Children's Home run by Pilgrims Corner Limited in Kent

Inspection report children‟s home: SC473891 1 SC473891 Registered provider: Pilgrims Corner Limited

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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 privately owned home is registered for two children with emotional and/or behavioural difficulties and is one of four within the organisation. The company also owns a school, which some of the young people may access.

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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: improved effectiveness

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Key findings from this inspection

 The young people are able to enjoy the homely atmosphere of what feels like a well-kept family home. Inspection report children‟s home: SC473891 2  A committed and resilient staff team is able to sustain helpful responses to high levels of challenge from the young people. This helps the young people to reflect on and reduce their risk-taking behaviours.

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Key findings from this inspection

 The strong commitment of the staff team leads to the young people achieving positive outcomes.

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Key findings from this inspection

 The needs of young people when they move in are clearly understood because information gathering is thorough and prioritised.

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Key findings from this inspection

 Staff help the young people to increase their engagement in schooling and reduce oppositional behaviours and challenge to reasonable boundaries.

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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

 Improvements to staff team working and supervision practices need to continue and become embedded.

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Key findings from this inspection

 Recording needs to improve and become more relevant to staff performance and the young people‟s progress.

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Key findings from this inspection

 Plans for care and keeping the young people safe need to become clearer and more focused to enable all staff to impose consistent boundaries for the young people.

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

22/06/2016 Interim Improved effectiveness 10/03/2016 Interim Sustained effectiveness 24/11/2015 Full Good 04/02/2015 Interim Sustained effectiveness Inspection report children‟s home: SC473891 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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Requirements Due date

The protection of children standard is that children are protected from harm and enabled to keep themselves safe. In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to ensure that the home‟s day-to-day care is arranged and delivered so as to keep each child safe and to protect each child effectively from harm. (Regulation 12 (1) and (2)(b))

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Requirements Due date

In particular, that plans to keep children safe are clear and focused on the key areas of identified risk. 29/12/17

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Requirements Due date

The registered person must ensure that all employees receive practice-related supervision by a person with appropriate experience. (Regulation 33 (4)(b)) 29/12/17

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Requirements Due date

The education standard is that children make measurable progress towards achieving their educational potential and are helped to do so. In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to ensure that each child has access to appropriate equipment, facilities and resources to support the child‟s learning. (Regulation 8 (1) and (2)(b))

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Requirements Due date

In particular, to ensure that this includes safe and ready access to the internet. 29/12/17

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Requirements Due date

The leadership and management standard is that the registered person enables, inspires and leads a culture in relation to the children‟s home that helps children aspire to fulfil their potential; and promotes their welfare.

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Requirements Due date

In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to ensure that staff work as a team where appropriate. (Regulation 13 (1)(a) and (2)(b))

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Requirements Due date

In particular, ensure that all staff work together in consistently 29/12/17 Inspection report children‟s home: SC473891 4 applying boundaries for each child.

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Requirements Due date

The registered person must compile in relation to the children‟s home a statement (“the statement of purpose”) which covers the matters listed in Schedule 1. (Regulation 16 (1))

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Requirements Due date

In particular, ensure that this covers the arrangements for the professional supervision of staff. 29/12/17

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Recommendations

 That the registered person ensures that record keeping is relevant to the daily care of the young people and that they are encouraged to contribute to this process. („Guide to the children‟s homes regulations including the quality standards‟, page 58, paragraph 11.19)

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

A core group of staff is able to provide the young people with a consistent and stable level of care that is resilient to challenging behaviours. This helps the young people to gain perspective on how they can best make progress.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The key needs of the young people are understood before they move in because pre- admission procedures have improved. As a result, staff are prepared and ready to respond to young people‟s needs.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Some of the young people demonstrate their insecurities by testing boundaries and engaging in harmful behaviour. This sometimes results in the staff‟s use of physical restraint. However, such use reduces significantly because staff apply boundaries in a consistent and caring manner. Staff‟s understanding of the young people‟s challenging behaviour increases and this helps them to support the young people to reflect on their actions and to make better decisions. This good practice is a result of staff‟s focus and commitment. Current support plans do not provide staff with sufficiently clear, key guidance on how best to support the young people. This undermines consistency and allows the young people to exploit any differences in staff responses to challenging behaviours and requires improvement.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff support the young people to increase their engagement in learning and they become increasingly able to access formal classroom learning. They are, however, being Inspection report children‟s home: SC473891 5 hindered in their learning about positive, constructive and safe daily use of internet technologies in the home. This is because equipment is outdated and staff are overly cautious, despite having a sound e-safety policy in place to guide them.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The young people say that they feel that most staff really care about them. They are surprised that this does not seem to change when they have behaved offensively towards the staff. Increased feelings of acceptance and stability in their care enables the young people to focus more on their abilities and interests.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The staff team displays good knowledge of the professionals and family members most significant to the young people. They are able to maintain professionalism in their dealings with these key adults. This enables them to ensure that the young people benefit from these relationships and also ensures that they have access to all the available services and that these adults meet their obligations to the young people.

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

When young people do display behaviour that is harmful or potentially harmful to themselves, staff respond swiftly and decisively. They sustain strong efforts to safeguard the young person until the risk has sufficiently reduced. This is shown, for example, in their controlled and consistent responses when the young people become aggressive and engage in abusive and harmful behaviours.

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

Staff display good general ability to keep the young people safe and how to support them to reduce potentially harmful behaviours. Plans in this regard, however, are insufficiently detailed and clear in guiding staff to consistently and effectively achieve this. An example of this is the provision of clear strategies to ensure that all staff respond in the same way to specific boundary challenges and harmful behaviours by particular young people.

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

Staff have undergone key safeguarding training and have acquired the skills and knowledge to follow procedures and keep the young people safe from risks such as radicalisation and exploitation. Staff talk about these areas of risk in a realistic and knowledgeable way. They need to learn, however, how to implement the home‟s e- safety policy effectively during normal, daily internet use when this is made available in the home.

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

Staff follow health and safety procedures, including those for fire safety, and also have a good working knowledge of the hazards, risks and opportunities in the home‟s locality. They have developed positive working relationships with the police, railway police, missing persons‟ coordinator and designated officer, as well as public safety and enforcement partners for the area. These practices add to the breadth and depth of the home‟s capacity to safeguard the young people.

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

Inspection report children‟s home: SC473891 6 The leadership and management arrangements for this home are shared with a same- sized sister home in the nearby vicinity and one person manages both homes. Both homes were inspected during one continuous period due to these arrangements. The aspects of leadership and management that are strong, improved and requiring further improvement are common to both homes.

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

During this inspection period, the home‟s leadership and management experienced times of turbulence and difficulty that resulted in reduced staff cohesion and motivation as well as shortfalls in management activities. This has resulted in some disturbance to the consistency and stability of care provided to the young people. In recent months, however, there has been significant improvement in the management structure of the home, as well as the continuity of care being provided.

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

The home has a new, experienced and qualified manager who is in the process of registration. He has a clear understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the home, as well as the priorities for improvement. He has gained the trust and respect of the members of the staff team, many of whom reported a renewed sense of focus and direction.

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

The experienced staff team is focused on improving the outcomes for the young people and harbours high ambitions for them to achieve their potential and make best use of their opportunities.

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

Despite the positive effects of the management changes, there are still some significant shortfalls in practice and the positive developments already achieved need to become embedded.

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

Although improving, the practice of staff supervision and appraisal has been neglected and does not yet currently meet the requirements for regularity and sufficiency. This undermines the stability of the staff team and reduces its ability to provide consistent and high quality care to the young people.

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

The young people are not currently deriving the full benefits of the collective efforts and commitment of the staff team. This is largely the result of a recording system that has become onerous and does not work in supporting staff effectively in their daily practice. That is also not helping the young people to engage in the live record of their lives.

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

Leaders and managers are determined and committed to achieve the improvements necessary for this provision to become settled and to provide the highest possible quality of care to the young people.

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Information about this inspection

Inspection report children‟s home: SC473891 7 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: SC473891 8

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Pilgrims Corner Limited

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: Suite 5, The Links, Herne Bay, Kent CT6 7GQ

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Inspector:

John Pledger, social care inspector Inspection report children‟s home: SC473891 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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