Children's home run by Horizon Care Limited in Cannock Chase

Inspection report children’s home: SC009648 1 SC009648 Registered provider: Horizon Care 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

The home is one of a range of residential services provided by a private organisation. The home specialises in caring for children and young people who have complex needs and are aged between eight and eighteen years old, who require specialist support.

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Information about this children’s home

The current manager was registered with Ofsted on 8 July 2014 and holds the relevant qualification.

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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: requires improvement to be good

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good

Enforcement action since last inspection: not applicable Inspection report children’s home: SC009648 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

04/07/2017 Full Requires improvement to be good 09/01/2017 Interim Sustained effectiveness 31/05/2016 Full Good 10/03/2016 Interim Improved effectiveness Inspection report children’s home: SC009648 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

The leadership and management standard is that the registered person enables, inspires and leads a culture in relation to the children’s home to ensure that staff have the experience, qualifications and skills to meet the needs of each child. (Regulation 13 (1) and (2)(c))

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Requirement Due date

In particular, ensure that staff have training to meet the needs of individual young people. 24/05/2018

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Recommendations

 Children’s homes staff should encourage children to take a proactive role in looking after their day-to-day health and well-being. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 34, paragraph 7.10) In particular, the policies and procedures regarding young people smoking tobacco must be adhered to.

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Recommendations

 The registered person should have a system in place so that all serious events are notified, within 24 hours, to the appropriate people. The system should cover the action that should be followed if the event arises at the weekend or on a public holiday. Notification must include details of the action taken by the home’s staff in response to the event. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 63, paragraph 14.13)

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children make good progress living here. They benefit from a safe and nurturing environment that reflects their individuality. Staff know the children well and the children have strong and trusting relationships with staff.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children’s placement plans are of a good standard. Information is clear and the documents are easy to navigate. They are child-focused and the reader has a good insight into the child’s journey. Inspection report children’s home: SC009648 4 Staff provide consistent care for children. Staff work together effectively to ensure that children receive positive messages that are empowering and consistent. Children respond well to this approach. Children speak positively about the home. They like living here and can see that staff care about them. Children can identify with the progress that they have made and are happy with their achievements.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff support and encourage children to establish and maintain positive friendships with their friends and family. Children have access to a variety of activities that help build their social skills, confidence and self-esteem.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children attend school regularly. Children make good progress in education, and their attendance and attainment improves. One child recently received a local authority educational achievement award.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children receive the required support and help to meet their health needs. Staff recognise the improvements that children are making. One child has recently had their medication reviewed with a plan to reduce it.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The majority of the children who have moved on from the home have done so in a planned way. Emergency moves have taken place, but this was where there have been safeguarding concerns. In these instances, the home has worked together with local authorities to support the children to make a good transition to their new placement.

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

Staff provide children with a safe place to live. Children are encouraged to take responsibility to keep themselves safe. Staff complete focused and empowering key- working sessions with children to help them with this.

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

Staff are clear about their roles and responsibilities with regard to keeping children safe. Staffing levels are very good, which allows young people to have access to good levels of support that are in line with their individual assessments.

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

Staff have a good understanding of the children’s needs. However, not all risk-taking behaviour is fully understood. This limits the depth of some of the assessments and plans.

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

Staff help children to understand their individual behaviours and support them to manage and regulate these. Staff record incidents to a good standard, and these recordings demonstrate that staff have insight into why children behave the way they do.

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

A clinical psychologist offers support and guidance to staff. This enables staff to have a good understanding of the children’s therapeutic needs and what strategies they should use to help and support the children. Inspection report children’s home: SC009648 5 When children go missing from the home, staff follow the child’s assessment and plan. While staff do this to a good standard, the level of safeguarding risk is not always clear in the assessment and plan. Thus, on occasion there is a delay in the action taken to ensure that a child is safe.

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

When children smoke tobacco, staff do not have a clear assessment and plan in place to reduce this risk-taking behaviour. Staff take some steps to manage this behaviour; however, this is not robust enough.

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

Staff manage safeguarding concerns effectively. They follow procedures well. Recording is clear and provides the reader with a good understanding of the situation and the actions taken.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The registered manager is qualified and has a wealth of experience. The registered manager and the staff have high aspirations for children. They are passionate about the work that they do. The responsible individual is equally as passionate about the children achieving positive outcomes and offers the required support to the registered manager. The home benefits from this leadership.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The registered manager and the staff have worked together to improve the home and address the shortfalls from the last inspection. There are, however, two areas of practice that need further attention.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The training available to staff is good. Nonetheless, staff do not routinely receive all the up-to-date training that they need to meet the children’s needs. Consequently, there are gaps in staff’s up-to-date knowledge. This was an area of improvement identified at the last inspection.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The registered manager and the staff work well with other professionals involved with each of the children. A police officer and a social worker spoke positively about working in partnership with the home.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The registered manager recognises the importance of children’s participation, and has systems in place to gather this feedback. He also has good-quality monitoring systems in place that support the positive developments of the home.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

When notifications to the relevant authorities are required, these are not always done in a timely way. They also, on occasion, miss key information. This was an area of improvement identified at the last inspection. The process for this requires revising and improving further. Inspection report children’s home: SC009648 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: SC009648 7

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Horizon Care Limited

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: Venture House, 12 Prospect Business Park, Longford Road, CANNOCK, Staffordshire WS11 0LG

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Inspector

Lisa Gregoire-Parker, social care inspector Inspection report children’s home: SC009648 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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