Children's Home run by North Yorkshire County Council in North Yorkshire

Inspection report children’s home: SC034235 1 SC034235 Registered provider: North Yorkshire 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 registered to accommodate up to six children and young people who have emotional and/or behavioural difficulties. It is approved for a further two young people in off-site accommodation for up to 28 days. It is operated by a local authority and accepts both planned and emergency admissions.

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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 Inspection report children’s home: SC034235 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 young people receive excellent, highly effective, warm and nurturing care from a team of dedicated staff who have extensive experience.  The young people develop trusting relationships and form strong attachments with staff. Many return to the home as adults for ongoing support.  The young people benefit from services working closely together to provide a collaborative approach to address their holistic needs.  The manager and staff have high aspirations for young people and make sure they have bespoke education packages to help them succeed.  Risk management is robust. Staff keep young people safe at the home and in the community with effective multi-agency working. The young people develop self-protection skills and strategies to keep themselves safe.  Effective behaviour management strategies include staff reinforcing positive behaviours. Preventative and restorative practices stop young people from

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Key findings from this inspection

being criminalised.  The manager and staff team are passionate, enthusiastic and committed.

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

23/03/2017 Interim Sustained effectiveness 19/10/2016 Full Outstanding 24/03/2016 Interim Sustained effectiveness 06/01/2016 Full Outstanding Inspection report children’s home: SC034235 3

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

One of the key strengths of the home is that the dedicated staff team spend their time getting to know young people. Staff provide young people with extensive support and guidance, understand their needs and take an active interest in their well-being. Young people benefit from living in a home where staff genuinely care and are determined to help them to succeed. There are high-quality relationships between staff and young people, which leads to strong attachments being formed. This provides young people with ongoing support and enduring, trusting relationships into their adulthood.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

Many ex-residents choose to remain in contact with staff for years after they leave. They are positive role models for the current residents and participate in a focus group about the experiences of young people in residential care. One said: ‘Staff really helped me turn my life around. Staff care about me and are there for me.’

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

The young people make progress from their starting points and their lives are positively changed as a result of staff’s dedication and input. This includes improvements in social interactions and emotional well-being, which leads to raised self-esteem. Young people have a multitude of experiences such as day trips and holidays. Staff are creative and seek out individual opportunities, linking these in with young people’s interests or aspirations.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

The young people benefit from a multi-agency approach to their care including the in- house specialists such as clinicians. Identifying need, developing individualised plans and case management are areas that are extremely well coordinated. The involvement of the speech and language therapist ensures that young people’s communication needs are identified and met. Consequently, staff deliver information in the best format for each young person. Documents are highly child-focused and incorporate young people’s views about the targets they want to meet. Young people are empowered to take ownership for their planning now and in the future.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

The staff team is passionate about young people’s education, and excellent links are made with educational professionals. This provides a collaborative approach for those who struggle to engage in education. Staff challenge and advocate on behalf of young people to ensure that they receive bespoke education packages. Staff provide the necessary support to make education a positive experience, such as transporting a young person to and from school. The staff team has made good links with employers in the community who provide young people with work experience opportunities. Young people also undertake voluntary work, with St John’s Ambulance for example, and help with the local Christmas toy donation scheme. One young person recently helped neighbours and received a commendation for his work during the recent flooding in the area. Young people take pride in helping out the community and those in need.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

Young people receive excellent care provided by a motivated, committed and nurturing staff team. This includes high levels of emotional support from staff and the in-house life Inspection report children’s home: SC034235 4 coach. The highly intuitive staff team helps young people to talk about their emotions. Young people begin to trust the adults around them and so they engage in therapy. This therapeutic intervention continues when they leave the home. This ensures that there is no disruption of a young person’s relationship with their therapist and that they have ongoing emotional support into their adulthood.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

Experienced staff provide outreach work for those young people who need family intervention work to maintain relationships with parents or foster carers. Staff are highly instrumental in forming links and developing excellent relationships with these young people and their families. Staff’s practical and emotional support allows young people to rebuild relationships with those important to them. Many young people return home, and staff provide ongoing support so they can remain with family. One parent said: ‘The staff are supporting me to visit [name of young person], which is most helpful. I thank them for the work done over the years.’

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

Young people benefit from developing independent living skills such as cooking, baking and self-care. One young person spoke of his enjoyment at cooking spaghetti bolognaise for staff. Some can move into a flat to test whether they are ready to move into independent accommodation. Staff continue to monitor and support young people, preparing them for the challenges involved with living alone. For those not quite ready, they have the security of knowing they are able to return to receive further support and encouragement.

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

There is a strong safeguarding culture within the team. Staff understand how young people’s previous experiences of neglect and trauma affect their emotional well-being and behaviour. The in-house clinical team provides ongoing reflection and advice so that staff mirror and adjust their responses to young people. This brings an openness within the staff team to discuss their reaction to young people’s risk-taking behaviours. Staff feel supported, building their own resilience, particularly when faced with young people who continue to put themselves at high levels of risk. Young people speak of feeling safe living at the home as a result of staff’s prompt and decisive action.

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

The staff team’s robust and continuous attention to risk management helps to protect young people from harm. Young people are involved in the completion of their risk assessments, bringing essential personal information about their risk-taking behaviours. Staff, committed to keeping young people safe, use this information to allow young people to learn from their own mistakes as part of growing up and becoming more independent. Young people are open about their behaviours, such as their misuse of drugs and alcohol. This provides opportunities for staff to provide them with advice, support and education. Young people learn how to keep themselves safe and they begin to take responsibility for their own actions.

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

For those young people who continue to go missing or are involved in criminal behaviour, meetings held with other professionals, such as health, social care and police, offer a multi-agency approach. This results in carefully planned and agreed strategies for Inspection report children’s home: SC034235 5 all agencies. For some, this excellent collaborative working has led to a reduction in their self-harming behaviours and missing from home episodes. Consequently, young people are at reduced risk of exploitation. One said: ‘I used to always go missing, but don’t anymore.’

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

Staff are excellent role models for young people, and provide guidance and encourage positive social skills and behaviour. This takes place during informal chats and within the high-quality individualised work undertaken. Detailed behaviour support plans give staff guidance on how to manage young people’s behaviour. Staff help young people to explore how to manage their frustrations and develop alternative ways to convey their feelings and emotions.

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

The young people respond well to alternative recorded behaviour management strategies and staff use distractions, redirection and communication effectively to keep young people calm. Restraints are very rarely used and only to keep young people and others safe. Staff reinforce positive behaviour and use preventative and restorative practices. As a consequence, young people are not unnecessarily criminalised. These approaches have led to a reduction in negative behaviours, and one young person proudly showed the inspector the room he was painting in preparation for damage caused, saying: ‘It also gives a chance for me to learn painting skills.’

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

A committed and skilled leadership and management team leads the service. The manager has significant experience working in residential care, including in managerial roles. He has worked at the home for many years and has been in the management post since August 2013. The manager is suitably qualified, keeping up to date with new guidelines, research and current issues, imparting this knowledge to the staff team. He is a member of different forums, discussing relevant issues such as education outcomes for young people in residential care.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

An equally experienced deputy manager supports him. They complement each other with their skills, making them a well-organised, meticulous and highly effective management team. They are exemplary role models who provide strong leadership to staff. Both have excellent relationships with young people, are child-focused, and know the young people exceptionally well. Together with the other managers, they maintain a thorough, effective oversight of young people’s behaviour, needs and progress. The manager and staff team are passionate, enthusiastic and committed. Young people benefit from the continuity of care from this stable team, with some staff working at the home for many years.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

Staff benefit from the regular supervision, training and support, and managers encourage research-based practice and ongoing reflection of work. Speakers attend team meetings to share their knowledge. This enables a wide range of opportunities for staff’s personal and professional development. There is a commitment to promote staff to higher positions. Staff’s dedication to working at the home and achieving the best outcomes for young people makes them strong advocates for young people. Inspection report children’s home: SC034235 6 There is excellent partnership working and communication between the service and other agencies and families, who speak positively about the staff team. The regular consultation with stakeholders and young people helps the manager to evaluate the service through the quality of care review. The independent visitor thoroughly monitors the service, providing independent scrutiny of the home. Feedback highlights that young

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

people benefit from services working closely together to provide a collaborative approach to address their holistic needs. Managers and leaders are forward thinking and have clear plans to improve the service further.

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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: SC034235 7

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: North Yorkshire County Council, County Hall, Northallerton DL7 8AD

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Children’s home details

Responsible individual: Janice Nicholson

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Inspector

Tina Ruffles, social care inspector Inspection report children’s home: SC034235 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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