Children's Home run by Hampshire County Council in Hampshire

Inspection report children’s home: 1255823 1 Registered provider: Hampshire County Council Full inspection Inspected under the social care common inspection framework

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Information about this children’s home

The home is owned and managed by a local authority. It is registered to provide care and accommodation for up to four young people of either gender who have emotional and behavioural needs.

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Information about this children’s home

Inspection dates: 14 to 15 November 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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Key findings from this inspection

 The home is led by a passionate and committed management team.  Staff work together, as a team, to ensure a child-centred approach.  Relationship-based practice underpins the care provided in the home.  Children experience positive and trusting relationships with the staff team. Inspection report children’s home: 1255823 2  Children live in a homely environment that is maintained to a high standard.  Staff positively support children’s relationships with family and friends.

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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 recording systems, in relation to identified risks for individual children within their risk assessment, do not contain sufficient information or guidance for staff to ensure that risks are managed effectively to safeguard all children in the home.

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

This is the first full inspection of this children’s home since it opened in June 2017. Inspection report children’s home: 1255823 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 provider to ensure -

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Requirement Due date

(i) 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;

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Requirement Due date

(iv) manage relationships between children to prevent them from harming each other;

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Requirement Due date

In particular, ensure that all information in relation to identified risk for individual children is recorded, within their risk assessment, together with the strategies to manage or minimise them. (Regulation 12(2)(a)(i)(iv)) 31/12/2017

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Recommendations

 Children must be consulted regularly on their views about the home’s care, to inform and support continued improvement in the quality of care provided. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 22, paragraph 4.11)

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Recommendations

Specifically, consult children regularly in relation to meal planning. Inspection report children’s home: 1255823 4

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children experience positive and trusting relationships with the staff, who apply the ‘Pillars of Parenting’ model of care in their work. Children’s well-being is central to the decisions made at the home. Staff demonstrate relationship-based practice in their care of the children. The staff team is able to identify the individual children’s strengths and identified needs. Staff promote their development while making sure that the children are kept safe.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff talk with children about their individual needs and identified risks, enabling them to consider alternative ways to manage their difficulties and utilise the support offered by staff. Key workers support each child to express their views, wishes and feelings through engaging with them both individually and as a group in a way that promotes the importance of daily interactions within the relationship-based approach. Staff recognise that these are opportunities for the children to communicate with the staff team, as well as through the more formal consultation processes in place.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children mostly say that they feel happy and safe in placement and all enjoy positive relationships with the other young people. Children feel able to speak with staff and the manager of the home if they have any worries. Children feel empowered to share their views in the weekly young people’s meetings. However, it is unclear how children’s views are gathered in between these meetings with regard to menu planning, which is important given the need to ensure a varied diet.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The registered manager recognises the importance of the wider professional network in ensuring that the needs of the individual children are met. She advocates appropriately with social workers and education staff on behalf of each child. Children’s education has been a key focus with all the children upon admission. The registered manager has contributed to successfully securing education provision for each child. Staff are ambitious for children’s learning and future aspirations. Children are consistently supported to attend school and fully engage in their education. Children have an education room within the home, and it is equipped for them to complete homework, including art and creative projects, and is well used.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff support children to develop their individual interests, undertaking regular planned activities with, or facilitated by, staff. Children are encouraged to undertake activities together where they have shared interests. They also celebrate events, for example Halloween, together. Staff are enthusiastic in encouraging children to participate in activities in the wider community and have supported them to take part in a ‘fun run’ to raise funds for a local children’s hospice. This contributes to the children’s individual sense of self-worth, providing a positive opportunity to engage in their local community. Staff support children to build memories through recording these events, including photographs, for inclusion in their memory boxes which are being developed at the home. This is important for children’s identity and will contribute to their understanding of their individual life stories in the future.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Inspection report children’s home: 1255823 5 Staff respond sensitively to the individual health needs of the children. Children develop their self-care skills in an age-appropriate way. Children’s emotional, as well as physical needs, are supported, with staff promoting children’s emotional resilience through enabling them to find different ways to cope and respond to difficulties in their lives. Staff work with specialist health services, where appropriate, to support children’s individual needs. Children feel able to talk to staff about how they are feeling. Staff will listen and respond in a warm and caring way. When asked how they would grade the home, out of 10, one child said ‘Infinity’.

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

Planning for new children to move into the home is thorough, utilising all referral information to identify potential risks to the individual children. However, how staff manage these is not always fully recorded in children’s individual risk assessments. The admission process is thorough, but not all risk assessments contain sufficient information strategies to guide staff in their care. Staff monitor children’s use of the internet and help children to understand safe internet use.

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

Children are supported to take age-appropriate risks, in a planned way, at the home. There have been no children reported as missing from care, which is significant because it was an identified risk for some of the children upon admission to the home. Staff support children to treat each other with respect and encourage their individuality. Staff describe relationships between some children at the home as like that of brothers and sisters, and this was observed during the inspection. The mutual respect of children and staff successfully facilitates a non-discriminatory culture at the home.

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

Staff explain the expectations for children in terms of behaviour between one another and with the staff at the home. This is role modelled by staff and children then display this in their interactions with each other. Children and staff interactions are positive and affirming. Staff always provide time and space for the children to talk. Staff encourage children to share their achievements gained through participating in their individual interests and hobbies. Staff respond sensitively to children’s needs and ensure that they have spent some time individually with a member of staff each day.

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

Staff understand the home’s approach to supporting children’s behaviour and discuss this as a team. They collectively plan how to support each child. In this way, team members contribute to the shared culture developing at the home and the overall vision for the care of the children. The positive approach to supporting children’s behaviour, including an incentive-based reward system, has been a factor resulting in no use of physical intervention since the home opened. Additionally, there has been no need for police involvement other than the ongoing multi-agency working together that is undertaken by the home.

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

Safer recruitment practice in relation to the vetting of new staff members is undertaken, and the organisation completes all recruitment checks prior to confirming the employment of new staff. Staff undertake the level 3 qualification in residential childcare or above, following their six-month induction and training programme. Some staff have Inspection report children’s home: 1255823 6 completed a relevant level 5 qualification prior to commencing their role.

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

The purpose-built home is well served through sound health and safety management. Staff maintain the home to a high standard, ensuring a clean and welcoming environment for the children to live in and for their friends and family to visit. Children have their own individual en suite bedrooms, which staff support them to decorate in a way that expresses their identity. Children have privacy and their own individual space alongside a choice of different communal spaces to spend time in. The garden is fully accessible and children have individual equipment to engage in the outdoor pursuits that they enjoy.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The registered manager and deputy manager demonstrate passionate leadership and show positive regard for the children in their care. This is reflected across the whole of the staff team. Senior leadership support the home’s ethos, including ensuring that the appropriate management training is provided for the registered manager and sharing practice across the organisation. Relationship-based practice underpins the care provided at the home, and the ‘Pillars of Parenting’ approach informs the practice and work with the children at the home.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

There is a sound understanding of how the ‘Pillars of Parenting’ approach impacts directly on the children’s care, and it has underpinned the development of the staff team. There are regular consultations provided to the staff team by the psychologist as part of this approach. Staff undertake a clear induction and training programme, specific to their role, with regular individual supervision provided.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The registered manager takes ownership of the leadership and management of the home, while recognising the need to develop staff. The management team shares a clear and effective vision for the care provided to the children, as stated within the statement of purpose for the home, and it is implemented in practice. This shared ethos results in a commitment to child-centred practice that provides consistency in the leadership and management of the staff team and stability in the care of the children.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The management of the home is outward facing, including seeking guidance from fellow managers within the organisation through organisational meetings and peer reviews. There is recognition of the importance of the wider network to ensure that the needs of individual children are met. Children are encouraged and enabled to develop their own individual interests and participate in groups within the local community. This includes children’s participation in a charitable event to raise funds for the local children’s hospice, which the children talked about positively during the inspection.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The home’s manager recognises the differences within the staff team in terms of the varied knowledge and skills base, with clear induction, training and ongoing development opportunities identified. The home’s workforce development plan provides a clear focus for the registered manager in utilising the new staff, who bring varying levels of experience. It indicates how the home will meet each quality standard. Monthly audits Inspection report children’s home: 1255823 7 are undertaken to monitor the home’s records and review children’s individual risk assessments, ensuring a consistency of practice across the team.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Matching of new children to the other children in the home is undertaken prior to admission, and the staff ensure that children’s views are sought throughout. The staff team is creative in its approach to meeting the needs of the children. Staff demonstrate a child-centred approach to the care provided. Children express feeling ‘supported by staff’, who provide a good level of support and engagement with the wider network. The manager and staff team work together effectively with external professionals in responding to the individual needs of the children. There is a focus on promoting and enabling children to maintain positive relationships with family and friends. This is a particularly strength of the home. For example, during the inspection each child was observed having a friend and/or family member to visit them after school. One family member described the home as ‘wonderful’.

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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 difference 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: 1255823 8

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: Hampshire County Council, The Castle, Winchester SO23 8UG

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Inspector(s)

Maria Lonergan, social care inspector Kenneth Smith, social care inspector Inspection report children’s home: 1255823 9 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(s)

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Inspector(s)

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Inspector(s)

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