Children's home run by Witherslack Group Limited in Westmorland and Furness

Inspection report children’s home: SC475710 1 SC475710 Registered provider: Witherslack Group 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

The home is run by a private organisation and is registered to provide care and accommodation for up to eight children 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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outstanding

How well children and young people are helped and protected good

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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

Overall judgement at last inspection: Sustained effectiveness

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Enforcement action since last inspection:

None Inspection report children’s home: SC475710 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

 The leadership and management are excellent. The registered manager and the deputy manager are committed, confident and skilled. They provide very strong leadership for the staff. They are ambitious for the children and young people and, without doubt, they create an environment where the children and young people make significant changes to their own lives.  The staff provide an environment where the children and young people can thrive. The staff are nurturing and caring and also provide a structured environment with clear expectations and boundaries. The children and young people feel safe and secure and receive a high-quality individualised service from staff and from a wide range of specialist workers employed by the provider.  The children and young people all attend the learning centre which is situated on the campus. They receive an excellent education which is flexible and varied. Some of the

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Key findings from this inspection

children and young people pursue more academic studies and some more vocational. The staff at the home work very closely with the staff at the school to provide a holistic and consistent approach.  The children and young people are encouraged to participate in a wide range of activities including local clubs and local attractions. Some of them excel at a range of activities and all of them enjoy the experiences which promote confidence, resilience and social skills.

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

07/03/2017 Interim Sustained effectiveness 13/10/2016 Full Outstanding 23/02/2016 Full Good 21/07/2015 Interim Sustained effectiveness Inspection report children’s home: SC475710 3

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

In the period since the previous inspection, the home’s conditions of registration have been varied, increasing the number of children and young people who can be accommodated from seven to eight. During this time, one young person has left the home and three have been admitted. The young person who left displayed increasingly challenging behaviour and this was a poor outcome to their placement. All the remaining children and young people are making good progress and most of them are making exceptional progress, often from very low starting points. This is an impressive achievement.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

The staff offer the children and young people a structured environment and a holistic, caring approach. There is a small learning centre on the campus which all children and young people attend for their education. Levels of supervision in the home are high, and routine is important. The staff have high expectations of all the children and young people and have created a culture of success and significant achievement. The children and young people are also offered high levels of nurture and the care given by the staff is excellent. The children and young people have personalised care from a wide range of specialist workers employed by the provider and from the staff in the home. Because of this dedicated work, the children and young people flourish and thrive. Relationships between the children and young people and the staff are very good and are characterised by respect. The children and young people are encouraged to give their

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

views and be part of the day-to-day running of the home. One young person said, ‘I love my room, it’s great. I picked the colours, curtains and the quilt cover. It has loads of posters and I love to spend time in it listening to music.’

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

Attendance at school is excellent for everyone. All the children and young people are achieving well with their education. Many are achieving better than their predicted results. The staff work closely with the schoolteachers to ensure that education packages are tailor-made, flexible and have the right balance of academic and vocational learning for each child or young person. This communication is excellent and allows individuals to learn, grow and achieve at their own pace.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

The provider employs a range of therapists and specialist workers who support the staff and who work directly with the children and young people. One child who has particular sensory needs has had their classroom setting adapted after an occupational therapy assessment and is now able to concentrate better. This has made a clear positive improvement to their schoolwork. Other children and young people receive counselling to help them deal with past difficulties and some of these young people have made exceptional progress with their self-esteem and confidence. This improves the resilience of children and young people.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

The children and young people are supported to maintain contact with their families and a number of the older young people travel home independently for weekend visits or to visit friends. All the young people take part in activities to build independence skills and to gain skills that will be useful in future workplaces. Some of the young people have had Inspection report children’s home: SC475710 4 work experience in various settings including a local stables and a mechanical workshop.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

The children and young people are encouraged to participate in a wide range of activities in their local community. These range from Cadets and the St John’s Ambulance Brigade to rugby, gymnastics and trampoline clubs. These activities help them to grow in confidence and to acquire a range of social skills as well as having fun and making friends away from the home. Many of the children and young people have raised money for charity with sponsored walks and bike rides giving them a chance to help others.

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

The children and young people that are placed in this home often arrive with significant safeguarding concerns and with a range of challenging behaviours. The staff are able to make good assessments of risk and are able to ensure that plans and actions put in place help minimise these risks.

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

The staff create an environment that is structured and that has clear expected routines. These expectations and boundaries are carefully explained to the children and young people and generally they tend to make appropriate changes to their behaviour and adapt to what is expected. The children and young people are closely supervised by staff until risk assessments suggest that this is needed less.

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

There have been some missing-from-home incidents. Most of these are reducing over time. However, one older young person left the placement after going missing increasingly often and after their behaviour became more challenging. The staff have worked well with the police to minimise these incidents.

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

There are quite high numbers of physical interventions used by the staff. Again, these tend to reduce over time as the children and young people settle. The registered manager monitors these interventions closely, has a very good understanding of why they happen and puts good plans in place to minimise the number and frequency of interventions. Recently, one child was being held by staff more frequently than previously. The staff were very aware that this child was currently having some difficulties in their life and staff were making very good efforts to support them and assist them in dealing with these issues. The deputy manager had carried out a particularly good piece of work with this child just prior to the inspection. This has led to an allegation being made against another young person in the home.

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

Inspectors were aware during this inspection that allegations of a child protection nature were being investigated by the appropriate authorities. While Ofsted does not have the power to investigate allegations of this kind, actions taken by the setting in response to the allegations were considered alongside the other evidence available at the time of the inspection to inform inspectors’ judgements. The inspectors felt that staff had reported these incidents appropriately. However, it is possible that there has been some inappropriate behaviour between some of the children and young people in this home, and between one young person from this home and another child from a different children’s home on the same campus. Inspection report children’s home: SC475710 5

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

The registered manager has been in post for just over three years and is very experienced. He is appropriately qualified and clearly makes good efforts to continue his own learning and personal development. He is very clear about the role and purpose of the home and ensures that the aims and objectives set out in the statement of purpose are fully met. The registered manager offers excellent leadership. He is clearly influential in changing the lives of those in his care. He manages the home extremely well and monitors all aspects of the work. He analyses children’s progress in a number of ways and ensures that ongoing care planning takes this information into account. He also balances his time to ensure that he spends time with all the children and young people and clearly has excellent and close relationships with them all.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

The staff spoken to were very complimentary about the leadership and the support offered by the registered manager. It is clear from the records that all the supervision and training is completely up to date and of good quality.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

The registered manager ensures that all recording and planning is of a very high quality. One member of staff spoken to said that they received a reminder email from the registered manager if they did not complete an expected piece of work or had not recorded something. They felt this was a positive piece of management. On closer examination, the inspectors found that the registered manager emails not only work reminders but also a whole range of other information, relevant news items, pieces of local knowledge, new research and new resources. This positive information sharing is in addition to very frequent staff meetings and a newsletter. This level of communication is excellent and clearly makes a positive difference to the smooth running of the home.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

The registered manager has access to an outstanding range of services and resources that are available from the provider organisation. These include a range of therapists, psychologists and other specialist workers. He uses these widely. He is also adept at referring children and young people to external specialist services when needed. Recently, one young person has started attending eye movement therapy with an external therapist. The registered manager has researched this relatively new therapy and reports that it is working well although it is in the very early stages. In addition, he encourages his staff to undertake specialist training in other areas that they are interested in. This enables him to develop workers with a bank of skills and qualifications to call on as needed.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

The registered manager gives the care of the children and young people his highest priority. He has a detailed knowledge of each child’s progress and is ambitious for all of them. He is currently challenging one placing authority about the moving on plans for one child because he feels strongly about the timing of this.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

No requirements or recommendations were made at the previous or this inspection. Inspection report children’s home: SC475710 6

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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: SC475710 7

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Witherslack Group Ltd

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: Lupton Tower, Lupton, Carnforth LA6 2PR

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Children’s home details

Responsible individual: Marcia McLoughlin

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Inspector:

Colin Imrie, social care inspector Inspection report children’s home: SC475710 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 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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