Children's Home run by Cambian Childcare Limited in Devon

Inspection report children’s home: SC458352 1 SC458352 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 children’s home is operated by a private national company. It is registered for three children.

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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: none Inspection report children’s home: SC458352 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

08/06/2017 Full Requires improvement to be good 08/03/2017 Interim Declined in effectiveness 09/06/2016 Full Good 24/02/2016 Interim Sustained effectiveness Inspection report children’s home: SC458352 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 positive relationships standard is that children are helped to develop, and to benefit from, relationships based on—

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Requirement Due date

an understanding about acceptable behaviour; and

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Requirement Due date

positive responses to other children and adults.

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Requirement Due date

In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to ensure— that staff—

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Requirement Due date

meet each child’s behavioural and emotional needs, as set out in the child’s relevant plans;

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Requirement Due date

help each child to develop socially aware behaviour;

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Requirement Due date

encourage each child to take responsibility for the child’s behaviour, in accordance with the child’s age and understanding;

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Requirement Due date

help each child to develop and practise skills to resolve conflicts positively and without harm to anyone;

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Requirement Due date

communicate to each child expectations about the child’s behaviour and ensure that the child understands those expectations in accordance with the child’s age and understanding;

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Requirement Due date

help each child to understand, in a way that is appropriate according to the child’s age and understanding, personal, sexual and social relationships, and how those relationships can be supportive or harmful. 31/07/2018 Inspection report children’s home: SC458352 4 In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to ensure—

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Requirement Due date

that each child is encouraged to build and maintain positive relationships with others.

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Requirement Due date

(Regulation 11 (1)(a)(b)(c)(2)(a)(i)(ii)(iii)(iv)(v)(vi) and (2)(b)) 12: The protection of children standard

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Requirement Due date

The protection of children standard is that children are protected from harm and enabled to keep themselves safe.

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Requirement Due date

In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to ensure—

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Requirement Due date

that the effectiveness of the home’s child protection policies is monitored regularly. (Regulation 12 (1)(2)(e))

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Requirement Due date

In particular, this refers to children being missing from home and the individual protocols in place designed to ensure their safe return. 31/05/2018

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Requirement Due date

For the purposes of paragraph (3)(b), an individual who works in the home in a care role has the appropriate qualification if, by the relevant date, the individual has attained—

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Requirement Due date

the Level 3 Diploma for Residential Childcare (England) ("the Level 3 Diploma"); or

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Requirement Due date

a qualification which the registered person considers to be equivalent to the Level 3 Diploma. (Regulation 32 (4)(a)(b)) 30/11/2018

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children receive good-quality, individualised care and support and are making good progress. Very careful and thorough consideration was given by the manager in assessing the needs of the child who most recently moved in, and the impact this may have on children already living there. The manager worked effectively with a range of professionals, including the company’s clinical psychologist, and considered a range of Inspection report children’s home: SC458352 5 research material to inform her decision-making.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children are able to build trusted and secure relationships with the adults who are caring for them. They have a sense of belonging and enjoy a range of positive experiences. The manager and staff listen to children and advocate well for them. Plans are in place to start life-story work with one child, who it is felt will benefit from having a better understanding of their background. The manager and staff feel confident about the strength of the relationship they have with the child and are drawing on specialist advice and training.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Good attention is given to meeting children’s holistic needs. Education is supported well, and where this provision does not meet the child’s individual needs the manager is tenacious in ensuring that this is addressed. Good attention is also given to meeting children’s emotional and psychological needs. The company’s clinical psychologist provides excellent support and also appropriately escalates requests for external services to help promote children’s well-being.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The manager and staff place the well-being of children at the centre of their practice. They understand what has worked well previously and how things may be improved to benefit children further. Children are treated with dignity and respect, and staff are sensitive to their childhood experiences and the impact these have on the way they respond and behave now. During this inspection, the inspector raised the need for the manager and staff to engage more constructively with a child in relation to their particular treatment of a member of staff. This is important work to ensure that the child is enabled to form and sustain healthy relationships in the future.

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

Children feel safe living in this home. They trust staff and also have access to a range of adults external to the home. When incidents occur, there is a strong and proactive response by the manager and staff that reduces actual harm or risk of harm.

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

Children’s behaviour is positively encouraged by incentives and rewards. A range of staff training over the past year has helped staff to understand children’s behaviour better and, as a result, to improve their own responses to children when they are upset or angry. Research-informed practices are also being introduced and together these developments have led to a reduction in serious incidents in the home.

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

When children go missing from the home, they experience a well-coordinated response to find them and keep them safe and an opportunity to discuss their reasons for going missing with someone independent from the home. Expectations about how staff should respond if a child goes missing when they are some distance from the home can be improved. These expectations need to be clearly outlined in the missing from home policy and children’s individual protocols.

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

Staff recruitment processes have been reviewed and improved recently. Senior staff have had further training to help them to make a more thorough assessment of Inspection report children’s home: SC458352 6 suitability. The manager feels that the impact of this training has led to a significant improvement in identifying which candidates have the qualities needed to value, care for and keep children safe.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The manager has been in post since April 2017 and was registered in August 2017. During this time, she has set about transforming the home to create a child-centred ethos. She has demonstrated commitment, enthusiasm and resilience in her role, and the improvements she has made during the past year are evident.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The manager has addressed each of the requirements made at the previous full inspection in June 2017. She is keen to provide a high-quality service and is developing a culture in the home that is characterised by high expectations for all of the children and staff.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

A particular strength of the manager is her ability to reflect on what has gone well and what has not gone well. When things have not gone well, she has ensured that lessons are learned and practices improved to benefit children. A good example of this is the improvements she put in place to ensure that the admission of a third child to the home was likely to be successful. Her creation of a comprehensive impact risk assessment tool is being used by the company to inform careful and considered decision-making around future admissions.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The manager is part way through her level 5 diploma in leadership and management for residential childcare and hopes to complete this by September of this year. Several improvements have been made to the staff team since the previous full inspection. This includes the appointment of a deputy who is also undertaking a level 5 qualification. Staffing issues have been addressed and, although this has led to several staff changes, this has been well managed and staffing has stabilised in the past four months. These changes have resulted in a highly motivated team which shares the manager’s ethos. The provision of staff training has also improved. For example, the two team leaders are due to commence a level 4 qualification. All staff have a personal development plan and a workforce development plan, and the manager is keen to harness their individual potential to benefit the children they are caring for, as well as supporting their career

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

One member of staff is outside of the two-year timescale to achieve a level 3 qualification. This is being addressed and a timescale for completion was agreed at this inspection. Inspection report children’s home: SC458352 7

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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: SC458352 8

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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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Children’s home details

Responsible individual: Victoria Elworthy

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Inspector

Norma Welsby, social care inspector Inspection report children’s home: SC458352 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

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Inspector

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Inspector

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