Children's Home run by Cambian Childcare Limited in Shropshire

Inspection report children’s home: SC476292 1 SC476292 Registered provider: Cambian Childcare Ltd

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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 operated by a private company and is registered to provide care and accommodation for up to five children or young people 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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good

How well children and young people are helped and protected good

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good

The effectiveness of leaders and managers requires improvement to be 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: 1 December 2016

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good

Overall judgement at last inspection: declined in effectiveness

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Key findings from this inspection

 Children make good progress in all areas of their lives. They meet their health and developmental milestones, and generally enjoy being children. Inspection report children’s home: SC476292 2  Children attend school regularly after significant periods of absence prior to them moving to the home.  Staff ensure that children spend quality time with their families; they are aware of and maintain the children’s heritage.  Children’s voices are at the heart of the home. They are involved in as many aspects of running the home as they can be.  Children benefit from an array of activities, and enjoy having their own pets to care for.  The registered manager has significantly improved staff morale and, consequently, has a dedicated, enthusiastic and child-centred team.

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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

 Managers do not vigorously challenge other departments within their organisation to ensure that maintenance work is completed swiftly, and that all safer recruitment checks are completed on all staff.  Managers and staff have not been able to encourage children to wear their prescription glasses.  A member of staff has not achieved their level 3 qualification within the required timescale.

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

01/12/2016 Interim Declined in effectiveness 25/05/2016 Full Requires improvement 23/02/2016 Interim Sustained effectiveness 17/06/2015 Full Good Inspection report children’s home: SC476292 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 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 –

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Requirement Due date

that the premises used for the purposes of the home are designed, furnished and maintained so as to protect each child from avoidable hazards to the child’s health. (Regulation 12 (1) (2(d))) 24/12/2017

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must recruit staff using recruitment procedures that are designed to ensure children’s safety. (Regulation 32 (1)) 24/12/2017

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Recommendations

 Children’s homes staff should encourage children to take a proactive role in looking after their day-to-day health and well-being. Where children have specific health needs or conditions, they should be supported to manage these subject to their age and understanding. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 34, paragraph 7.2)

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children enjoy living in this home, and as a result they make good progress. The children living in this home are young, between the ages of six and 10. Staff spend quality time with the children, playing games, doing arts and crafts and reading to them. This demonstrates good practice, as the children are learning how to be children in a home that allows them to do this safely. Staff help children go back to basics in areas such as play to help them be happy and fulfilled children. This is in addition to meeting their health and educational needs. The children have had numerous placement moves Inspection report children’s home: SC476292 4 previously, and they are now benefiting from being looked after by a stable and consistent staff team. Staff are aware of, and follow, each child’s individual plan to make sure that they benefit from consistency, routine and boundaries. Staff read bedtime stories to children to help them relax ready for bed, and also to stimulate their

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

imagination and expand their knowledge of the world. Consequently, children’s self- esteem and confidence are growing.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children’s voices are heard, and are at the heart of the home. All paperwork has been adapted to make it visually interesting for children. Staff use images of cartoon characters and language that children understand to engage the children and encourage feedback. The registered manager speaks to them regularly about their wishes and feelings. For example, one child asked for a thousand pounds, and the registered manager said he could not facilitate that wish but would help the child save for it. This means that children feel listened to, and are helped to attain their wishes.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Before coming to the home, some children had been absent from school for a significant period of time. Now all children have 100% attendance at school. Staff have been proactive in encouraging children to attend school. Staff offer support to children in school in order to help them settle and learn. As a result of good support, a child has been nominated by his peers to be a school counsellor. This practice helps to maximise children’s academic abilities.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children’s health needs are met. They attend all of the appropriate routine medical appointments, and staff seek urgent medical attention for them as soon as it is required, for example when one particular child had glandular fever and chicken pox. As a result, children are benefiting from good health. However, some of the children require prescription glasses or an eye patch, but resist wearing them. Staff have tried to be creative. For example, all staff have tried wearing eye patches to work, playing pirates or Harry Potter. However, this has been unsuccessful and therefore children are not benefiting from improved vision.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children enjoy activities of their choice. They enjoy dancing, gymnastics, singing, reading, ice-skating and playing some sports. Staff recognise the different personalities and characteristics of the children. They encourage and support children to try new activities, as well as knowing what their usual interests are. This gives children a sense of fun, and allows them to socialise in the community with their peers. Children have their own pets, for example fish and a turtle named ‘Bob’, which they proudly show off. Photographs of the children are displayed around the home, giving them a sense of belonging and identity.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children who live a considerable distance away benefit from meeting managers and staff before they move into the home. Children are visited in their own environments, and are given a children’s handbook and a letter from the other children welcoming them. Where possible, children will visit the home prior to moving in. This is good practice and helps to reduce children’s anxieties.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff make sure that children spend quality time with their family and friends. Some Inspection report children’s home: SC476292 5 children live a long way from home. Staff support, facilitate and supervise family time together. This gives children a sense of security, as well as maintaining their attachment with family members and an understanding of their heritage.

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

Children benefit from consistent behaviour management strategies. The ethos of the staff is to reward good behaviour and to be consistent with all the children. Children each have an individualised reward plan, which links to their bespoke and comprehensive risk assessments. The reward plan, coupled with staff guidance and key- work sessions, helps children learn how to regulate their behaviours and to keep themselves safe.

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

Children do not go missing from the home, nor are they at risk of child sexual exploitation or radicalisation. Children know how to make a complaint. Staff undertake key-worker sessions to explain the process to them. There have been no complaints other than staff buying the wrong chocolate biscuits.

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

Staff promote positive behaviours and, as a result, physical interventions are reducing in number and are only used as a last resort. Records detailing physical intervention give a detailed picture of the events leading up to and surrounding the intervention. Children’s views are recorded. All physical interventions are reviewed by the manager to make sure that they are appropriate and do not compromise the safety of the children.

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

Children participate in regular fire drills. This means that, in the event of fire, children and young people know how to leave the home quickly and safely.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: requires improvement to be good

Since the last inspection, the previous registered manager resigned. An experienced and suitably qualified manager has been appointed, and has recently been registered with Ofsted. The new registered manager has a level 5 diploma in leadership and management for residential care. A skilled and motivated deputy manager and staff group support the registered manager.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: requires improvement to be good

Managers actively challenge professional partners to make sure that the individual needs of children are met. However, the registered manager and senior managers have not vigorously challenged managers within their own organisation when their practice falls short of expectations and requirements for the children in their care. For example, clear actions in respect of outstanding maintenance work in the garden have not been addressed in a timely manner. Consequently, children have been unable to play in some areas of the garden because play equipment and decking areas have been poorly maintained. Despite numerous requests by the registered manager, the equipment was not removed until the final day of the inspection. Children’s experiences, enjoyment and development are dependent on the actions of another department within the organisation, and lack of action hinders the children’s progress. Furthermore, in respect

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: requires improvement to be good

of safer recruitment of staff, the manager was advised that all reference checks for a Inspection report children’s home: SC476292 6 member of staff were complete, when in fact they were not. This leaves children at risk of harm from individuals who are caring for them.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: requires improvement to be good

The home has a consistent staff rota and is well resourced for the current children living in the home. Staff are supported by both formal and informal supervision, and staff morale has significantly improved since the last inspection. The staff are enthusiastic about their work, and demonstrate good knowledge of each child’s care plan. They are passionate about the children, are clearly proud of the children’s progress and enjoy spending time caring for them. However, not all staff have obtained suitable qualifications within the required two-year timescales. This leaves children being cared for staff who do not have the appropriate qualifications.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: requires improvement to be good

Monitoring practices in the home focus on children’s progress and the quality of care provided. These systems identify the strengths and weaknesses of the service. The registered manager and the deputy manager are tenacious about improving the quality of care for children. This demonstrates the capacity for improvement within the home.

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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: SC476292 7

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Cambian Childcare Ltd

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: Cambian Group, 4th Floor Waterfront Building, Chancellors Road, Hammersmith Embankment, London W6 9RU

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Inspector

Sandra King, social care inspector Inspection report children’s home: SC476292 8 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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