards children and minimises potential risks to them, with specific reference to the vetting of agency staff. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 61, paragraph 13.1)  It is good practice for a note of the content and/or outcomes of supervision sessions to be kept and to ensure that both the person giving the supervision and

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Recommendations

the staff member have a copy of the record. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 61, paragraph 13.4)  All staff must have their performance and fitness to carry out their role formally Inspection report children's home: SC478986 5 appraised at least once annually. This appraisal should take into account, when reasonable and practical, the views of other professionals who have worked with the staff member over the year and children in the home’s care. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 61, paragraph 13.5)

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children and young people living in this home are happy and settled. They enjoy spending time with staff, with whom they have positive relationships. During the inspection, children, young people and staff were observed smiling and laughing, giving the home a fun, warm and relaxed atmosphere. One young person said: ‘Staff encourage you to have fun, but at the same time they help you with things that are difficult in your life.’ Children and young people are making good progress in their lives. All are engaged in full-time education, whether this is in mainstream school or through a bespoke package of education to meet their specific needs. Children and young people’s physical health improves because they have regular check-ups with universal services. They also have a healthy diet and engage in regular physical activity. Children and young people experience improvement in their emotional health as a result of the support, praise and

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

encouragement they receive from staff. A social worker for a young person who recently moved on from the home gave the following feedback: He is a very different young man to the one who arrived a year ago. This is testament to the on-going care and support staff have provided, including the valuable emotional support that he so needed. Children and young people’s interests and talents are encouraged. They engage in a range of activities, such as roller-skating and ice-skating, fishing, climbing, going to the cinema and trips out. One young person commented: ‘I have recently been camping and I get to do whatever activities I choose.’ Another said: ‘I never get bored.’ As a result of the range of activities children and young people participate in, their confidence and self- esteem grows. Careful planning before new children or young people are admitted to the home helps them to settle into the home quickly. A recent new admission to the home said:

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

I received the young people’s guide before I came, so knew what to expect. I was made to feel welcome when I came. Staff showed me around and told me about the home and the area. It feels like a good home. Well-managed transitions out of the home help children and young people to move on to the next stage of their lives in a positive way. An example of this was a young person whose placement had been ended in order to safeguard both her and other children and young people. Rather than her placement coming to an abrupt end, she was taken to a holiday cottage for a period of time while a more suitable placement was identified for her. Inspection report children's home: SC478986 6 During this time, she was able to reflect on her time in the home and the progress she had made, and then move on positively. She provided the manager and staff with the following feedback: It has been sick [meaning good] living here. I have had my ups and downs but

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

life is a rollercoaster. You lot made a big impact on my life which I will never forget. Not only was it my house, it was the staff in it that made it a home. Children and young people feel listened to. Their views are gathered through weekly meetings, feedback questionnaires and key-work sessions and influence all aspects of the running of the home. This includes contributing their ideas about menus, activities and the home’s decor. Children and young people are also involved in setting targets in their care plans and in negotiating appropriate rewards and consequences for either positive or negative behaviours. As a result, children and young people feel valued and feel motivated to work towards goals that they have been instrumental in setting. Some children and young people are placed at some distance from their home local authority. However, this does not prevent them from spending regular and quality time

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

with those people who are important to them. A social worker commented: ‘Staff support contact and provide positive input. They are flexible and ensure that it happens.’ Parents also speak positively about this. One said: ‘We are welcomed when we visit and I am kept informed of everything that is going on.’

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

Children and young people report feeling safe as a result of their positive relationships with staff. One young person said: ‘It feels safe here as the staff are always there for you. They listen to me and I feel I can talk to them about anything.’ Staff manage any incidents of bullying well. When an incident occurred, staff responded quickly to minimise the impact and prevent a reoccurrence. Group discussions and individual key-work sessions have helped children and young people understand the impact of their actions. This has been successful in preventing further incidents. Staff implement comprehensive risk management plans, which are updated regularly. This, alongside multi-agency packages of support, helps to ensure that children and young people are safe. It also helps to reduce their risk-taking behaviour. An example of this is a young person who moved into the home with issues around aggression, criminal

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

activity and drug misuse. With the help of staff, a specialist drugs worker and a youth offending worker, the young person recently left and moved into semi-independent accommodation with all these issues addressed. There has been a reduction in missing incidents since the last inspection, and in recent months they have become rare. On the few occasions that children or young people have gone missing, the actions of staff have meant that they have promptly and safely returned home. Key work undertaken with children and young people around safe relationships, internet safety and risks associated with going missing and child sexual exploitation has helped reduce risk. Following missing incidents, independent return home interviews are occurring, but the outcome of these are not being shared routinely with staff in the home. This is a missed opportunity to learn more about the reasons why such incidents occur, and to reduce risk further.

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

Inspection report children's home: SC478986 7 Proactive behaviour management strategies, which include high warmth, praise and reward, are effective. Children and young people are involved in setting their own rewards and consequences. Staff use restorative practice to help children and young people to develop insight into their behaviours and take responsibility for their actions. As a result, their behaviours improve. One young person commented: ‘I get rewards for achieving my goals and the consequences have made me think before I speak.’ Recourse to physical intervention is rare. This is as a result of staff knowing the children and young people well, including knowing their triggers and what helps them to calm down. Following the few occasions when physical intervention has been required in order to safeguard, the children, young people and staff have been fully debriefed. This, and the manager’s monitoring of all incidents, help to ensure that practice in this area

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

remains effective. Robust vetting procedures for permanent staff help to protect children and young people from unsuitable adults working in the home. However, the same robustness is not applied to agency workers. Although the potential impact of this is minimised by agency workers never lone-working with children and young people, more thorough scrutiny of the vetting completed by agencies would provide an even greater level of safety for children and young people.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The new registered manager is suitably experienced and she is on target to complete the relevant management qualification within the timescales required by regulation. She knows her children and young people very well, as she spends lots of time with them. She is aspirational for them, and she acts as a good role model for staff. One member of staff said: ‘She has such a passion for her job. Her enthusiasm is contagious. She really cares about the children and young people and staff.’ Over the last six months, staff have experienced significant changes. This includes changes in management, changes in the children and young people living in the home, changes in staff rotas and changes in paperwork. Staff have responded extremely well to change and the challenges this brings. Their resilience and commitment to maintaining good, consistent standards of care during a period of change is commendable. Partnership working is good. The manager has links with a number of agencies that

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

provide a service to improve children and young people’s outcomes. This includes health and education professionals, specialist drug agencies, agencies preventing child sexual exploitation, youth offending workers and the police. Professional relationships are good. The vast majority of social workers and other professionals involved with children and young people living in the home provide positive feedback about communication, information sharing and the quality of care. The manager is a strong advocate for children and young people. She is not afraid to challenge placing authorities or other professionals when she feels that children and young people’s views are not being heard, or when they are not receiving the quality services that they need and deserve. The manager closely monitors the progress children and young people make. Their progress is outlined in weekly reports, which are shared with placing authorities. Staff

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

collate information for memory books, enabling children and young people to reflect on Inspection report children's home: SC478986 8 their experiences, achievements and the progress they have made while living in the home. The manager is very reflective and learns from complaints. Through the use of internal and external quality assurance systems and through obtaining regular feedback from children and young people, parents and professionals, the manager has a sound understanding of the strengths of the home and areas where the home can develop further. The home’s development plan reflects this. Staff in the home are appropriately experienced and qualified. They undertake a broad range of training in order to develop their skills. In addition to mandatory training, staff receive training in relation to risks young people could face due to radicalisation and child sexual exploitation. This helps staff to spot the signs that children and young

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

people may be at risk. Furthermore, when a child or young person moves into the home with a specific need, staff receive training promptly to help develop their insight, understanding and skill in meeting that specific need. Staff report feeling well supported through supervision with their manager and with senior staff. However, supervision records do not reflect that supervision is taking place as frequently as it should for all staff. Additionally, some members of staff have annual appraisals which are slightly out of date. Although there is no evidence that this is having a negative impact on the quality of care to date, it has the potential to do so if not rectified. All staff require regular and effective supervision, support and appraisal to enable them to reflect on their practice, and develop and improve it further. The case records of children and young people are generally comprehensive. However,

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

one young person’s case file did not contain his education, health and care plan (EHC plan), thereby making it difficult for staff to know how to provide the most appropriate support. Furthermore, the recording in some children and young people’s placement booklets is not up to date. This means that some records are incomplete. There is not a quick reference document which staff can refer to when needing a refresher on children and young people’s progress and plans. Inspection report children's home: SC478986 9

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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. Whenever 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 and 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: SC478986 10

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Esland North Limited

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: 1 Foundry Lane, Milford, Belper, Derbyshire DE56 0RN

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Inspector

Rachel Griffiths, social care inspector Inspection report children's home: SC478986 11 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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