Children's home run by The Caldecott Foundation Limited

Inspection report children’s home: 1241752 1 Registered provider: The Caldecott Organisation

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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 up to two children, aged between 6 and 16 years, who have emotional and/or behavioural difficulties. The home is owned and operated by a registered charity.

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Information about this children’s home

Inspection dates: 12 to 13 September 2017

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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: Not applicable.

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Good

Overall judgement at last inspection: Not applicable.

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Good

Enforcement action since last inspection: None.

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Key findings from this inspection

Inspection report children’s home: 1241752 2 This children’s home is good because:

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Key findings from this inspection

 The manager and staff understand the importance of children receiving a good education. Children have good school attendance, and the home’s daily routines and culture promote educational achievement.  Staff persevere, and demonstrate a determination to work through challenging times with children. This enables children to settle and make progress. This also helps children to form trusting bonds with staff over time.  Children enjoy interesting and stimulating activities. This helps them to grow in confidence and self-esteem. They enjoy trying new sports for the first time, and learn new skills.  Staff value children’s ideas and views. These views shape the day-to-day running of the home.  The physical environment is comfortable, and is personalised for each child. The manager has completed a thorough location risk assessment. This helps staff keep children safe.  A qualified and experienced registered manager, who is ambitious and focused

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Key findings from this inspection

on improvement, leads the home.  The manager has developed an open and positive ethos that enables the staff to learn lessons following incidents. This helps to improve the staff team’s response to difficult behaviours, and prevents their recurrence.  Staff receive effective professional supervision and oversight of their work. This provides staff with the guidance that they require to provide children with good quality care.  The manager has developed a number of systems to monitor the quality of care provided by the service. This means that she understands the strengths as well as the relative weaknesses of the service.

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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

 The process for considering whether new children should live at the home requires strengthening. The matching and impact assessment process should take into account the ability of staff to respond to difficult and challenging behaviour, including bullying. Inspection report children’s home: 1241752 3

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Recent inspection history

This is the home’s first inspection. Inspection report children’s home: 1241752 4

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Recommendations

 The registered person should only accept placements for children where they are satisfied that the home can respond effectively to the assessed needs as recorded in the child’s relevant plans and where they have fully considered the impact that the placement will have on the existing group of children. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 56, paragraph 11.4)

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

This is the first inspection of the home since registration. At the time of this inspection, there was one child living in the home. Two children had moved into the home, but one has returned to live with their family. Both children had experienced considerable disruption in their lives. The children presented some difficult and challenging behaviours at times. Managers and staff persevered, and worked through these difficult times. The remaining child has developed good relationships with the staff. He is now more settled and is making progress. A social worker said, ‘I am very pleased with progress. They are helping him to improve his behaviour.’

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The manager and staff have worked hard to integrate young people into the local community. The manager and staff recently raised a considerable sum of money with the help of the community. This helped to buy new outdoor play equipment, which was a resounding success. The process of raising money also helped to develop positive relationships in the local area, which enables children to develop a sense of belonging.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The children’s school attendance is good. They present smartly, wearing school uniform, and have the equipment that they need for their school day. The manager and staff are aspirational for children. This contributes to the good progress being made by the current resident. This child enjoys school, and the staff want him to move into a local mainstream school as soon as possible. The other child experienced more challenges and had been excluded from his school. The manager and staff worked well with local authorities to find suitable alternatives. The staff have good and established daily routines for children. These routines help children to arrive at school prepared for learning, and to get the most from their school experience. For example, staff help children with their homework. Staff and children read books together, and enjoy this time. Children have clear bedtime routines and healthy nutritious meals, and receive

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff understand and meet children’s physical and emotional health needs. Children receive good primary healthcare services. They attend appointments, supported by staff, and receive good health care surveillance. The emotional and psychological needs Inspection report children’s home: 1241752 5 of children remain of crucial importance to staff. Children can access therapy if required. Therapists provide staff with advice and guidance in meeting children’s emotional needs. At the point of inspection, the manager and the staff team were planning an interesting team development day. This focused on using the skills of the therapist to improve how staff work together to address the emotional needs of children.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The manager and staff understand and are sensitive to the emotional impact of family relationships on children. Staff help children to communicate with their families. Staff provide reassurance. They remain patient and understanding when children become frustrated. This helps children cope with the emotional impact of not living with their families.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff promote a wide range of social and recreational activities for children. These improve children’s confidence and self-esteem. A social worker accompanied a child, with staff, to a local swimming activity. He stated, ‘It was amazing to see him with other children of his age and behave in a positive manner, and be part of a local community.’

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The ideas and opinions of children matter to the staff. Children’s views are treated with respect and are acted on. The children take part in interesting children’s meetings. The format of these meetings was recently improved, to focus on the day-to-day lives of children, and provide opportunities for children to air their views. The children’s guide is detailed and informative. The children know how to complain, because the complaints procedure is explained to them well. Children can also raise any concerns through a ‘grumbles box’. In addition, children have access to independent advocacy groups if they wish to raise any concerns.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The process for admitting new children needs further strengthening by the manager. Greater consideration of contingency planning and the capacity of staff to care for new children is required as part of the admissions process. For example, contingency planning is required to cope with issues such as bullying or behavioural problems.

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

Children live in a secure and comfortable home environment. The children’s rooms are personalised to reflect their tastes and interests. The child living at the home has recently had an impressive mural painted for him, depicting his favourite cartoon. This covers his bedroom wall. He is also adept at transforming his room into a den. He loves toy cars. These are placed around the home and in the bath, ready for bath time.

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

The manager has completed and reviewed the location risk assessment. She canvassed the views of partner agencies in the development of this assessment. This multi-agency work has helped her to develop a location risk assessment that is strong and effective.

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

Staff take immediate and effective action in response to incidents of bullying. Staffing Inspection report children’s home: 1241752 6 levels are good, which enables careful monitoring of children’s interactions with each other. The staff provide emotional support to children who are subjected to bullying, while those who have bullied others undertake individual work with staff. This work focuses on the impact of bullying on victims. Additionally, those children who have bullied receive support to develop alternative strategies to manage their behaviour. This improves their ability to empathise with others.

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

Staff have managed some significant incidents of challenging behaviour. For some staff, these incidents have been traumatic. The manager has been very proactive in learning lessons from difficult incidents. The manager understands that the staff team is relatively new. She is developing a culture of reflective learning that is likely to lead to improvements in managing challenging behaviours.

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

The staff have had to use physical intervention at times to prevent children harming themselves and others. These interventions have been proportionate to the circumstances. The manager, following such interventions, has ensured that those staff and children involved receive comprehensive debriefs. The manager reviews all incidents of behaviour management. Discussions take place in team meetings to identify whether any lessons can be learned. A senior care worker monitors patterns of behaviour each month. This helps to identify any wider factors that might influence children’s behaviour.

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

The staff compile good risk assessments for children. Good risk assessments lead to the development of effective plans that help to keep children safe. These plans include risk management strategies for individual activities, and behaviour support plans. Staff understand these plans and implement them consistently. The manager and staff ensure that risk management is not restrictive but is enabling, allowing children the freedom to try new things and take managed risks.

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

Children are safer because the manager recruits staff in accordance with safer recruitment policy and guidance. This means that before staff work with children they undergo a rigorous checking process that includes the consideration of previous work history, criminal records checks, and identity checks. These precautions minimise the risk of harm to children from those caring for them. Staff undertake safeguarding training and know what steps to take if they have concerns about the behaviour of colleagues or others.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The home benefits from having an experienced, committed, and ambitious registered manager. The manager has attained the required qualifications to lead a children’s home. She receives support from a deputy manager and senior care worker. The manager has a good grasp of the strengths, but also the weaknesses, of the staff team. She recognises that this is a fledgling team and so provides very clear direction to individual staff members.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

New staff go through a very good, comprehensive and structured induction programme Inspection report children’s home: 1241752 7 that includes:

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

 a programme of core training that gives staff the basic skills and knowledge required to provide effective care to children  mentoring and shadowing opportunities that enable new staff to work alongside more experienced colleagues  careful management evaluation of progress  individual professional supervision meetings that take place frequently to provide guidance and support.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The staff team holds regular team meetings. During these meetings, the needs of children, specifically their safeguarding needs, are central to discussions. The staff discuss anti-bullying strategies and have reflective discussions if there have been incidents of challenging behaviour. The staff have good working relationships with each other. There is mutual respect for their respective views and opinions. This is essential in providing consistent care to the children.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Each member of staff receives effective professional supervision that emphasises the needs of children. The supervision agenda is structured, and children are discussed in depth. Discussions always include children’s individual care plans and any safeguarding issues. Rigorous supervision sessions ensure that staff remain accountable in their work with children. Staff members’ work performance is reviewed, and work targets are set to promote and enhance their overall development. Consequently, children benefit from a staff team that receives effective oversight and guidance from experienced and knowledgeable managers.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The manager has developed a systemic approach to monitoring the quality of care provided. The independent visitor produces challenging reports that further support improvement. The manager also receives auditing visits from senior managers to review the care provided and the day-to-day operation of the home. The manager has recently completed her own quality-of-care review; this has recognised the strengths of the home, while identifying areas that require improvement. The manager knows that driving up standards of care for children relies on detailed analysis of all aspects of the service.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The manager has developed a range of strategic development plans. These include a workforce and service development plan, together with a children’s development plan, in which the voice of the child is central. These plans set ambitious but achievable targets, and place the home on an improvement pathway. This level of planning demonstrates a service that wants to improve for the benefit of children.

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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 Inspection report children’s home: 1241752 8 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: 1241752 9

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: The Caldecott Organisation

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: Caldecott House, Smeeth, Ashford TN25 6SP

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Children’s home details

Responsible individual: Nicholas Barnett

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Inspector

Phillip Morris, social care inspector Inspection report children’s home: 1241752 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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