Children's Home run by SureCare Residential Ltd in Essex

Inspection report children’s home: 1256452 1 Registered provider: Surecare Residential 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

The home is owned by a private organisation. It is registered for up to five children who have emotional and/or behavioural difficulties.

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Overall experiences and progress of

children and young people, taking into account

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inadequate

How well children and young people are helped and protected inadequate

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inadequate

The effectiveness of leaders and managers inadequate

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inadequate

The care and experiences of children are poor and they are not making progress.

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inadequate

Overall judgement at last inspection: Not applicable

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Key findings from this inspection

This children’s home is inadequate because:

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Key findings from this inspection

 The widespread, serious shortfalls found during this inspection have had an impact on the quality of care that the children receive, and place them at risk of harm.  The children’s individual risk assessments are generic, offer limited individuality, Inspection report children’s home: 1256452 2 contain significant errors and provide little clarity regarding actual risks and subsequent actions to mitigate risks.  Documents, practice and understanding relating to children going missing are unclear.  The home’s location risk assessment is a critical document that identifies actions that must be taken to mitigate risks associated with the road. The inspection found a failure to adhere to the risk assessment.  The registered manager has failed to provide sufficient managerial oversight of the service. This has contributed to some of the shortfalls that were identified during the inspection.  Managerial monitoring arrangements are insufficient and ineffective.

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Key findings from this inspection

 Care plans do not promote individual care. They do not provide the staff with the clarity that they require to meet the children’s complex needs.  There have been occasions when the home has had no staff with a first aid qualification on duty.  The home’s statement of purpose is out of date, and it does not give an accurate picture of current managerial arrangements.  Staff supervisions are not reflective.  The rotas do not provide a clear record of who has worked at the home.  There is a lack of consistency in staff signing to confirm that they have read and understood key documentation.

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Key findings from this inspection

 The home has a strong process for recruitment checks.

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

No previous inspections Inspection report children’s home: 1256452 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 quality and purpose of care standard is that children receive care from staff who understand the children’s home’s overall aims and the outcomes it seeks to achieve for children and use this understanding to deliver care that meets children’s needs and supports them to fulfil their potential.

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Requirement Due date

In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to understand and apply the home’s statement of purpose and to ensure that staff provide personalised care that meets each child’s needs, as recorded in the child’s relevant plans, taking account of the child’s background. (Regulation 6(1)(a)(b)(2)(a)(b)(i)(iv)) 26/09/2017

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Requirement Due date

The positive relationships standard is that children are helped to develop, and to benefit from, relationships based on mutual respect and trust, an understanding about acceptable behaviour and positive responses to other children and adults.

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Requirement Due date

In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to ensure that staff are provided with supervision and support to enable them to understand and manage their own feelings and responses to the behaviour and emotions of children, and to help children to do the same. (Regulation 11(1)(a)(b)(c)(2)(a)(x)) 31/10/2017

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Requirement Due date

The protection of children standard is that children are protected from harm and enabled to keep themselves safe.

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Requirement Due date

In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to ensure that staff assess whether each child is at risk of harm, taking into account information in the child’s relevant plans, and, if necessary, make arrangements to reduce the risk of any harm to the child, and help each child to understand how to keep safe. (Regulation 12(1)(2)(a)(i)(ii)) 26/09/2017*

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Requirement Due date

The protection of children standard is that children are protected from harm and enabled to keep themselves safe.

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Requirement Due date

In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the 26/09/2017* Inspection report children’s home: 1256452 4 registered person to ensure that staff are familiar with, and act in accordance with, the home’s child protection policies. (Regulation 12(1)(2)(a)(vii)) The protection of children standard is that children are protected from harm and enabled to keep themselves safe.

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Requirement Due date

In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to ensure that the home’s day-to-day care is arranged and delivered so as to keep each child safe and to protect each child effectively from harm. (Regulation 12(1)(2)(b)) 26/09/2017*

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Requirement Due date

The leadership and management standard is that the registered person enables, inspires and leads a culture in relation to the children’s home that helps children to aspire to their full potential and promotes their welfare.

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Requirement Due date

In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to lead and manage the home in a way that is consistent with the approach and ethos, and delivers the outcomes, set out in the home’s statement of purpose, and understand the impact that the quality of care provided in the home is having on the progress and experiences of each child and use this understanding to inform the development of the quality of the care provided in the home. (Regulation 13(1)(a)(b)(2)(a)(f)) 26/09/2017*

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Requirement Due date

The leadership and management standard is that the registered person enables, inspires and leads a culture in relation to the children’s home that helps children to aspire to their full potential and promotes their welfare.

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Requirement Due date

In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to use monitoring and review systems to make continuous improvements in the quality of care provided in the home. (Regulation 13(1)(a)(b)(2)(h)) 26/09/2017*

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Requirement Due date

The care planning standard is that children receive effectively planned care. (Regulation (14)(1)(a)) 26/09/2017

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must keep the statement of purpose under review and, where appropriate, revise it, and notify HMCI of any revisions and send HMCI a copy of the revised statement within 28 days of the revision. (Regulation 16(3)(a)(b)) 26/09/2017

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must ensure that at all times, at least one person on duty at the home has a suitable first aid qualification. (Regulation 31(2)(a)) 26/09/2017

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must maintain in the home the records in Schedule 4. (Regulation 37(2)(a))

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Requirement Due date

In particular, they must maintain a record of the actual rosters 26/09/2017 Inspection report children’s home: 1256452 5 worked and this record must include the manager.

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Requirement Due date

* These requirements are subject to a compliance notice.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

This home is judged as inadequate because there are widespread and serious shortfalls throughout the service. There are serious failures regarding the quality of individual risk assessments, adherence to the location risk assessment, and the quality of practice relating to children who go missing from the home. There is a significant lack of managerial oversight, which compromises the quality of the service and the safety and welfare of children. These shortfalls place children at significant risk.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

The management team has only accepted placements for children whom they consider to be a good match to the service. This is evident in the number of placements that the service has not accepted. However, the service is working with children who are in crisis and children who are moving out of secure provisions. The required structure and oversight has not been in place to support the staff to provide a high-quality service for these children. This contributes to the widespread failures identified throughout the inspection.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

The children’s care plans lack depth and clarity. Each child’s care plan is almost identical to the others. The care plans do not consider children’s ethnicity. Plans lack measurable goals. It is difficult to understand how staff will know whether plans have been achieved or objectives reached. As a result, the plans do not promote individual care. They do not provide staff with the clarity that they require to meet children’s complex needs.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

The children’s risk assessments refer to their health needs. However, the assessments do not provide clarity regarding risks associated with these individual diagnoses, nor what actions the staff should take to mitigate them. This leaves staff without sufficient guidance to meet the children’s health needs safely.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

On a day-to-day basis, the children experience a turbulent service and witness a high turnover of children in placement. This does not provide the children with the stability or consistency that they need to progress. The behaviour and well-being of some of the children have declined significantly in the short period that they have spent at the home. This resulted in two of the children’s placements breaking down. As a result, these children have experienced further disruption and emotional turmoil.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

Relationships between the children and the staff are warm. Interactions were observed, with staff communicating calmly and clearly to the child. The staff are keen to seek the views of the children. They hold meetings and record the feedback that they gain during impromptu conversations. Feedback from professionals about the support that one child received after she was admitted to hospital was positive. Inspection report children’s home: 1256452 6 The home opened in July 2017. Therefore, at the time of inspection, the children had not commenced their education placements. The children are enrolled at school. Meetings have taken place between the staff, the children and the education provider to prepare for the upcoming school term.

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

The children are at risk of harm because:  There are widespread failings in basic safeguarding practice.  The individual risk assessments are of poor quality.  The approach to managing risks relating to children going missing is ineffective.  The staff have failed to comply with the location risk assessment.  The management oversight of safeguarding is ineffective.

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

Individual risk assessments are generic, offer limited individuality and contain significant errors. They do not adequately anticipate and assess the risks that the children are likely to experience. When known issues are identified, the risk assessments provide little clarity regarding the actual risks and the subsequent actions to mitigate risks. This does not provide staff with the guidance and knowledge that they need to look after children safely.

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

The home works with children who have histories of going missing from care. Despite this, risk assessments relating to incidents of missing from care lack clarity. There is inconsistency between the documents in children’s case files and the understanding and expectation of the registered manager. Individual missing-from-care protocols are not individual to the children. They are generic, and the only difference in each one is the child’s name. In one recent incident, a member of staff did not follow the home’s missing-from-care procedures. This resulted in a child being exposed to significant risks as a result of being missing for a prolonged period. The confusion and ambiguity regarding these risk assessments, missing-from-care protocols, staff understanding and actions and the registered manager’s inaccurate understanding of the expectations of the staff places the children at risk of harm and does not safeguard their welfare.

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

The home’s location risk assessment is a critical document. The location of the home presents known risks associated with the nearby busy road. The location risk assessment identifies actions that must be taken to mitigate the risks associated with the road. One of those actions is to keep the gate to the property closed. The gate was open when the inspector arrived at the home. This is despite the home accommodating children who have gone missing from care in their previous placements, and also at this home. This puts children at risk of harm and at risk of their welfare not being safeguarded.

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

The staff manage behaviour without routine recourse to physical interventions. When interventions do take place they are proportionate.

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

The management team undertakes thorough recruitment checks. These lessen the Inspection report children’s home: 1256452 7 likelihood of inappropriate people gaining employment at the home.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

A significant, widespread lack of managerial oversight compromises the quality of the service and the safety and welfare of children.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

The registered manager has been in post since the home opened in July 2017. He has a level 4 diploma in health and social care.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

The registered manager has failed to provide sufficient managerial oversight of the service. Despite the home being newly opened, a number of significant incidents, children’s highly risky behaviours and unplanned placement endings for two of the children, the manager has not been in day-to-day charge of the home. This has contributed to the shortcomings identified during this inspection.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

The registered manager lacks knowledge regarding the individual risk assessments for children. This lack of knowledge includes a fundamental misunderstanding regarding when to inform the police that a child was missing from the home, which placed the child at risk of significant harm.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

The registered manager has not monitored the records of restraints or incidents. This has routinely been left to the newly appointed ‘home manager’. The registered manager has not signed off risk assessments or missing-from-care protocols or care plans. Many of the issues identified at this inspection were a surprise to the registered manager.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

One child’s risk assessment contains an inaccuracy relating to a key risk. This states that he does not ‘abscond’. However, he not only has a history of going missing but was missing throughout the duration of the inspection. This serious error had not been identified by any of the staff who have signed to say that they have read the risk assessment, nor any of the managers who have quality assured and reviewed the document. This significant error does not provide staff with relevant information regarding individual risks posed and measures to reduce these, which places children at risk of significant harm.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

The management team does not have a sufficient overview of the quality of the service. Managers do not know the home’s weaknesses, or the impact that the shortfalls have had on the children’s experiences and progress. Management monitoring arrangements are ineffective.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

The rota does not provide a comprehensive record of the staff who have worked at the home. The registered manager has worked occasional shifts, and has also attended the home on other occasions. This is not consistently captured on the rota. The absence of a clear roster of hours worked does not provide accountability or transparency about the adults who have worked at the home at any given time. Lack of clear information means that, in the event that an allegation is made about staff members, it is not possible to establish whether specific staff were in the home at that time. Inspection report children’s home: 1256452 8 The home currently has no permanent night staff. Staff from other homes and day staff are covering the night shifts. The staff are not consistently reading and signing the risk assessments or the children’s care plans. The systems designed to ensure that staff know the plans for the children are not effective, and provide limited assurance that staff

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

The staff are receiving supervision. However, supervisions are not reflective. The records do not demonstrate that staff discuss and reflect on the needs and experiences of the children. The absence of reflective supervision means that the staff are not getting the support that they need to provide a high-quality service.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

The staff have access to a range of training courses. However, several staff members do not hold a qualification in first aid. Although a number of the staff are booked to attend a course in the coming weeks, there have been shifts when no first-aid trained staff member has been working. In the event that an injury or medical incident had occurred, the staff may not have had the skills to respond.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

The home’s statement of purpose is out of date. In addition, the version held at the home was not the most recent version. The most recent version does not contain an up- to-date or accurate overview of management arrangements. The lack of an update means that Ofsted was not fully aware of the approach to managing the home.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Feedback from professionals is generally positive. The management team has made links with local services such as the parish and district councils.

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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: 1256452 9

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Surecare Residential Limited

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: Spirare Limited, Mey House, Bridport Road, Poundbury, Dorset DT1 3QY

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Inspector

Ashley Hinson, social care inspector Inspection report children’s home: 1256452 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 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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