Children's Home run by Hexagon Care Services Limited in Lancashire

Inspection report children‟s home: SC479649 1 SC479649 Registered provider: Hexagon Care Services 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 owned and managed by a private organisation. It provides care and accommodation for up to six boys aged between 10 and 18 years. There has been no registered manager since January 2018. An application to register the current manager is in progress.

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Overall experiences and progress of

children and young people, taking into account

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requires improvement to be good

How well children and young people are helped and protected requires improvement to be good

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requires improvement to be good

The effectiveness of leaders and managers requires improvement to be good

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requires improvement to be good

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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requires improvement to be good

Date of last inspection: 5 February 2018

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requires improvement to be good

Overall judgement at last inspection: Declined in effectiveness

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Enforcement action since last inspection:

The home was judged to have declined in its effectiveness on the 5 February 2018 and a compliance notice was issued in relation to inadequate leadership and management. A monitoring visit was completed on 13 March 2017. The provider had taken the necessary steps to comply with steps outlined in the compliance notice. Inspection report children‟s home: SC479649 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

05/02/2018 Interim Declined in effectiveness 25/05/2017 Full Requires improvement to be good 09/03/2017 Interim Improved effectiveness 23/11/2016 Full Requires improvement Inspection report children‟s home: SC479649 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

6: The quality and purpose of care standard

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Requirement Due date

Ensure that children receive care from staff who— In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to understand and apply the home‟s statement of purpose. (Regulation 6(2)(b)(i)) 30/06/2018

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Requirement Due date

6: The quality and purpose of care standard

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Requirement Due date

Ensure that the care is delivered by a person who— has the experience, knowledge and skills to deliver that care. (Regulation 6(3)(c)(i)) 30/06/2018

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Requirement Due date

Ensure children make measurable progress towards achieving their educational potential and are helped to do so ─ promote opportunities for each child to learn informally;

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Requirement Due date

help a child who is excluded from school, or who is of compulsory school age but not attending school, to access educational and training support throughout the period of exclusion or non-attendance and to return to school as soon as possible. (Regulation 8 (2)(v)(viii)) 30/06/2018

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Requirement Due date

Ensure that children are protected from harm and enabled to keep themselves safe

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Requirement Due date

that the home‟s day-to-day care is arranged and delivered so as to keep each child safe and to protect each child effectively from harm (Regulation 12(2)(b)) 30/06/2018

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Requirement Due date

13: The leadership and management standard

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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 that 30/06/2018 Inspection report children‟s home: SC479649 4 ensure that staff have the experience, qualifications and skills to meet the needs of each child. (Regulation 13(2)(a)) 32: Fitness of workers

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must recruit staff using recruitment procedures that are designed to ensure children‟s safety 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 the Level 3 Diploma for Residential Childcare (England) (“the Level 3 Diploma”); or a qualification which the registered person considers to be equivalent to the Level 3 Diploma. (Regulation 32(4)(a)(b)) 30/06/2018

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Recommendations

 Staff should be 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 39, paragraph 14.4)  Any individual appointed to carry out visits to the home as an independent person must make a rigorous and impartial assessment of the home‟s arrangements for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of the children in the home‟s care, in particular obtaining views from social workers, parents and other professionals working with young people from the home. („Guide to the children‟s homes regulations including the quality standards‟, page 65, paragraph

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improvement to be good

Care provided at this home is not yet good enough. Meetings between children and their key-workers are not carried out in accordance with the ethos and values as outlined in the home‟s statement of purpose. Care practice and poor planning result in a disconnection between the work undertaken with children and the targets set out in their care plans and risk assessments. This inhibits the progress made by the children in the areas that are important to their development, now and in the future. Inspection report children‟s home: SC479649 5 Some recordings of daily events have been written insensitively by staff. This includes copying information from one day‟s record of events to the next, changing the child‟s name on documents so that they no longer reflect the individual activities that children have been involved in. This approach reflects a lack of understanding by staff about how children may use these documents, if in the future they should wish to reflect on the

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improvement to be good

time that they have spent at the children‟s home.

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improvement to be good

Staff are proactive in encouraging children to attend education. However, children are not currently receiving 25 hours of education a week. One child is only receiving one hour of education a day. Staff are not ambitious for children and do not support them to do well in their education, as they fail to provide fun educational opportunities and experiences, when children are not in the formal school setting.

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improvement to be good

The majority of the children who have moved on from the home have done so in a planned way. Emergency moves have been necessary for some children, but these moves were in relation to 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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improvement to be good

Children‟s health needs are identified and staff support them to attend all necessary appointments. Children are learning how to improve their health, to address issues such as smoking tobacco and to adopt healthy eating habits, as a result of ongoing staff support.

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improvement to be good

Staff work closely with the social worker to ensure that the parameters and arrangements for safe and purposeful contact are agreed and that any such arrangements are in the best interests of the children.

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improvement to be good

The home presents as a lived-in family home. It is warm, welcoming and comfortable. This is a welcoming environment where children can feel relaxed and safe.

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improvement to be 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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improvement to be good

Fire safety in the home is compromised. One child has been found by staff to be smoking in his bedroom late at night. This has not been adequately addressed in the child‟s risk assessments, and staff have not worked with the child to help him to understand the risks that are associated with this behaviour. Staff made the decision to remove the child‟s PlayStation from his room instead.

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improvement to be good

Staff and managers record consequences and the use of physical interventions appropriately. Children are provided with the opportunity to reflect on and to evaluate Inspection report children‟s home: SC479649 6 the effectiveness of the strategies that staff have used.

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improvement to be good

There has been a significant reduction in the frequency of missing-from-home episodes. However, at times, when such incidents have occurred, staff follow agreed protocols and are proactive in their response to finding their children. This ensures that the children return home as quickly as possible.

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improvement to be good

Behaviour management is consistent and well considered by staff. This enables children to think about their behaviours and modify them when necessary. Appropriate behaviour is encouraged through incentives and positive conversations between children and staff. Both of these strategies have been effective in helping the children to understand the impact of their behaviour on themselves and others.

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improvement to be good

Staff receive regular safeguarding training that enables them to recognise and respond to child protection concerns. Managers and staff respond quickly when concerns arise and liaise well with partner agencies. This helps to protect children from harm.

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improvement to be good

Managers ensure that safe recruitment practice is in place and that all staff are subject to essential checks before starting work, thus promoting young people‟s safety.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: requires improvement to be good

The statement of purpose has recently been updated. However, some of the work carried out with children is not conducive to the ethos and values of the home, as outlined in its statement of purpose. In addition, some staff have not demonstrated their understanding of the home‟s ethos when undertaking key-working sessions with children.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: requires improvement to be good

Independent visitors produce monthly reports on all aspects of the service, but some of the information is over detailed and is not necessary. The reports provide an adequate monitoring tool for the manager. The independent visitor does not always seek the views of parents, social workers and other professionals. This would provide a more rounded picture of how others view the home. The manager reports that he values the input of the independent visitor and uses their findings to inform improvements in practice and outcomes for the children.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: requires improvement to be good

There is currently no registered manager in post. The previous manager vacated his post without full notice in January 2018. A new manager has been appointed, but there has been some delay in the submission of their application form to Ofsted. This has now been completed, and Ofsted is processing the application. The new manager has previously been registered with Ofsted and therefore has experience of managing a residential setting.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: requires improvement to be good

The new manager has begun to effect some positive changes. She demonstrates a detailed knowledge of all aspects of the service and knows the children well. Children reported that they value their relationship with the manager and trust her. One child said that the manager is approachable and that he can talk to the manager about anything Inspection report children‟s home: SC479649 7 which is worrying him.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: requires improvement to be 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 knowledge, particularly relating to radicalisation and county lines.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: requires improvement to be good

Only the manager and one staff member are qualified to a level 3 qualification in children and young people. Four staff members are currently undertaking the course and are expected to complete in September 2019. As a result, there is a significant skills gap within the staffing team and staff‟s lack of experience has been evident throughout the inspection.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: requires improvement to be good

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

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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: SC479649 8

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Hexagon Care Services Limited

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: Unit 1 Tustin Court, Riversway, Preston PR2 2YQ

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Inspector

Elaine Clare, social care inspector Inspection report children‟s home: SC479649 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 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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