Children's Home run by Cambian Childcare Limited in North Yorkshire

Inspection report children’s home: 1235818 1 Registered provider: Cambian Childcare 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

This is a privately run children’s home. It provides care for up to four children and young people who have emotional and/or behavioural difficulties. There is an educational facility on site for young people who do not attend a local school.

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Overall experiences and progress of

children and young people, taking into account

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requires improvement to be good

How well children and young people are helped and protected requires improvement to be good

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requires improvement to be good

The effectiveness of leaders and managers inadequate

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requires improvement to be good

The children’s home is not yet delivering good help and care for children and young people. However, there are no serious or widespread failures that result in their welfare not being safeguarded or promoted.

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requires improvement to be good

Overall judgement at last inspection: declined in effectiveness

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Enforcement action since last inspection:

The home is subject to four compliance notices issued in relation to the protection of children and the leadership and management quality standards. A restriction of accommodation notice is in place. Inspection report children’s home: 1235818 2

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Key findings from this inspection

This children’s home requires improvement to be good because:

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Key findings from this inspection

 There has been no registered manager in post for nearly a year. Within this time there have been three different managers. Coupled with previous staff turnover, this has had a negative impact on young people receiving stable, consistent and nurturing care.  There are limited opportunities for young people to take age-appropriate risks. This impacts on their opportunity to test out their learning and development and develop a sense of personal safety.  There are partnership working issues with placing authorities. Consequently, there are no agreed plans, aims and objectives for the care of the young people.  In-house care plans for young people do not include all of their diverse needs, including in relation to sexual health and autistic spectrum disorder. The home cannot demonstrate that the young people are receiving the care they need to make progress across all aspects of their development.  Important milestones for young people, such as developing independence and

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Key findings from this inspection

being prepared for the transition to adulthood, are not fully met.  The frequency of staff supervision is not taking place in line with the registered provider’s policy. Supervision records are not up-to-date and do not evidence discussion with staff about young people’s needs and progress, or the quality of care practice.

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Key findings from this inspection

 The registered provider has recruited a full team of staff. Training and development of staff is improving.  Young people are starting to make positive relationships with the adults who care for them.  Staff spend time with young people, showing an interest in their welfare and providing emotional support and guidance.  There is a calm, positive living environment. Young people’s relationships with each other are better and they are more accepting of each other’s differences.  Young people feel safe in the home. There have been no incidents of missing from home since the last inspection. The behaviour of young people is improving.  Young people make progress with their attendance and achievements in school.  The leadership team is aware of the strengths and weaknesses of the home and is taking action to make improvements. Inspection report children’s home: 1235818 3

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

03/10/2017 Interim Declined in effectiveness 26/06/2017 Full Requires improvement to be good 06/02/2017 Interim Declined in effectiveness 01/12/2016 Full Good Inspection report children’s home: 1235818 4

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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

In meeting the quality standards, the registered person must ensure that staff— seek to involve each child’s placing authority effectively in the child’s care, in accordance with the child’s relevant plans; and seek to secure the input and services required to meet each child’s needs; if the registered person considers, or staff consider, a placing authority’s or a relevant person’s performance or response to be inadequate in relation to their role, challenge the placing authority or the relevant person to seek to ensure that each child’s needs are met in accordance with the child’s relevant plans; and seek to develop and maintain effective professional relationships with such persons, bodies or organisations as the registered person considers appropriate, having regard to the range of needs of children for whom it is intended that the children’s home is to provide care and accommodation. (Regulation 5(a)(b)(c)(d))

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Requirement Due date

The quality and purpose of care standard is that children receive care from staff who understand the overall aims and outcomes the home seeks to achieve for children and use this understanding to deliver care that meets children’s needs and supports them to fulfil their potential.

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Requirement Due date

In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to— ensure that staff provide personalised care that meets each child’s needs, as recorded in the child’s relevant plans, taking account of the child’s background; help each child to understand and manage the impact of any experience of abuse or neglect; and help each child to develop resilience and skills that prepare the child to return home, to live in a new placement or to live independently as an adult. (Regulation 6 (2) (b) (iv) (v) & (vi)) In particular, ensure that young people receive health and therapeutic services as specified in the statement of purpose. 08/04/2018

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Requirement 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 their potential, and promotes their welfare. 08/04/2018 Inspection report children’s home: 1235818 5 In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to — lead and manage the home in a way that is consistent with the approach and ethos, and delivers the outcomes, set out in the home’s statement of purpose. (Regulation 13 (1) & (2) (a))

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Requirement Due date

In particular, ensure there are up-to-date assessments and care plans from young people’s placing authorities and that in-house plans, aims and objectives are agreed so that care practice promotes young people’s diverse needs, including risks, independence, mental health, sexual health and autistic spectrum disorder. The registered person must ensure that all employees receive practice-related supervision by a person with appropriate experience. (Regulation 33 (4) (b)) 08/04/2018

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Requirement Due date

In order to complete a quality of care review, the registered person must establish and maintain a system for monitoring, reviewing and evaluating— any actions that the registered person considers necessary in order to improve or maintain the quality of care provided for children. The system referred to in paragraph (2) must provide for ascertaining and considering the opinions of children, their parents, placing authorities and staff. (Regulation 45 (2)(c)(5)) 08/04/2018

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Requirement Due date

* These requirements are subject to a compliance notice.

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Recommendations

 Staff should seek to meet the child’s basic needs in the way that a good parent would, recognising that many children in residential care have experienced environments where these needs have not been consistently met – doing so is an important aspect of demonstrating that the staff care for the child and value them as an individual. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 15, paragraph 3.7). In particular, support all children to feel they are listened to and treated equally.

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Recommendations

 It is good practice for a note of the content and/or outcomes supervision sessions to be kept and to ensure that both the person giving the supervision and staff member have a copy of the record. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 61, paragraph 13.4). Inspection report children’s home: 1235818 6

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improvement to be good

The historic staff turnover has had a negative impact on young people receiving stable, consistent and nurturing care. This is starting to change now that there is a full staff team. Further time is needed for the new staff team to be fully cohesive and competent at meeting young people’s needs. Young people are developing positive relationships with staff, and it will take time to be able to assess the impact on young people’s experiences and progress.

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improvement to be good

On admission, young people are not allowed mobile telephones, and their use of the internet and free time outside of the home are restricted. This is designed to help manage the risks of child sexual exploitation (CSE). For older young people, this limits their ability to benefit from social opportunities and to develop independence. Care planning with placing authorities does not take account of how young people’s independence can be promoted safely.

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improvement to be good

Health assessments for young people are not up to date, and care plans have not been fully developed to address specific needs about sexual health and autistic spectrum disorder. Specialist help, such as support from child and adolescent mental health services, is not provided quickly enough to young people. In one case waiting three months for an appointment from the time of referral. Despite the registered provider having a clinical team, specific needs such as anger management are not addressed. The clinical team’s assessment findings do not influence in-house care plans so as to maximise the benefit to young people. In other areas, such as diet and exercise, staff support young people to follow a healthy lifestyle. Young people attend their health appointments and staff are sensitive to the concerns that young people raise about their health.

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improvement to be good

Staff spend time with young people, showing an interest in their welfare and providing emotional support and guidance. This encourages young people to improve their self- esteem and behaviour. Consequently, there is a calm, positive living environment. Young people’s relationships with each other are positive, since they are more accepting of their differences. One young person has made a memory book for another who is due to leave. This shows the level of empathy and understanding they have for each other.

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improvement to be good

Young people make progress with their attendance and achievements in school. Education plans and timetables take account of their individual needs. Staff encourage their learning and understanding of equality and diversity issues. For example, young people have contributed positively to anti-bullying week and kindness day.

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improvement to be good

There is good support for young people to maintain contact with relatives, where this is safe and appropriate, in line with their care plans. Staff are aware of contact restrictions, and care practice helps to keep young people safe from inappropriate contact. Staff will Inspection report children’s home: 1235818 7 go out of their way to support face-to-face contact and help young people understand the reasons why contact might be limited.

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improvement to be good

There are limited opportunities for young people to take age-appropriate risks. This impacts on their opportunity to test out their learning and development and develop a sense of personal safety. This is a result of the weak planning and partnership work with placing authorities. Consequently, the future needs, risks and independence of young people are poorly planned for. As young people approach adulthood, their ability to keep themselves safe in future placements is uncertain.

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improvement to be good

Young people feel safe in the home. There have been no further incidents of missing from home or self-harm since the last inspection. The behaviour of young people is better and, in particular, over Christmas the home environment was very settled. There has been one incident when the young people fell out with each other. Staff addressed this using restorative practice to help young people resolve their differences. Better stability in the staff team has helped improve the care and consistency in promoting positive behaviour with young people. There is a big reduction in police involvement and staff use physical intervention as a last resort. The manager monitors all incidents, and works with young people and staff to promote a caring and nurturing environment.

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improvement to be good

Young people have staff they can go and talk to, and are building trusting relationships. Sometimes young people do not feel listened to and describe staff as being distracted. Young people said that they do not always feel treated equitably. For example, young people at times feel that some of them have to go to school, but not all, or that staff spend more time with certain young people.

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improvement to be good

Staff have a good understanding of the risks to young people, such as self-harm, CSE and missing from home. Risk assessments are regularly reviewed and staff keep up to date with any changes. Their understanding of warning signs, patterns of behaviour and risks from contact and social media are improving from training and development activities. This is helping to keep young people free from harm.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

There has been no registered manager in post for nearly a year. Within this time there have been three different managers and a large turnover of staff. This has not provided young people with the stability and consistency of care they need. A new manager was appointed in September 2017 and is applying to Ofsted to become registered. The registered provider is giving the home additional management support, which is improving the quality of care for young people.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

There are partnership working issues with placing authorities. The manager has not been able to obtain up-to-date pathway plans, health assessments and personal education plans for the young people. This means that the in-house care plans are not Inspection report children’s home: 1235818 8 based on up-to-date plans produced by the placing authorities. Consequently, there are no agreed plans, aims and objectives for the young people’s placements. In-house care plans for young people do not include all of their diverse needs, including in relation to sexual health and autistic spectrum disorder. The manager cannot demonstrate that the young people are receiving the care they need to make progress across all aspects of their development. The compliance notice in respect of this part of the service is not met. The manager has not escalated these issues with placing authorities to the required degree to bring about positive change.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Important milestones for young people, such as developing independence and being prepared for the transition to adulthood, are not met. Leadership of the home is not effective in achieving this. The registered provider is failing to meet the home’s aims and objectives of delivering a successful CSE programme. One young person who has been at the home for over a year is still at the initial stage of intervention, with restriction on telephone and internet usage, and has no free time outside of the home.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

The quality of key-working is still weak. Some key-working sessions with young people do take place. These are about healthy eating, bullying and young people’s wishes and feelings. The manager does not ensure that these sessions happen according to plan. Consequently, one-to-one work about significant issues such as education, personal safety, changes in the home, respecting personal space and appropriate dress for school have not taken place. The management team acknowledges that this is work in progress. There are plans to train and support staff further to achieve better support for young people.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

The workforce plan for the home has been reviewed. There is a full staff team in place and no staff have left since the last inspection. Staff have completed required training about autistic spectrum disorder and advanced CSE to be better equipped to care for young people. The staff team as a whole is more consistent and supportive of young people. This is having a positive impact on the standards of care that young people experience. There is appropriate management oversight of staff training and development with the aim of improving standards further. The two compliance notices about staff recruitment, training and development are met.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

The frequency of staff supervision is not taking place in line with the registered provider’s policy. Supervision records are not up to date and do not evidence discussion with staff about young people’s needs and progress and the quality of care practice. Staff attend monthly team meetings but, again, minutes do not evidence collective discussion and debate about how well the team is supporting young people. This compromises how well staff understand their roles and how to support young people to achieve the aims and objectives of their individual care plans. However, staff work well together and are able to get day-to-day support from the leadership team. There is always a senior member of staff on shift or a manager available on-call to provide direction. Staff attend monthly team around-the-child meetings with clinical input from the registered provider. This provides some opportunity to discuss young people’s needs

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

and for staff to receive guidance about care practice. Inspection report children’s home: 1235818 9 The leadership team is aware of the strengths and weaknesses of the home and is taking action to make improvements. Three of the four compliance issues are met and both recommendations made at the last inspection have been implemented. The manager now receives the monitoring reports of the home completed by an independent visitor (IV). The manager is addressing the recommendations made by the IV.

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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: 1235818 10

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Cambian Childcare Ltd

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: Cambian Group, 4th Floor Waterfront Building, Chancellors Road, Hammersmith Embankment, London W6 9RU

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Inspectors

Simon Morley, social care inspector Angela Norrie, social care inspector Inspection report children’s home: 1235818 11 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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Inspectors

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Inspectors

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Inspectors

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