Children's Home run by Witherslack Group Limited in Westmorland and Furness

Inspection report children’s home: 1247560 1 Registered provider: Witherslack Group Limited Full inspection Inspected under the social care common inspection framework

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Information about this children’s home

The children’s home is owned and operated by a large provider. It is registered to provide care and accommodation for up to four young people, irrespective of gender, who have emotional and/or behavioural difficulties.

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Information about this children’s home

Inspection dates: 19 to 20 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

Overall judgement at last inspection: Not applicable

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good

Enforcement action since last inspection: Not applicable Inspection report children’s home: 1247560 2

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Key findings from this inspection

 Young people admitted settle quickly. They report that they like living in the home and enjoy spending time with staff.  Relationships between staff and young people are based on warmth and trust. Young people also respond well to each other and enjoy spending time together, both within the home and out on activities.  Staff are creative and inventive about ways to incentivise and reward young people for positive behaviour. Staff have skills in including young people in developing incremental reward charts that centre specifically on young people’s individual interests.  Young people take a real ownership of their personal space. Their bedrooms are highly personalised and reflect their interests.  Young people show some highly individualised behaviours and staff are skilled in identifying unique ways of working with each young person.  Since the home opened, there have been very few safeguarding incidents,

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Key findings from this inspection

which shows that young people are settled and feel safe.  New internal tools are being developed to evidence how young people make progress in their social development and resilience.  The staff team members are very positive, show high levels of commitment to young people and feel supported in their roles. Staff spoken to were very clear in articulating the progress that young people had made since admission.  Managers and staff present as keen to develop and improve the service to ensure the best possible outcomes for young people.

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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

 Only three of the 15 staff members at the home currently have the level 3 diploma for residential childcare. This means that there is not always a qualified member of staff on shift to provide support and guidance to less experienced members of the staff team.  Since the home was registered in March 2017, independent visits have not taken place every month.  Young people are not yet receiving a good level of education and support in respect of keeping themselves safe online. Although some young people do not use social networking sites yet, this support and advice needs to be in place in preparation for their future use. Inspection report children’s home: 1247560 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

13: The leadership and management standard The leadership and management standard 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 ensure that staff have the experience, qualifications and skills to meet the needs of each child. (Regulation 13 (2)(c)) 19/12/2017

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Requirement Due date

44: Independent person: visits and reports The registered person must ensure that an independent person visits the children’s home at least once each month. (Regulation 44 (1)) 19/10/2017

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Recommendations

 Children must feel safe and be safe. Staff should support children to be aware of and manage their own safety both inside and outside the home to the extent that any good parent would. Staff should help children to understand how to protect themselves, feel protected and be protected from significant harm. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 43, paragraph 9.9) Specifically, this relates to ensuring that children understand how to use the internet safely and how to protect themselves when accessing the internet and using social media.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

All four young people admitted to the home since it opened have settled well and are making good progress. One young person was unaware of his care plan on admission. Inspection report children’s home: 1247560 4 Staff have worked hard with his placing authority to ensure that his plan is clarified and explained to him.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Although young people have been admitted in quick succession, the matching process, assessments and the transition planning work undertaken by the registered manager and staff ensure that there is a positive match of young people and that they have a smooth transition. Staff visit young people prior to their admission, and some young people have had the opportunity to visit the home before they move in. When the move is planned, young people are welcomed sensitively and with careful and considered planning.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Young people have very specific individual needs. Staff are highly attuned to this and have a very good understanding of what works well for each young person. Their care is delivered in a way that recognises young people’s individuality and their plans clearly evidence that young people’s specific needs are considered and addressed. Each young person is valued for who they are and their individual quirks are viewed positively by staff.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff gather young people’s views, wishes and feelings in individual sessions as well as in more formal key-work sessions. They also have ‘back to the future’ meetings every week. This provides young people with the opportunity to express their views about what they think went well, what could have gone better and what they would like for the forthcoming week. This includes meals and activities.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

During the summer, young people took part in a wide variety of activities, which helped them to get to know staff, and each other, before the new school term commenced. Young people are clear about their activity choices and particularly like a local skate park. All young people have joined separate local activities, which will allow them to develop friendships outside of the care system. They have also made friends in the local area when accessing community facilities.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Managers have struggled to obtain a full set of placing documentation from the local authorities for all young people. Some young people have had multiple changes of social workers in a short time period, which has further hindered the registered manager in ensuring that the correct, signed paperwork is on each young person’s file. There is evidence that care plans, child looked after reviews and personal education plans have been repeatedly requested by the registered manager from the placing authorities.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

All young people attend a local school owned by the organisation. Prior to placement, some young people had struggled with school attendance. However, this has now improved. Young people have settled and their education attendance is good. One young person spoke with great enthusiasm about the mechanics course that he could take part in at school. He said that he now intended to pursue this as a career. There is good, daily communication between staff at the home and education staff to ensure that any issues that have arisen in either setting are shared.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff support and facilitate contact with each young person’s family as agreed in their Inspection report children’s home: 1247560 5 care plan. This includes inviting siblings into the home for contact visits. One young person spoke very positively about his contact arrangements. Staff maintain regular contact with parents, including in one instance a daily telephone call.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The home itself offers a nice environment for the young people to live in. There are minimal incidents of damage that show that young people respect their home environment. Some young people have gone to great lengths to individualise and personalise their bedrooms, which suggests that they have invested in the home and their placement. Although young people are resistant to having their photos on the walls, the home still maintains a homely, warm and welcoming feel.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff are in the process of implementing resilience and social development profiles that will enable the clear tracking of progression for young people in these areas.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff support young people to achieve good health. There is a focus to ensure that young people are engaged in healthy activities. This includes walking the dog with staff and having access to a healthy varied diet. When young people refuse to attend their health appointments, staff rearrange them and support the young person to attend the next planned date. All young people will have access to therapeutic support to help them make psychological and emotional progress.

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

Young people report feeling safe. Discussions with their social workers confirm that young people are making progress in respect of reducing the risks that they were displaying on admission. Risk assessments clearly identify individual risks and a scoring system shows when risks are reduced and the progress that young people have made since moving to the home. Social workers have access to young people’s risk assessments and incident report records through an online portal. This ensures that they are kept fully informed about any changes to the young people’s risks or incidents that have occurred.

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

Staff are inventive and creative in incentivising and rewarding young people for progression and positive behaviour. One young person is using an individualised monopoly board to help them work towards achieving a large Lego set. Another young person worked well with a snakes and ladders board to achieve his goal of getting a hamster. Staff involve young people in setting their individual targets and help young people to understand how they will achieve the steps along the way. This gives young people some ownership of their progress.

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

There are health and safety checks in place to ensure that the building is safe for young people. One area of potential risk identified during the inspection was that young people are able to access the outbuildings. Immediate action was taken to address this.

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

Staff complete incident reports in detail for any safeguarding events. The reports focus on antecedents to enable the staff and managers to review these, to identify if intervention at an earlier stage could have been successful in minimising or preventing Inspection report children’s home: 1247560 6 the incident from occurring. The reports are also useful for identifying any patterns, trends or triggers in behaviours that could feed into the young people’s positive behaviour support plan. These plans are individual and detailed and provide a useful tool for staff in developing their understanding of what responses work best for each young person.

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

When young people go missing, staff follow the procedures in reporting them and have gone to extensive lengths to follow and locate the young person. Independent return home interviews do not always take place following incidents of going missing from care. The home has been proactive in requesting these and when they have not had a response from the young person’s social worker they have arranged for a manager from another home to complete this task.

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

Staff are trained in team teach and use their de-escalation skills to good effect. This means that there have been a few occasions where young people have been held in order to keep themselves or others safe. When restrictive physical intervention has been used, learning from the incident has taken place to reduce the likelihood of further incidents. For example, one incident occurred when a young person became aggressive when challenged about stepping on another young person’s toys. An agreed outcome from this was that the young person would only bring a limited amount of toys into the communal area to play. This would reduce the likelihood of them being inadvertently stepped on. When incidents do occur, staff encourage reflection and restoration to increase young people’s understanding of other people’s feelings and the impact of their behaviour. Individual sessions are often undertaken following any behavioural incidents

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

to help young people to understand and manage their behaviour.

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

Some young people have prescribed medication, including controlled medication. There are good systems in place to store medicines safely and to record their administration.

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

Most young people do not access social media, although one young person does and has access to a smart phone. The young people access the internet through the home’s laptops that have relevant safety settings. Work with young people on internet safety and how to keep themselves safe online is not yet embedded into routine practice, even where young people have social media risks highlighted within their pre-admission information.

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

Almost all staff have undertaken online training around radicalisation and extremism. Managers are considering how to develop young people’s understanding of risk in these areas.

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

The home uses safe recruitment processes to ensure that any person employed to work at the home does not present any known safeguarding risk to young people.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

A qualified manager with the support of an experienced deputy manager manages the home. There are 15 members of staff employed, of which only three are qualified to Inspection report children’s home: 1247560 7 level 3 diploma in residential childcare. This includes the registered manager and deputy who are both qualified at this level. Consequently, some shifts do not have a qualified worker leading them. Although the staff team members are skilled, motivated and enthusiastic and show strength in many areas, their lack of qualification does not meet regulation and therefore a requirement is made.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Staff report that they receive regular supervision and that they feel supported in their roles. They report that managers are approachable and freely give advice and support and that communication with the wider organisation is good.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Managers and staff show a very good understanding of the progress that young people are making in the home and have taken steps to address issues where young people are unsettled. There is a high level of commitment to developing and improving the service and managers are keen to listen to suggestions and advice. Expectations of staff are high and this is communicated effectively to the staff team. Aspirations for young people are high and staff are committed to helping young people to achieve as much as they are able to achieve.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The home benefited from having almost the full staff team in place before they opened. This enabled the staff to attend training and receive a full induction into their care roles. They also had the opportunity to gain experience at other homes within the company. Most staff are at the end of their probationary period and have been supported throughout by regular probation reviews alongside their formal and informal supervision.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Monitoring activity in the home is generally good, with daily, weekly and monthly checks feeding into a monthly report. This will subsequently feed into the six-monthly report required by regulation. There is an independent visitor in place and there are no concerns identified about the monitoring reports produced. However, the home did not receive its first monitoring visit until 11 weeks after it was registered. Therefore, no reports were completed for the first two months of registration. There were no young people admitted during those first weeks but visits should still have been undertaken in line with Regulation 44.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The home is achieving it aims and objectives as set out in its statement of purpose that is kept up to date and provides useful information to families and placing authorities about the service. The company’s website similarly reflects the service and is easy to navigate.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The home has developed links with a number of agencies involved in the young people’s lives to ensure that all-round support is promoted. The local community police officer has been to visit the home and an invitation has been provided to the local area designated officer. The home liaises with education and health provisions as appropriate to ensure that young people’s health and education needs are fully met.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The registered manager and staff understand that the views of each young person are very important. The young people, their parents and professionals are asked for feedback on the service to enable continuous development of the home. Young people Inspection report children’s home: 1247560 8 engage well in their meetings with their key workers to ensure that they fully participate in the day-to-day care in the home and its development.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Issues relating to tolerance, equality and diversity are embedding into the home’s practice. Young people are helped to understand and tolerate each other’s differences and are educated about different cultures and religions. Talking about difference is built into everyday interactions, for example playing fun games to spark conversation about different cultures.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The home has good systems in place to record and store information. Information is detailed, clearly presented and accurate.

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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: 1247560 9

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Witherslack Group Limited

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: Witherslack Group, Lupton Tower, Lupton, Carnforth LA6 2PR

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Inspector

Charlie Bamber: social care inspector Inspection report children’s home: 1247560 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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