Children's Home run by Fairport Care Services Ltd in Kent

Inspection report children‘s home: SC066129 1 SC066129 Registered provider: Fairport Care Services 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 privately owned children‘s home is registered to provide care and accommodation for up to five children. The statement of purpose states that the home accommodates children aged 8–18 who are deemed to require help in a residential specialist resource. The manager was registered with Ofsted in 2008.

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Overall experiences and progress of

children and young people, taking into account

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inadequate

How well children and young people are helped and protected inadequate

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inadequate

The effectiveness of leaders and managers inadequate

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inadequate

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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inadequate

Date of last inspection: 14 November 2017

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inadequate

Overall judgement at last inspection: good Inspection report children‘s home: SC066129 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

14/11/2017 Full Good 30/03/2017 Interim Sustained effectiveness 07/12/2016 Full Good 16/03/2016 Interim Sustained effectiveness Inspection report children‘s home: SC066129 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 quality and purpose of care standard is that children receive care from staff who—

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Requirement Due date

understand the children‘s home‘s overall aims and the outcomes it seeks to achieve for children;

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use this understanding to deliver care that meets children‘s needs and supports them to fulfil their potential.

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

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understand and apply the home‘s statement of purpose;

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provide personalised care that meets each child‘s needs, as recorded in the child‘s relevant plans, taking account of the child‘s background;

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make decisions about the day-to-day arrangements for each child, in accordance with the child‘s relevant plans, which give the child an appropriate degree of freedom and choice.

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ensure that the premises used for the purposes of the home are designed and furnished so as to—

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meet the needs of each child; (Regulation 6 (1)(a)(b)(2)(b)(iv)(ix)(c)(i)) 26/07/2018

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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 26/06/2018 Inspection report children‘s home: SC066129 4 registered person to ensure— that staff—

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Requirement Due date

assess whether each child is at risk of harm, taking into account information in the child‘s relevant plans, and, if necessary, make arrangements to reduce the risk of any harm to the child;

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Requirement Due date

help each child to understand how to keep safe;

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Requirement Due date

have the skills to identify and act upon signs that a child is at risk of harm;

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Requirement Due date

understand the roles and responsibilities in relation to protecting children that are assigned to them by the registered person;

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Requirement Due date

take effective action whenever there is a serious concern about a child‘s welfare; and

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Requirement Due date

are familiar with, and act in accordance with, the home‘s child protection policies.

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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 premises used for the purposes of the home are designed, furnished and maintained so as to protect each child from avoidable hazards to the child‘s health. (Regulation 12 (1)(2)(a)(i)(ii)(iii)(v)(vi)(vii)(d)) *The leadership and management standard is that the registered person enables, inspires and leads a culture in relation to the children‘s home that—

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helps children aspire to fulfil their potential; and promotes their welfare.

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

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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;

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ensure that staff work as a team where appropriate;

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ensure that staff have the experience, qualifications and skills to meet the needs of each child; 26/06/2018 Inspection report children‘s home: SC066129 5 ensure that the home has sufficient staff to provide care for each child;

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ensure that the home‘s workforce provides continuity of care to each child;

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understand the impact that the quality of care provided in the home is having on the progress and experiences of each child and use this understanding to inform the development of the quality of care provided in the home;

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use monitoring and review systems to make continuous improvements in the quality of care provided in the home.

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(Regulation 13 (1)(a)(b)(2)(a)(b)(c)(d)(e)(f)(h))

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The care planning standard is that children— receive effectively planned care in or through the children‘s home. (Regulation 14 (1)(a)) 26/07/2018

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Restraint in relation to a child is only permitted for the purpose of preventing—

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injury to any person (including the child); serious damage to the property of any person (including the child); or a child who is accommodated in a secure children‘s home from absconding from the home.

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Restraint in relation to a child must be necessary and proportionate. (Regulation 20 (1)(a)(b)(c)(2)) 26/06/2018

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*After consultation with the fire and rescue authority, the registered person must—

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take adequate precautions against the risk of fire, including the provision of suitable fire equipment in the children‘s home; and

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Requirement Due date

provide adequate means of escape from the home in the event of a fire (Regulation 25 (1)(a)(b)) 05/06/2018 Inspection report children‘s home: SC066129 6 A responsible individual must— have the capacity, experience and skills to supervise the management of the home, or the homes, in respect of which the responsible individual is nominated . (Regulation 26 (7)(b)) 26/07/2018

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The registered person must ensure that all employees —

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undertake appropriate continuing professional development. (Regulation 33 (4)(a)) Specifically, ensure that safeguarding and physical restraint training is provided in a timely manner and does not lapse. 26/07/2018

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The registered person must maintain records (―case records‖) for each child which—

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include the information and documents listed in Schedule 3 in relation to each child; are kept up to date; and are signed and dated by the author of each entry. (Regulation 36 (1)(a)(b))

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In particular, ensure that children‘s records are in place, regularly updated, and each update and entry is signed and dated. 26/07/2018

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Requirement Due date

* These requirements are subject to a compliance notice

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Recommendations

 The registered person should ensure that all incidents of control, discipline and restraint are subject to systems of regular scrutiny to ensure that their use is fair and the above principles as set out in 9.35 are respected. (‗Guide to the children‘s homes regulations including the quality standards‘, page 46, paragraph 9.36) In particular, ensure that staff are consistent in applying agreed sanctions, and that the registered manager records and shares her analysis of physical interventions with relevant professionals.  The registered person should actively seek independent scrutiny of the home and make best use of information from independent and internal monitoring (including under regulations 44 and 45) to ensure continuous improvement. They should be skilled in anticipating difficulties and reviewing incidents, such as learning from disruptions and placement breakdowns. They are responsible for

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Recommendations

proactively implementing lessons learned and sustaining good practice. (‗Guide to the children‘s home regulations including the quality standards‘, page 55, paragraph 10.24) Inspection report children‘s home: SC066129 7

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

Children live in an unsafe physical environment which places their safety and welfare at serious risk of harm. Fire safety measures are inadequate, albeit emergency remedial action was instigated prior to the publication of this report. Areas of the home are poorly maintained and unclean. This is hazardous to children‘s safety, health and well-being.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

Staff fail to demonstrate a sufficient understanding of the needs and vulnerabilities of the children. Therefore, the children are not protected. One example is the absence of first floor window restrictors. In spite of children climbing out, no review has been conducted. The inspector was told that the children do not want window restrictors. Such practice is unsafe and it overburdens children with influencing decisions that are beyond their understanding.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

Staff fail to make adequate plans when children move in. The most recent example shows a failure to identify the impact of the change of dynamics, including the potential risks. An increase in incidents occurred and no clear strategies were in place to guide staff to manage these incidents or to be proactive in reducing their likelihood. Children were able to make unsafe decisions and choices.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

Children‘s progress cannot be accurately measured due to poor care planning. One child has lived in the home for seven months without a care plan. Consequently, there are no clear aims of the placement for the child or the staff to work towards. Ad-hoc key- working sessions are unstructured. This lack of clarity hinders a targeted approach towards meeting the child‘s needs.

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

A poor safeguarding culture fails to recognise and mitigate obvious risks and hazards. Routine health and safety checks are not conducted; hence, deteriorating equipment, such as fire protection to high-risk areas, has gone unnoticed. Combined with the routine locking of exit doors, the risk of serious harm was increased, in the event of a fire.

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

Staff say that these measures are used at night. However, during the inspection, the back door was locked in the afternoon. Keys are held by staff and are needed to exit the building. Consequently, anyone inside without keys is compromised should they need to exit independently in an emergency.

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

Children are not protected through poor risk management in respect of their own behaviours and vulnerabilities. One child‘s referral information describes risks associated with child sexual exploitation but this has not been sufficiently assessed or shared with the staff. There is no clear strategy guidance to enable the staff to protect the child. Nor does the absence of such guidance help the staff to equip children to think about and learn how to protect themselves. Inspection report children‘s home: SC066129 8 Another example includes a new staff member being able to take a child out in a car, despite the registered manager‘s knowledge of the significant risks that this child posed in vehicles. A dangerous near-miss incident occurred and this has not been explored or reviewed. The chance of reoccurrence remains high.

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

On one occasion, the registered manager failed to report a disclosure made by a child to the designated officer. Such practice is in direct contrast to the home‘s policies and compromises the ability of safeguarding agencies to respond in a timely manner.

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

Although children‘s episodes of going missing have decreased in recent months, the records do not always include the critical details when missing behaviour does occur. One example failed to state where the child was located, the length of time missing or the child‘s presentation upon return. Such omissions make it difficult to analyse missing behaviours and to use such episodes to review care planning arrangements and update assessments of risk.

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

Restrictive measures are implemented without assessment. Nor are there specific individual agreements with placing authorities. One child has been physically restrained and prevented from leaving by staff locking doors, despite no immediate or justified danger. On one occasion, these measures resulted in a serious near-miss, when the child exited the building from a first floor window.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Inadequate fire safety arrangements had gone unnoticed by leaders and managers. Serious practice concerns, including the use of restrictive methods, inadequate risk management and poor care planning, had become the norm. Leaders and managers are failing to maintain adequate standards of care for the children and these serious omissions have also gone unnoticed by the independent visitor.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

A tired staff team is led by a registered manager and deputy who work many care shifts, due to staffing shortages. Monitoring and necessary administrative tasks have fallen behind and the registered manager is not up to date with areas of current practice. She has not familiarised herself with the social care common inspection framework that was published in April 2017, for example. Children‘s records are incomplete, poor quality or missing entirely.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Supervision for staff is infrequent. Staff have raised concerns about the dynamics in the home, in particular feeling tired and being targeted by the children. Supervision records do not show managers to be responding to these concerns or developing staff‘s skills and performance. Some new staff members have quickly left without notice. Children are experiencing additional losses and disruption.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Inconsistent training provision adversely affects the staff team‘s ability to refresh their existing skills and knowledge. The quality of the care provided is compromised and Inspection report children‘s home: SC066129 9 potentially unsafe; for example, overdue refresher safeguarding and restraint training for some staff. Such omissions compromise the staff‘s ability to care for the children safely or in accordance with the aims and ethos described in the statement of purpose.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

External monitoring, such as the independent visitor, fails to rigorously scrutinise the quality of the care provided to the children. Consequently, the significant shortfalls identified at this inspection have gone unnoticed by each layer of leadership and management.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Leaders and managers are failing to demonstrate sufficient capacity to fulfil their roles and responsibilities to the children and the staff. Appropriate remedial action to address serious safety concerns was prompted by this inspection. It of serious concern that leaders and managers had failed to recognise these issues themselves.

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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: SC066129 10

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Fairport Care Services Ltd

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: Bank Chambers, 1 Central Avenue, Sittingbourne ME10 4AE

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Inspector

Sarah Olliver, social care inspector Inspection report children‘s home: SC066129 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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Inspector

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Inspector

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Inspector

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