Children's home run by Institute of Integrated Systemic Therapy in Southwark

Inspection report children’s home: SC025700 1 SC025700 Registered provider: Childhood First

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Full inspection Inspected under the social care common inspection framework

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Information about this children’s home

A registered charity owns this children’s home. It is registered to provide care and accommodation for up to nine children who have emotional and/or behavioural difficulties. The home is a therapeutic community, based on an integrated systemic therapy model.

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Overall experiences and progress of

children and young people, taking into account

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outstanding

How well children and young people are helped and protected outstanding

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outstanding

The effectiveness of leaders and managers outstanding

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outstanding

The children’s home provides highly effective services that consistently exceed the standards of good. The actions of the children’s home contribute to significantly improved outcomes and positive experiences for children and young people who need help, protection and care.

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outstanding

Date of last inspection: 9 February 2017

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outstanding

Overall judgement at last inspection: improved effectiveness

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Enforcement action since last inspection:

None Inspection report children’s home: SC025700 2

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Key findings from this inspection

This children’s home is outstanding because:

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Key findings from this inspection

 Parents can describe the vast progress and improvements that their children are making.  The children achieve exceptionally high levels of school attendance.  The home successfully rebuilds relationships between the children and their families.  The children say that they are happy. They are increasingly more settled and are feeling safe enough to begin to speak about their past traumas.  The manager is dynamic, well respected and ambitious for the children, the staff and the home.  Professionals say that the staff are highly skilled at quickly de-escalating situations and getting the children to engage positively in their meetings and sessions.  The organisation has been innovative in its creation of bespoke training courses that promote the ongoing professional development of the staff team.  The dynamic staff team is highly qualified. A number of the staff are now qualified child psychotherapeutic counsellors.

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Key findings from this inspection

 The staff are exceptionally passionate about their work, and they are committed to providing excellent care for the children.

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

09/02/2017 Interim Improved effectiveness 28/09/2016 Full Outstanding 02/03/2016 Interim Sustained effectiveness 14/10/2015 Full Outstanding Inspection report children’s home: SC025700 3

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

The home follows a therapeutic integrated systemic therapy model. The approach focuses on providing the children with a home environment in which they feel loved, valued, cared for and nurtured. Many of the children have come from chaotic backgrounds. The home is offering them their first experience of feeling settled, safe and cared for. Despite their young age, the children have experienced a number of placement breakdowns prior to moving in. Because of this, the children often struggle with making attachments and forming relationships. The staff are extremely adept at working with the children to enable them to quickly overcome barriers. The children soon build and improve their relationships with their families, the staff and other children.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

The children are encouraged to participate in regular house meetings, known as community meetings, and have daily individual time with named staff members. These ‘safe spaces’ provide the children with the opportunity to talk about their feelings, and reflect on their behaviours and how these affect others. The children’s participation in these meetings increases as they become more familiar with the concept. The children benefit from the safely managed forums and become increasingly able to share and learn from the experience. The staff incorporate the children’s views, gained at these meetings, into the running of the home, which empowers the children and ensures that they feel listened to and valued.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

The staff advocate expertly on the children’s behalf, and seek the appointment of independent visitors and advocates for the children. In one case, the home recommended to the placing authority that it found an independent visitor with whom the child could better relate to culturally. The provision of external advocates provides the children with an additional layer of support.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

The children’s individualised targets range from personal care tasks to managing contact with their families more effectively. The staff ensure that the children know the next steps in their plans and the goals and objectives that they are working towards. The children’s highly personalised care and support plans enable easy identification of the exceptional progress that they are making.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

Children are encouraged to access any medical and health services that they require. The feedback from a looked after children’s nurse who visits the home was very positive about how the staff encourage the children to participate in their sessions. The staff team’s positive approach paves the way for health professionals to engage with the children more easily.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

The children all achieve exceptionally high levels of school attendance, which is between 95 and 100%. The children only miss school when they are ill or attending appointments. The majority of the children are educated at the on-site school. Some children use transitional items that travel between home and school with the child. Inspection report children’s home: SC025700 4 These items represent to the child that the staff at the home are thinking about them. This approach is successful in reducing the need for the child to find a reason to go back to the home during lessons. As the children develop, the staff successfully advocate for their integration into local schools. In one case, the staff secured a place for a child at the on-site school rather than an allocated school that was a great distance away from the home. This child has managed the transition so well that she has quickly moved to a

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

full-time timetable. The school staff and care staff have a handover at both ends of the day. These handovers ensure that the staff in each setting are aware of anything that may be hindering the child’s mood and progress. A new formal weekly meeting between the home staff and the school staff provides each team with a fuller overview of each child and enables them to discuss any updates on the children’s care plans. The staff use the meetings to share strategies that will enhance the children’s learning and improve their behaviour in the classroom. The additional meeting with the school is a creative way to share information and approaches that provide the children with consistency.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

The staff have introduced daily incentives for the children to assist them with undertaking their daily home learning. This home-learning time includes the children reading for a set period and undertaking some handwriting tasks. The additional practise of these skills and the use of incentives are enabling the children to enjoy developing their reading and writing skills. A child who historically did not like reading spoke excitedly about the pending publication of the next book in the series of stories that he is currently reading. He said, ‘I like spending my book token [received monthly from his placing authority], and I have all three of the books. I can’t wait until the next one comes out at Christmas.’

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

The children are having lots of first-time experiences, such as their first holiday, getting their first bike and visiting the seaside for the first time. The children spoke enthusiastically about the activities that they have participated in during the recent summer holidays. They spoke with pride about how they had raised money on the stalls that they run as part of the home’s annual summer party. The staff, as they have done with other holidays, have created a very professional DVD of the events from the summer holidays. The children receive copies when they leave the home. These films provide the children with vivid memories of their experiences.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

The relationship between the staff and parents is very positive. The parents benefit from the home’s dedicated family workers. Parents describe the family workers as a source of support and guidance for them. The parents value the input and honest feedback that they receive from the family workers, and say that their input helps them to review and adapt their engagement with their children. The creation of this role enables the link workers to primarily focus on the children and provides the parents with an additional point of contact. This rebuilding of family dynamics has enabled children to successfully return to live with their families when this had not been a possibility when they first moved to the home.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

The staff are dynamic, enthusiastic, and passionate about their work. They are committed to the children, and will come in on days off for the children’s birthday parties and leaving parties. Inspection report children’s home: SC025700 5 When appropriate, the staff maintain contact with children when they have moved on. One staff member described still being in contact with a former key child who is now 21 years old. This ongoing contact maintains the positive relationships that the children build while living at the home. The staff were excitedly making arrangements for a visit from a child and his parent. He recently moved out to live with his family because of the excellent work that the team had undertaken with him and his family.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

A parent said, ‘The place is magical. The children want for nothing and they are so well cared for.’ Another parent said, ‘I can see a 100% improvement in my child since he has been here. His verbal communication has improved so much. He used to be aggressive and violent but he can now show care to his younger siblings.’

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

The home’s location risk assessment is comprehensive and details the children’s views on risks. Including the children’s views enables the manager to consider those aspects of risk that may not have otherwise formed part of the assessment. Due to their ages, the children are never out of the home unsupervised. The staff have ongoing conversations with the children about their safety, and discuss topics such as what to do if they were to get separated or lost when out. Children are becoming increasingly safer and reducing their risk-taking behaviour.

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

A parent spoke about her child prior to moving to the home, ‘[He used to] try and run off but he does not do that here.’ Children rarely go missing from the home. The staff create an essential information document that they can provide to the police in the event that this occurs. Having this information readily available ensures that in the unlikely event that a child goes missing from the home, there is no undue delay in sharing the information with the police.

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

The staff continually assess the children’s interactions. If the staff have any concerns about possible bullying behaviour they start a tracking log. This tracking provides the staff with the ability to easily identify and act on any episodes of unkind behaviour.

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

The children’s files are well organised and contain the current care, placement and therapy plans. These plans detail aspects of known and potential risks. The staff frequently update the children’s plans with any changes that are required. The staff have ongoing conversations as part of community meetings and individual discussions about staying safe. As the children start to recognise the positive role modelling shown by the staff, they begin to feel safe. At this stage, the children often begin to disclose past experiences of neglect and abuse. The children’s ability to share these experiences further assists their emotional development as they release the associated anger, distress and mixed emotions that they have pent up. These feelings can lead to an increase in the children’s level of heightened behaviour and incidents. These in turn often lead to an increase in the need for physical interventions. The staff team is trained

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

in the use of physical interventions, and they are skilled at de-escalating behaviours. When physical intervention is used, it is often very brief in duration. The manager and the staff team proactively conduct ongoing reviews of the incidents Inspection report children’s home: SC025700 6 and use of physical interventions in order to identify the trends and triggers, and the strategies that they can use with the children to reduce the need for physical intervention. The staff then update the children’s plans with any changes that they have agreed on to facilitate a reduction in the use of these interventions.

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

The staff report the children’s disclosures to the relevant agencies to ensure that the matters raised are investigated thoroughly.

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

The children, with the support of the staff, are increasingly feeling safe enough to have difficult conversations with their families. Children have had challenging conversations about matters such as contact arrangements and family relationships. Family members and professionals have praised the staff for facilitating these conversations. The staff describe how much more relaxed and at ease the children are having discussed the once ‘taboo’ topics.

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

The staff undertake a vast amount of training, including recognising when children are at risk of sexual exploitation. As many of the staff have undertaken safeguarding training a number of times, the manager arranged a drama-based course for all staff. This creative approach provided the team with bespoke training that helped them to examine and revisit the topic in a more hard-hitting way.

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

The children continue to live in a very comfortable, relaxed and well-maintained home. The grounds have new outdoor seating and pond areas. These areas provide the children with additional spaces for outdoor learning, play and quiet time. The children choose the colours and themes of their bedrooms. Current themes include football teams, princesses and superheroes. Contractors decorate the large communal areas. The manager is very clear that only the handyperson, who is well known to the children, will ever decorate their bedrooms. This is recognition of the negative experiences and associations that many of the children have had in earlier traumas. This level of attention to detail demonstrates the manager’s commitment to enhancing the children’s experiences and recognising and acknowledging their histories.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

The registered manager is a qualified social worker and a registered child psychotherapeutic counsellor. He has been in post for a number of years and continues to have great ambitions for the children and the staff team. He has a thorough understanding of the children’s plans and the aims and objectives of their placements.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

The manager enthusiastically leads the team in working with the children’s placing authorities and families to ensure that all planning is child focused. The manager and the staff act as excellent role models to the children, showing them what good quality care looks and feels like.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

As the group of children have settled in and developed, the manager has reintroduced the practice of including the children in the recruitment of new staff. In addition to a formal interview, the children interview the candidates using questions Inspection report children’s home: SC025700 7 that they have devised. A recent example of a question from the children is, ‘How do we know that you are going to stay here for a long time?’ The children then discuss their findings with the managers. Then they lead in providing feedback to the other children and the staff in community meetings. The inclusion of the children in the recruitment process is positive and enables the children to feel a sense of ownership in the decision- making process.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

A highly qualified staff team provides excellent care for the children. The organisation runs accredited training courses in the integrated systemic therapy model that they use. A staff member has just completed the newly developed foundation course. This course covers all aspects of the induction process during the six-month probationary period. This leads the inductee into the diploma qualification that staff commence when they have successfully completed their probation period. The staff describe the induction and ongoing supervision as supportive. They describe the manager and the wider staff team as being open and approachable. The staff state that there is good communication in the team and a positive emphasis on reflective practice. Those staff who complete the advanced award and have worked at the home for five years can undertake the masters course that the organisation has developed. There is active investment in the ongoing

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

professional development of the staff team. This forward-thinking approach is resulting in an exceedingly high staff retention rate. This, in turn, is ensuring that the children are cared for by consistent and committed staff who further enhance their knowledge to improve their work with children and their families.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

The manager hosts a range of staff, community and dynamics meetings. The family workers provide a summary of any contact that they have had with each child’s family. The staff use this information to plan or note any observations that will inform their work with the children. These meetings provide the staff with significant levels of support and enable them to ensure that the children are receiving a high-quality and consistent level of care.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

The manager has an excellent knowledge of the home’s strengths and weaknesses, and is continually seeking to build on these to enhance the service that the children receive. An example of this is the way in which the manager is working with the new independent visitor, encouraging the visitor to be more challenging of the manager in a bid to drive further improvement at the home.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

Equality and diversity are interwoven into all aspects of the children’s daily life. The children’s plans each highlight any areas of identity that need to be explored and developed.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

The staff team receives a large number of compliments via thank you cards and emails from family members and professionals. This feedback is extremely positive and encapsulates the positive changes that they, professionals and families, have seen in the children because of the staff and the approaches that they use. A professional, who was in awe of staff said, ‘I don’t know what [special] training they have but they are excellent with the children.’ Inspection report children’s home: SC025700 8

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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: SC025700 9

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: Childhood First, 210 Borough High Street, London SE1 1JX

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Inspector

Sonia Hay, social care inspector Inspection report children’s home: SC025700 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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