Children's home run by Castlecare Cymru Limited in North Northamptonshire

Inspection report children‟s home: SC417360 1 SC417360 Registered provider: Castlecare Cymru 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 children‟s home is part of a large national provider group. It is registered to provide care and accommodation for up to three children who have emotional and behavioural difficulties.

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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

Date of last inspection: 9 February 2017

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good

Overall judgement at last inspection: Sustained effectiveness Inspection report children‟s home: SC417360 2

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Key findings from this inspection

 Children experience consistency, stability and a rural childhood.  The manager is ambitious in her vision to achieve the best possible outcomes for children.  Children move successfully onto independence at the end of their planned placements.  Staff are positive in their approach to education and its value for children‟s futures.  Admission impact assessments of new children are detailed.  Care is relaxed, non-institutional and individual to each child.  Staff ensure that the house is homely and nurturing.

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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

 Staff and the manager do not always have sufficient placing authority assessment and care planning information at the outset of a child‟s placement.  Records of restraint do not have all the required detail.  Staff supervision formats would benefit from more focus on any current safeguarding concerns.  The six-monthly report of the review of the quality of care is overdue.

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

09/02/2017 Interim Sustained effectiveness 17/11/2016 Full Good 16/03/2016 Interim Improved effectiveness 15/09/2015 Full Good Inspection report children‟s home: SC417360 3

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Statutory requirements

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 ensure that within 48 hours of the use of the measure, the registered person, or a person who is authorised by the registered person to do so (“the authorised person”)— has spoken to the user about the measure and within 5 days of the use of the measure, the registered person or the authorised person adds to the record confirmation that they have spoken to the child about the measure. (Regulation 35(3)(a)(vi)(b)(i)(c)) 30/09/2017

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must maintain records (“case records”) for each child which includes the information and documents listed in Schedule 3 in relation to each child. (Regulation 36(1)(a)) 30/09/2017

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must complete a review of the quality of care provided for children (“a quality of care review”) at least once every 6 months and supply to HMCI a copy of the quality of care review report within 28 days of the date on which the quality of care review is completed. (Regulation 45(1)(4)(a)) 30/09/2017

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Recommendations

 Supervision of staff practice should ensure that individual adults in the home are engaged in the safeguarding culture of the home so they understand what they would need to do if they found other staff misusing or abusing their position to the detriment of the safety of a child. („Guide to the children‟s homes regulations including the quality standards‟, page 43, paragraph 9.14)

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Inspection judgements

Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

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Inspection judgements

The manager and staff have a proven record of accomplishment of helping children and moving them on into independent life. Two children this year have finished their Inspection report children‟s home: SC417360 4 secondary education, taken exams and moved out, as planned, into the next stage of their young adult lives. Staff helped children transition with plenty of conversations and focused support to ensure they gained skills to take care of themselves. Children have come from urban environments to the wilds of rural England. One child told the manager they felt comfortable there once settled: „After I had got over the issues I had, definitely.‟ She said that her best memories were of just watching the night stars until bedtime.

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Inspection judgements

Relationships between staff and children are good. The home is bright and welcoming. There is great outdoor space to enable children to play. Children have plenty of space to be with each other or alone inside. Bedrooms are large and children make artwork with staff to personalise their home. A large farmhouse kitchen provides lovely opportunities for shared meals and communal cooking.

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Inspection judgements

The ethos of the home encourages children to make local friendships, keep in touch with the people who are important in their lives and get involved the local community. Staff support children to maintain their faith and copies of the Quran and halal food have been organised for children. The manager makes sure that positive images of the children are on walls and in picture frames. For example, there are pictures of one child‟s „Mud Run‟ to raise money for charity. There are pictures of other children‟s beaming faces on holidays, doing work experience and volunteering. This shows new children the value that staff place on their achievements and opportunities. One child is looking forward to their first foreign holiday with their favourite staff. This is a long-held ambition.

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Inspection judgements

Good arrangements for healthcare mean that children live healthier lives, get help to stop smoking, take regular exercise and eat well. They go to the gym, lose weight sensibly and look forward to swimming. Children go to school and their educational outcomes improve when compared to their previous experiences. The manager and staff have strong links with children‟s teachers to support any difficulties that children experience and to keep children on track. The headteacher of a child who has experienced significant educational difficulties wrote in the child‟s end of year report that he was a „joy to teach‟ and that: „If I had a head boy you would be up there for the crown.‟

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Inspection judgements

Children who have left stay in touch with the manager. One child told her: „It has been a life-changing experience. It has helped me to think, act and be positive.‟

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Inspection judgements

Well-established care planning systems and a small, consistent staff team mean that children get continuity of long-term care from staff who know them well. The latest, younger child to move in came from another of the organisation‟s homes after conflict there. It was a planned, but accelerated, placement.

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Inspection judgements

Staff have not had good-quality information about a new child sufficiently early in their placement. The placing authority and the organisation did not share crucial local authority care planning documents or information about risks of self-harm. The manager has chased these documents. They arrived on the second day of inspection. The Inspection report children‟s home: SC417360 5 manager has worked hard to establish a realistic plan to meet this child‟s previously unknown, but emerging, needs. The manager has advocated for better educational arrangements to prevent drift and delay in securing a full-time school placement. She has secured a commitment to better therapeutic support from the organisation and made an early referral for an assessment to0 be undertaken by the child and adolescent mental health service (CAMHS). The organisation is supporting this child‟s difficult settling-in period by transferring a familiar member of staff from his old home to be with

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Inspection judgements

him. The manager has organised a pet hamster, which is also helping to make the child feel more at home.

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Inspection judgements

Staff have established constructive working relationships with children‟s families, even when they live a long distance away. One child has regular time back in their home city. This has been a well-supported plan. Staff also help children through difficult times by helping them to come to terms with their experiences of family life. One parent told the inspector he saw positive change in his child. He said, „All staff are brilliant there. They know him and he‟s going to be independent. Can‟t fault the house.‟

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

The risks children previously faced, of child sexual exploitation and gang violence, have reduced dramatically. Staff are confident about implementing safeguarding procedures when they have a concern about a child, and support children when they disclose historical abuse.

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

The manager was unavoidably absent for a period and during this time incidents increased, resulting in criminal charges after one incident for previous children. Staff have experienced violence towards them and children have gone missing for short periods. Staff implemented their training and worked to help children reflect and become safer. The police care home coordinator told the inspector, „I am happy that the home manage the children well, controlling their behaviour, and we have very few calls from them, but they know that we are there should they need advice or help. We have a good working relationship with the manager and also the staff team.‟

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

Staff are learning new skills in managing children who self-harm and are at risk of tying ligatures. Staff have had a briefing from the manager about the risks and risk assessments are clear about what staff must do. The manager has sourced better training for staff in this important new area of keeping children safe.

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

Children learn socially acceptable behaviour. One child, before leaving, told the manager that his experience at the home had „taught me how to calm myself when I get angry.‟ Staff manage dominant behaviour well to ensure that the pressures of group living do not include bullying. One child told the inspector that their issues with an older child had been sorted out to his satisfaction. Staff are trained to use restraint as a last resort and defuse challenging behaviour through humour and distraction. Records of restraint are held online and in paper documents. However, none gives a complete picture of the incident. For example, the computerised record is unable to list a member of staff if they Inspection report children‟s home: SC417360 6 are not permanently employed at the home. On one occasion, only staff involved in the incident were available to talk to other staff and the child. This means that neither staff

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

nor the child had an independent debrief. The manager reviews all incidents and identifies where practice can be improved, for example by handling situations differently.

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

Staff make regular checks to ensure that the home and environment are safe for staff to work in and children to live in. Internet safety is well managed. The manager makes a range of rigorous recruitment checks to make sure that all staff are safe to work with children.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers:

The manager is experienced, well qualified and has been in charge at the home since March 2016. After three month‟s recent unavoidable absence, she resumed management in May 2017. She plans to hand over the leadership of the home to a new manager, once recruited.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers:

The company that operates this organisation has been taken over by a much larger national organisation that offers education, care and health solutions for children and adults. This is reflected in the statement of purpose, which now contains no information about the company that actually operates the home. All documentation now reflects the new parent company. A social worker for the new child told the inspector that she thought staff provided a therapeutic approach. However, the home does not provide this, contrary to what she thought.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers:

Information in the statement of purpose, which largely describes the operation under the previous parent company, is now not well linked to the new parent organisation. For example, the youth forum does not include children at this house. This home and the manager is still operates and is managed as part of a group of homes that operates under Welsh legislation. It is isolated geographically and organisationally from other homes operated by the organisation in England, which benefit from different resourcing. The manager‟s isolation is clear from her lack of knowledge about the fact that the registered person had closed the school that the home is linked to. Ofsted has asked the responsible individual for clarity about the relationship between the company operating the home and the larger parent company.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers:

The registered person has not provided a review of the quality of care in the manager‟s absence. This is now overdue. Despite this, the manager has continued to progress the development of the home, building on her record of accomplishment of effective leadership. External monthly monitoring has a clear focus on children‟s safety and well- being.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers:

By ensuring the latest child to move in has better access to psychological advice and services, the registered manager has met the only previous requirement. In her absence, the registered person had not provided previous children with the counselling support they said they needed. She has also met recommendations to promote more creative Inspection report children‟s home: SC417360 7 key-working sessions and to improve the staff team‟s understanding of the educational landscape for children who are looked after by local authorities.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers:

The registered manager carefully considers whether new children would get on with the existing children in residence. Her focus is on children‟s happiness. Her astute matching assessment is likely to contribute to stable placements. She does not plan to admit a third child until outcomes for the most recent child are on track, particularly the educational and therapeutic aims of the placement. She told the inspector that she was committed to prioritising stability and success for the longer-standing child‟s success as he begins his crucial second GCSE year. She demonstrates a positive approach to parenting.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers:

Staff work well as a team. They provide children with a range of positive adult role models of different ages, ethnicities, experiences and backgrounds. They are trained, largely using online resources. The manager is highly resourceful in securing resources, including getting urgent training for staff in newly needed skills in managing children who self-harm. New staff report a positive experience of induction. The manager and deputy support through regular team meetings and professional supervision. Issues in practice are followed up and staff develop their thinking about children‟s needs. However, safeguarding is not embedded in the supervisory system. The current format mentions child protection in terms of legislative knowledge rather than a focus on safeguarding issues in staff‟s daily work. The manager‟s own supervision records are brief and not to the company‟s format.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers:

The manager works in constructive partnership with placing authorities, parents, and safeguarding, education and health colleagues. She maintains good relationships even when it has been necessary to challenge partners to do what they need to for children. One parent told the inspector that the manager kept him up to date with everything he needed to know about his child. He said he has appreciated her support, which he described as, „excellent‟.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers:

The registered manager consults, formally and informally, with children about their experience. One told her about three things he had learned: „Manage my anger. Stay in education. Think positive about life.‟

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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. Inspection report children‟s home: SC417360 8 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

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Information about this inspection

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: SC417360 9

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Castlecare Cymru Limited

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: Castlecare, The Manor House, Squires Hill, Rothwell, Kettering, Northamptonshire NN14 6BQ

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Inspector

Christy Wannop: social care inspector Inspection report children‟s home: SC417360 10 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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