Children's home run by Cambian Childcare Limited in Hammersmith and Fulham

Inspection report children’s home: SC476271 1 SC476271 Registered provider: Cambian Childcare 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 children’s home is run by a private organisation, and offers care and accommodation for up to five 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 outstanding

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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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outstanding

Enforcement action since last inspection: none

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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

 Children enjoy an excellent standard of care. Inspection report children’s home: SC476271 2  Children make outstanding progress from their starting points.  Staff make significant relationships with children and make an ongoing contribution to their lives after they have moved on from the home.  Children make huge progress with their emotional and physical health because staff, therapists and social workers all work extremely closely together.  Staff give high priority to children’s education.  Staff are up to date, well briefed, and have in-depth knowledge about each child’s needs and progress.  All children feel very safe and do not go missing from home.  Staff and the manager show real insight into the background factors affecting each child’s ability to behave safely.  The registered manager understands the children’s needs comprehensively and cares deeply about their welfare.  The registered manager works tirelessly and skilfully to ensure that the quality

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Key findings from this inspection

of practice provided by the staff improves children’s lives.  The registered manager achieves an excellent balance between using her own relationships and skills to benefit children, and at the same time inspiring the staff to do the same.  The register manager uses reflective self-evaluation with the explicit purpose of improving children’s lives.  The registered manager uses research as an integral part of developing staff practice.  Staff use imaginative and creative ways to help children to be central to their care plans.

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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

 Some records could be better designed to be increasingly helpful to children.

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

14/03/2017 Interim Sustained effectiveness 25/10/2016 Full Outstanding 06/01/2016 Interim Sustained effectiveness 03/11/2015 Full Outstanding Inspection report children’s home: SC476271 3

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Recommendations

 Ensure that staff are familiar with the home’s policies on record keeping and understand the importance of careful, objective, and clear recording. Staff should record information on individual children in a non-stigmatising way that distinguishes between fact, opinion and third-party information. Information about the child must always be recorded in a way that will be helpful to the child. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 62, paragraph 14.4)

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

The same five children have lived together since the last inspection. They feel happy, secure and safe because they have developed deep and trusting relationships with staff. Children receive outstanding care from a consistent group of highly motivated and skilled staff. Staff work extremely well together and are well organised, active, sensitive and insightful. As a result, children make outstanding progress in all areas. One child said, ‘Everything is perfect.’ Another child said, ‘The adults work well to look after me.’

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

Children’s emotional and physical health improves significantly. This improvement stems from the immense love and security that the staff and the manager consistently give to each child. One child said, ‘I love my key carer and the other adults.’ Staff carefully plan children’s sessions with their therapist and life story worker and ensure that they are helped to make the most of every session. Similarly, staff take responsibility to ensure that each child develops helpful positive interests and friendships. For example, one child said, ‘I go to cubs and swimming and [key carer] is getting me into acting club.’ Another child said, ‘I have achieved going to school and working hard, not running away, seeing my sisters and losing two stone, so I am healthy. I want to practise being truthful, listening to advice from adults, talking to new people and friends, and doing my hobbies.’

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

Staff and the manager play an enormous role in shaping children’s future plans. They explain to social workers and reviewing officers what children need and find ways to provide it. They help even the most traumatised children to take part in their ‘looked after child’ review meetings. Also and supportively, they find ways to help children see their relatives and former carers. They support children to give evidence for criminal investigations. Most of all, staff’s sensitive and insightful love and care helps children move on from their trauma and approach their future with more confidence. One social worker said, ‘This is a fantastic placement. It’s a shame that we do not have provisions like this closer to [placing local authority].’

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

Each child has made outstanding progress because they feel listened to and cared for. Inspection report children’s home: SC476271 4 One child has taken part in a group holiday for the first time, after being excluded from all holidays by their previous carers. The manager took another child on a trip to revisit her home area to see places and people that she remembers there. This boosted the child’s self-esteem enormously and she is now more motivated about her future. Her independent reviewing officer said, ‘Seeing her content and confident and happy to see us and join in her meeting is the best thing.’ All the children attend the organisation’s school. They recently took part in a talent show there. Some of the children have progressed so much that moves to mainstream school and foster homes are being planned.

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

All staff show real skill at keeping children safe, while teaching them to take increasing responsibility for their behaviour and personal safety. Staff are always vigilant and attentive. They explain to children what is okay and what is not; making sure that children understand and reminding them regularly about what to do. Staff advise, support, listen, help, and most of all, praise children’s every positive achievement. Therefore children learn to cope better with their difficulties and behave in a safe and acceptable way. One child said, ‘I like being praised,’ and another said, ‘I like the reward chart.’ Another child’s independent reviewing officer said, ‘[Child] has made excellent progress at [home]. She is calmer, has developed physically and emotionally into a more mature young person and she is now able to participate in meetings with adult professionals and carers around her, which is a major milestone.’ No children now self-

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

Children receive help and protection that continues to help them long after they have moved to foster care and independent living. For example, children are supported to make friends and belong to clubs in the community. Children are taught what safe and acceptable touch is and how to manage sexual feelings. Staff spend time with children, both individually and as a group, talking about risk-taking behaviour. Therapists and life story workers contribute to this too, discussing the impact of issues like drug and alcohol misuse, violence and sexual abuse. Staff think about ways to test out what children understand and will assess this in social situations. For example, staff sometimes welcome children’s friends to play or help them to meet up for an activity. Staff and the manager make well-considered decisions about when it is right to let a child take certain risks. They revisit subjects from a different perspective and reinforce earlier messages if

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

something has gone wrong. As a result, children trust staff and go to them for help. Furthermore, children go on to make safe decisions when they are older. One young person who once lived here recently bumped into his key worker in the community. He said, ‘You saved my life.’

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

Staff show excellent skill and insight in their safeguarding practice. This means that staff rarely need to restrain any child. They use a calm, reassuring approach and recognise that children need to feel that they are listened to and have some control and choice about what happens to them. Staff are confident and experienced in their work, providing children with consistent help and protection over a period of several years in some cases. One member of staff said, ‘It is easy to look on the surface as opposed to Inspection report children’s home: SC476271 5 seeing what [child] is like underneath – he is not the sum of his abuse! It’s not about us taking control of the child, it’s about them taking control of themselves, with us teaching them and showing a different way of doing things.’ However, there is a slight shortfall in how staff record incidents of unacceptable behaviour and individual sessions to make

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

sure that these records are as useful to children as well as staff.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

The manager has been registered for over four years and has achieved consistently outstanding results here. She has deep, nurturing relationships with all of the children and inspires staff to have the same. Her warm, hands-on and enthusiastic leadership is exemplary. She is always at the home and is there to accompany children to take part in anything and everything: from fundraising runs to therapy sessions; from police interviews to children in care awards ceremonies.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

The registered manager ensures that she and her staff know exactly where each child is up to educationally, emotionally and behaviourally. She and staff share information constantly and consider how best to promote children’s outcomes. For example, they have changed their approach to educating children and helping them with homework.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

The manager and staff are a successful team. The manager describes staff as, ‘established but not complacent’. They strive to address the reasons behind children’s behaviour rather than simply the presenting issues. They say, ‘We must fix the reason.’

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

The manager’s work with local authorities is outstanding. She makes sure that each child’s voice is heard by social workers and reviewing officers and ensures that each child’s care plan is ambitious, yet clear and realistic. One child’s social worker said, ‘She has been brilliant – she will go out with [child] and will make sure that everyone is consistent.’ Equally, quality assurance teams monitoring the home tell the manager that they are reassured by seeing the progress being made by the children that they have placed.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

The manager rigorously monitors the work of staff and the progress of children. She tirelessly seeks new and better ways to help children. She finds up-to-date teaching resources and encourages staff to read and research for themselves. She said, ‘We are doing really targeted work with all the children compared to last year. I am being more rigorous about staff taking action and addressing things – having discussions and being more passionate. We use researched-based therapeutic care techniques like curiosity and empathy. We take opportunities as they arise, for example, to talk about child sexual exploitation. The staff dynamics are even better; staff have developed and staff are still here. Our level of attention to children has not been provided to them by previous placements.’

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Information about this inspection

Inspection report children’s home: SC476271 6 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: SC476271 7

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Cambian Childcare Limited

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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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Inspector

Rachel Britten, social care inspector Inspection report children’s home: SC476271 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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