Children's home run by South West Childcare Services in Plymouth

Inspection report children’s home: SC482790 1 SC482790 Registered provider: South West Childcare Services

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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 children’s home is owned and managed by a small private company. It is registered to provide care and accommodation for up to four children with emotional and/or behavioural difficulties.

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Information about this children’s home

Inspection dates: 27 to 28 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 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

Overall judgement at last inspection: declined in effectiveness

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Key findings from this inspection

 Children and young people enjoy stable placements at this home. When difficulties arise, the manager and staff, supported by the owners, ensure that Inspection report children’s home: SC482790 2 everything possible is done to enable the child or young person to remain living in their home. As a consequence, children and young people have a strong sense of belonging and have developed trusting relationships with the adults who care for them.  Children and young people enjoy and benefit from the excellent relationships they have with the manager and staff. There is a real sense of genuine affection for each other that is clearly demonstrated through verbal communication and hugs. Children and young people are comfortable and relaxed in their home and feel valued and respected.  Children and young people are making good progress in many areas of their lives, including in their education and behaviour. A positive and meaningful

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Key findings from this inspection

approach is taken to help children and young people understand the impact of poor behaviour on others. In this way they are able to learn important lessons and as a consequence make informed choices about how to improve their behaviour.  A particularly positive feature is that all children and young people are living in close proximity to their family home; this allows them to retain strong ties and a sense of identity. Families are welcomed into the home as well as children and young people being supported to visit their family home. Parents recognise how well their child is doing; they feel they are well cared for and safe and making good progress.

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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 leadership and management of the home needs strengthening to ensure that consistently high standards are achieved in recording and monitoring processes. For example, some records are not sufficiently detailed and others have not had sufficient oversight to identify lessons learned about the practices they describe. The quality review processes could be used more effectively to support further improvements.  While good attention is given to training, all staff, including company bank staff, must be supported to achieve a level 3 diploma in residential childcare within the expected two-year timescale.

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

21/03/2017 Interim Declined in effectiveness 15/11/2016 Full Good 12/11/2015 Interim Sustained effectiveness 30/06/2015 Full Good Inspection report children’s home: SC482790 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 is that the registered person must understand the impact that the quality of care provided in the home is having on the progress and experiences of each child and use this understanding to inform the development of the quality of care provided in the home and use monitoring and review systems to make continuous improvements in the quality of care provided in the home. (Regulation 13 (2) (f) and (h)) In particular the registered manager must ensure that she has thorough oversight of all practices, records and reports, to ensure consistently high quality, lessons learned and continuous improvements. 31/12/2017

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Requirement Due date

32: Fitness of workers The registered person must ensure that all staff complete their level 3 diploma in residential childcare within 2 years of working in a care role in a children’s home. (Regulation 32 (5)(a)) In particular this also refers to bank staff. 31/05/2018

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Recommendations

 The registered person should actively seek independent scrutiny of the home and make best use of information from independent and internal monitoring (including regulations 44 and 45) to ensure continuous improvement. They should be skilled in anticipating difficulties and reviewing incidents. They are responsible for proactively implementing lessons learned and sustaining good practice. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 55, paragraph 10.24)  The registered person should undertake a review that focuses on the quality of the care provided by the home, the experiences of children living there and the impact the care is having on outcomes and improvements for the children. Reviews should be underpinned by the Quality Standards as described in regulations 5 to 14. Inspection report children’s home: SC482790 4 The review should enable the registered person to identify areas of strength and

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Recommendations

possible weakness in the home’s care, which will be captured in the written report. The report should clearly identify any actions required for the next 6 months of delivery within the home and how those actions will be addressed. The whole review process and the resulting report should be used as a tool for continuous improvement in the home. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, pages 64 and 65, paragraphs 15.2 and 15.4 )

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children and young people enjoy a range of positive experiences and are making good progress. They have a sense of belonging and are benefiting from living in a stable and loving home. Children and young people are able to build trusted and secure relationships with the adults who care for them. They feel central to decision-making and have a strong voice within the home.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

All of the children and young people are living close to their family home. This helps them to have a sense of belonging as well as enabling them to see their family regularly. The manager and staff also benefit; they have been able to establish very positive working relationships with social workers in the local authority. There is a mutual respect and the home and the authority work together effectively to ensure that the home has a good mix of children. At the time of the inspection, a fourth child was being introduced to the home. There have been extensive assessments and introductions to the home to ensure that all children and young people are well prepared for this change in their lives.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff place the well-being of children and young people at the centre of their practice. They are nurturing and positive in their approach. Children and young people are benefiting from fair and consistent boundaries and expectations. They also enjoy having their achievements recognised and celebrated. Children and young people are making good progress in their education. Each has a bespoke education programme that recognises their learning needs and interests. The staff team is ambitious for the children and young people in their care and supports them to do well in school as well as participating in a range of activities outside of school. In this way children and young people develop their confidence and a positive sense of personal achievement.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Good health support is provided; this includes ensuring that children and young people have access to mental health services and a range of therapies. Medication is used minimally and the manager and staff have been instrumental in helping one young person to need significantly less medication than he used to take. However, additional care and management oversight is required to ensure that medication is carefully administered and accurately recorded, as there have been minor errors recently. Inspection report children’s home: SC482790 5

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

Children and young people are cared for in a positive and nurturing way. This has helped them to develop trusting relationships with the manager and staff, which has been effective in helping children and young people become increasingly safe. It has also helped children and young people to develop a better insight into the impact of their behaviour and to improve their behaviour over time.

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

The manager and staff have established open communication with children and young people. They know what staff expect of them and understand why staff respond in the way they do. For example, children and young people understand that if they upset their neighbours, they will be expected to make amends. This has been effective in helping one child to understand how his behaviour has had a negative impact on other residents in the local community and to positively address his behaviour. Praise, rewards and incentives are also used by staff to encourage children to behave well. During the inspection, children and young people were exceptionally well behaved and were happy to contribute to the inspection.

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

Risk assessments are carefully considered and help staff to respond appropriately to difficult situations. Each child and young person is treated individually and allowed to take age-appropriate risks. When a new child is being considered, impact risk assessments are completed. These are simple but address the pertinent areas that are important to consider prior to a new child joining the existing group.

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

Physical restraint is rarely used in this home. Over the past year three restraints have been used in connection to one incident. This incident was fully reviewed by the manager and lessons learned to improve practices. Children and young people rarely go missing from home. When this has happened, staff have actively searched for them and on each occasion an independent return home interview has been conducted. Lessons have been learned after a shortfall was identified at the interim inspection and clear procedures and protocols are in place for staff to follow should a missing from home incident occur.

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

Thorough arrangements are in place to recruit new staff when needed. Files are generally well maintained but variations in how verifications of references are recorded creates a lack of clarity, although verification is always carried out in practice. Leaders and managers have a good relationship with the designated officer. Following a recent internal investigation, the local authority commended the home on how thorough it had been in its investigation and actions to protect children and young people in its care.

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

Good attention is also given to maintaining the physical environment and fire safety, which also contributes to keeping children and young people safe.

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

The company has recently reviewed the leadership and management of the home. The home experienced a difficult time during the summer months and the registered Inspection report children’s home: SC482790 6 manager requested some additional support. The owners of the company responded positively to this situation and improvements are taking place.

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

The senior team within the home has been revised and improved and a new management tier has been created to provide support to each of the company’s homes.

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

It is acknowledged that some aspects of leadership and management require further improvement. There is a need to ensure that all records are thorough and complete. For example, the complaint records do not fully evidence the depth of work carried out to investigate and resolve concerns. Further management oversight is also required to reflect on the practices some records describe so that lessons can be learned and practices improved to benefit children and young people. The home’s development plan and the manager’s review of quality need to be more comprehensive and give a better sense of focus on how the manager and staff are striving to make further improvements to the quality of care provided by the home. The independent visits to the home could also be used more effectively to challenge where shortfalls exist and support improvements.

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

The registered manager has extensive experience. She has a level 4 qualification and is currently undertaking a level 5 diploma in leadership and management of residential childcare, which she hopes to complete by 1 April 2018. The staff team members are either qualified to level 3 in residential childcare, are working towards a qualification or are still on their probationary period. Leaders and managers are aware that all staff, including company bank staff, need to complete a level 3 qualification within 2 years of starting to work with children and young people in a residential setting. Staff speak well of the training and support they receive. Supervision has improved since a requirement was made at the interim inspection in March of this year.

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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 Inspection report children’s home: SC482790 7 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: SC482790 8

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: South West Childcare Services

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: 46 Durnford Street, First Floor Flat, Plymouth, Devon PL1 3QN

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Inspector

Norma Welsby, social care inspector Inspection report children’s home: SC482790 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 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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