Children's home run by Hampshire County Council

Inspection report children’s home: 1257573 1 Registered provider: Hampshire County Council

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

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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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good

Enforcement action since last inspection: None

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Key findings from this inspection

 Children enjoy positive and trusting relationships with staff.

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Key findings from this inspection

 Children benefit from the relationship-based approach to care.

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Key findings from this inspection

 Staff receive good training and support from the management team. Inspection report children’s home: 1257573 2  The management team is committed and passionate about the care of the children.

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Key findings from this inspection

 Children are consulted in the running of the home, and staff act on their views.

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Key findings from this inspection

 Members of the staff team consistently advocate effectively for the children’s needs.

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Key findings from this inspection

 Staff ensure that children live in a well-maintained and welcoming home.

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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

 Independent monitoring of the home is now being undertaken on a monthly basis. However, on one occasion the monthly monitoring did not take place.

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Key findings from this inspection

 Supervision for the registered manager does not include the same reflection on safeguarding that other staff receive.

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Recent inspection history

This is the first inspection of this children’s home since it opened in July 2017. Inspection report children’s home: 1257573 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

44: Independent person: visits and reports

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Requirement Due date

(1) The registered person must ensure that an independent person visits the children’s home at least once each month. 10/02/2018

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Recommendations

 The registered person must have systems in place so that all staff, including the manager, receive supervision of their practice from an appropriately qualified and experienced professional which allows them to reflect on their practice and the needs of the children assigned to their care. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 61, paragraph 13.2)

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The registered manager is very experienced and brings strong skills and knowledge to the management of the home. The staff work well together to support each child. Children build positive relationships with staff, and staff are adaptive to meet the individual needs of the child. Staff have developed a helpful reflective tool in response to seeking to understand the reasons behind children’s behaviour, and what they are trying to communicate through their behaviour.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff develop positive relationships with the children by using the ‘Pillars of Parenting’ model of care. Children are enabled to develop trusting relationships with staff through the relationship-based practice that staff have developed. Feedback provided by a child’s social worker was very positive regarding the relationships that staff have developed with the child, and the support provided to the child through the home’s ‘Pillars of Parenting’ approach.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff listen to children’s wishes in relation to developing positive ways to support their Inspection report children’s home: 1257573 4 behaviour, and these inform the plans, and the assessments of identified risks. These plans have been shared, where appropriate, with the children’s school, to help the school to positively support children’s behaviour. The child’s voice is a key focus in terms of the staff team’s approach to working with the children, and ensuring that their rights are respected.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children’s experiences are central to the focus on developing the home to provide positive experiences for them. Children are settled in placement, and are able to identify staff that they can share their worries with. They are also able to say how the staff have helped them with their concerns. This was observed during the course of the inspection, during which a child’s emotional well-being and overall mental health needs were very well supported in a calm, caring and empathic way by staff. The child’s need for specialist mental health support was addressed through the collaborative inter-agency work undertaken by the staff and the home’s management team.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children’s overall health needs are supported well as a result of staff working with health professionals, and developing their knowledge through using all learning opportunities. Staff support children to engage in activities in the local community and develop their interests, which is important for children’s sense of self, and contributes to strengthening their emotional resilience.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff are sensitive to the individual needs of the children; they ensure that the children’s dignity is respected at all times. Staff and children have positive relationships in which shared humour forms an important part. The strong relationships help to support the children’s positive sense of self. Children interact positively with one another and develop positive regard for each other, which is role-modelled by the staff team. Children learn to understand how their behaviour can affect the feelings of others.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff advocate for the right for children to access their education. They work effectively with the school and provide additional support to enable children to engage in their learning. This ensures that the children are able to continue their education. Children’s additional learning needs are identified effectively by staff and shared with the school to ensure that specialist assessments are arranged to enable each child to access specialist support.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff fully support children’s relationships with their families, where possible; for example, staff continued to provide support throughout one child’s transition home. The child’s social worker told the inspector about this positive planned move back to the child’s family home, acknowledging the importance of the support provided by staff in this successful transition. The child’s mother shared this view, noting the support provided by the home and the ‘positive changes’ brought about by this support.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The staff ensure that a homely, comfortable and very welcoming environment for children is maintained. They plan to further develop the garden area to enable the children to make full use of the outdoor space. Children have their own individual en- suite bedrooms which staff support them to decorate in a way that expresses their identity. Children’s privacy is respected, and their bedrooms provide a separate space for Inspection report children’s home: 1257573 5 them to spend time in.

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

Staff ensure that moves into the home are well planned, and include structured introductions to support the children’s transition. Staff complete detailed assessments of a child’s needs prior to their admission. These identify how the home will meet the child’s individual needs, alongside those needs of the children living in the home. Staff carry out a regular review of each child’s progress, based on the ‘Pillars of Parenting’ model of care. Staff respond effectively to all identified and emerging risks; they ensure that children’s individual risk assessments and safety plans are devised and regularly reviewed, to mitigate any identified risks.

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

Safer recruitment checks are carried out for all new staff, which contributes to the safeguarding of children. There are good e-safety systems in place to safeguard children, including effective systems for monitoring the children’s safe internet access. Children are supported by staff to complete a qualification that provides them with the knowledge and skills needed to keep themselves safe when accessing the internet. Staff are supported through supervision to focus on safeguarding, in terms of their individual roles, which contributes to the effective safeguarding culture in the home.

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

Staff consultation with children is a focus of the support provided, and it is well recorded. Staff seek children’s views in a number of different ways, including through the regular children’s meetings which children are enabled to chair themselves, if they choose to. Children are supported to share their views, and can see how these are listened to and acted on through the response of the staff and management team. No formal complaints have been made since the home opened, which indicates that children feel heard without cause to complain.

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

The registered manager has developed positive relationships in the local community, including collaborative working with police, specifically in relation to current safeguarding issues. During the course of the inspection, there were safeguarding concerns raised by a child relating to school. These were addressed in a timely and appropriate manner as a result of effective working with all the relevant agencies, undertaken by the staff and the home’s management team, in order to safeguard the child.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The registered manager has a good understanding of children’s individual needs, and how the care provided positively contributes to these needs and the child’s overall care plan. Placement planning is comprehensive with a holistic assessment of the child’s needs and regular review of their progress, based on the ‘Pillars of Parenting’ model of care. There is an in-depth overview of each child’s individual needs and the impact of these on the group, as part of the daily communication within the staff team. This ensures that all staff are fully aware of the children’s needs at any point in time. Inspection report children’s home: 1257573 6 Staff are provided with a thorough induction and training programme which ensures that they have the relevant knowledge and skills to undertake their respective roles. This programme includes providing staff with a sound understanding of the ‘Pillars of Parenting’ approach. Staff complete the level 3 qualification or above, following their six-

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

month induction training programme; a number of current staff have previously completed a level 5 qualification prior to commencing in their role. Staff attend training to develop knowledge in respect of current safeguarding issues, including ‘county lines’; this ensures that they have the skills to help safeguard children. This is a skilled staff team.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Staff receive individual supervision on a regular basis which covers all areas of their role and provides a system for tracking the work undertaken to meet agreed actions. A particular strength, within the home’s model of supervision, is the focus on discussing how each member of staff’s individual role helps to safeguard the children in their care. This encourages ownership within the staff team, in terms of safeguarding being the responsibility of the whole team. This approach is utilised by the home’s management team with staff, and it is recommended that this be extended to include supervision provided to the registered manager, to enable consistency of approach in relation to safeguarding.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

On one occasion, there was no monthly visit undertaken by an independent person. This resulted in no independent monitoring of the quality of care provided. The registered manager raised their concerns in relation to the issue. Ofsted was not kept informed of issues in relation to staff, and subsequent performance management procedures followed which would have been reported through the monthly monitoring report. The missed visit was due to delays in the recruitment of a permanent independent person. This problem has been addressed, and monthly monitoring visits are now being undertaken.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The registered manager clearly identifies the strengths within the newly formed staff team, and recognises the areas for development in respect of both individual staff members and the staff team as a whole. The home’s workforce development plan sets out a clear strategy for the home moving forward. This involves each staff member having responsibility for an individual area to focus on, based on the quality standards. This helps to develop a culture of collective ownership of practice within the staff team, promoting the continued development of 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 Inspection report children’s home: 1257573 7 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: 1257573 8

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Hampshire County Council

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: The Castle, Winchester SO23 8UG

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Children’s home details

Registered manager: Maria Calway-Kennedy

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Inspector(s)

Maria Lonergan, social care inspector Inspection report children’s home: 1257573 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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