Children's home run by Sherico Care Services Limited in Westminster

Inspection report children’s home: SC022880 1 SC022880 Registered provider: Sherico 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 one of several homes owned by a private organisation. The home is registered to provide care and accommodation for up to six children as specified within the home’s statement of purpose.

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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 inadequate

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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

Overall judgement at last inspection: inadequate

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requires improvement to be good

Enforcement action since last inspection: none Inspection report children’s home: SC022880 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

09/10/2017 Full Inadequate 25/07/2017 Full Inadequate 21/03/2017 Interim Sustained effectiveness 13/09/2016 Full Requires improvement Inspection report children’s home: SC022880 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 that—

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Requirement Due date

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

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Requirement Due date

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

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Requirement Due date

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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Requirement Due date

ensure that staff have the experience, qualifications and skills to meet the needs of each child;

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Requirement Due date

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

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Requirement Due date

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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Requirement Due date

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

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Requirement Due date

(Regulation 13(1)(a)(b)(2)(a)(c)(e)(f)(h)) 30/09/2018

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Requirement Due date

After completing a quality of care review, the registered person must produce a written report about the quality of care review and the actions which the registered person intends to take as a 30/09/2018 Inspection report children’s home: SC022880 4 result of the quality of care review ("the quality of care review report").

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Requirement Due date

(Regulation 45(3)) The quality and purpose of care standard

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Requirement Due date

In order to meet the quality and purpose of care standard, the registered provider must ensure—

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Requirement Due date

protect and promote each child’s welfare;

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Requirement Due date

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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Requirement Due date

provide to children living in the home the physical necessities they need in order to live there comfortably.

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Requirement Due date

This is in relation to staff understanding safeguarding processes, ensuring that they read children’s risk assessments and ensure basic food hygiene processes (fridge temperatures). 30/09/2018

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Requirement Due date

Fitness of workers The requirements are that—

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Requirement Due date

The individual has the appropriate experience, qualification and skills for the work that the individual is to perform.

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Requirement Due date

Full and satisfactory information is available in relation to the individual in respect of each of the matters in Schedule 2.

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Requirement Due date

No measure of control or discipline which is excessive, unreasonable or contrary to paragraph (2) may be used in relation to any child.

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Requirement Due date

The following measures may not be used to discipline any child—

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Requirement Due date

imposing a financial penalty, other than a requirement for the payment of a reasonable sum (which may be by instalments) by way of reparation. 30/09/2018 Inspection report children’s home: SC022880 5 (Regulation 19(2)(f)) Statement of purpose

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must compile in relation to the children’s home a statement ("the statement of purpose") which covers the matters listed in Schedule 1.

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Requirement Due date

Subject to paragraph (6), the registered person must ensure that the home is at all times conducted in a manner which is consistent with its statement of purpose.

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Requirement Due date

This is specifically in relation to ensuring that newly appointed staff receive fortnightly supervision for six months as described in the statement of purpose. 30/09/2018

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must compile in relation to the children’s home a statement ("the statement of purpose") which covers the matters listed in Schedule 1.

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Requirement Due date

keep the statement of purpose under review and, where appropriate, revise it; and

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Requirement Due date

notify HMCI of any revisions and send HMCI a copy of the revised statement within 28 days of the revision.

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Requirement Due date

This is specifically in relation to the information about notifications, which refers to the old regulations. 30/09/2018

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Requirement Due date

The registered provider must appoint a person to manage the children’s home if—

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Requirement Due date

there is no registered manager in respect of the home; and

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Requirement Due date

If the registered provider appoints a person to manage the 30/09/2018 Inspection report children’s home: SC022880 6 home, the registered provider must, without delay, give HMCI notice of—

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Requirement Due date

the name of the person so appointed; and

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Requirement Due date

the date on which the appointment takes effect.

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Requirement Due date

(Regulation 27(1)(a)(b)(2)(a)(b)) Behaviour management policies and records

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must prepare and implement a policy ("the behaviour management policy") which sets out—

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Requirement Due date

the measures of control, discipline and restraint which may be used in relation to children in the home.

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Requirement Due date

This is specifically in relation to ensuring that there is one clear policy on behaviour management which details what restraint techniques will be used. 30/09/2018

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Requirement Due date

maintain in the home the records in Schedule 4;

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Requirement Due date

ensure that the records are kept up to date.

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Requirement Due date

In particular, a register of children’s admission and discharge, a copy of the staff duty roster of persons working at the home and a record of the actual rosters worked must be maintained. 30/09/2018

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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) Inspection report children’s home: SC022880 7

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improvement to be good

Children live in a home where leadership and management are not effective. The impact of this is inconsistent quality of care and an inconsistent approach from staff. These inconsistencies have a negative impact on the outcomes and progress for children.

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improvement to be good

Children have individual activity planners, but there is little evidence that they engage with them in any meaningful way. Children lack structure, guidance and challenge from staff. This results in children getting up late, going to bed late, smoking freely in front of staff and lacking any clear routine to their days. There is a lack of any incentives and boundaries to promote better routines for educational activity. For example, children who are not in education are allowed to watch television and play computer games during school hours.

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improvement to be good

The staff at the home try to promote education and learning, and work with the virtual school to support children who are not in formal education. One child is supported to attend a vocational course once a week. Staff encourage home and online tuition, and advocate for alternative provision to try and engage children. Unfortunately, the lack of consistent routines has prevented this approach from being more successful.

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improvement to be good

Children have built relationships with some of the staff, however inconsistent care does not support ongoing progress. One child has had six different key workers over the course of eight key-work sessions. This does not promote continuity of care or forge strong relationships. Children need to build up trust if difficult issues and behaviour are to be challenged.

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improvement to be good

Children have made some progress. Incidents of children going missing from the home have reduced, due to the support children receive from staff. Children have been encouraged to attend activities in the community, through collaborative work with a youth service worker. Staff support children to access routine health services and have worked with placing authorities to support children’s emotional health needs, when required.

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improvement to be good

A social worker said that communication was good; the staff provided reports and kept him updated, and overall, despite some blips, the child concerned was making progress.

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improvement to be good

Children know how to complain and have been able to use the complaints process when they have not felt happy about something in the home. There are regular residents’ meetings and the staff have introduced a ‘grumbles’ book to ensure that children’s voices are heard.

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improvement to be good

The staff work with children who have high levels of vulnerability, and where there are significant concerns about behaviour and complexity of need. Such high needs have meant that children have lived at the home without any other children. Although this has Inspection report children’s home: SC022880 8 helped these children to be more settled and present fewer challenges than they may have otherwise have presented, it has not helped to address their inclusion and socialisation needs.

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improvement to be good

The staff have built positive relationships with family members and facilitated positive contact in the community and other children’s homes. Staff have worked hard to build these relationships and thus promote contact.

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improvement to be good

Children are encouraged to learn to look after themselves, through cooking simple meals, having support to do their laundry and cleaning their rooms.

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improvement to be good

Risks are identified when children are admitted to the home, but they are not well understood by staff or overseen consistently by managers. Although there are risk assessments and behaviour management plans on file, not all staff have read these documents, and risk assessments are not routinely updated following incidents.

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improvement to be good

Inexperienced staff work together on shifts overnight. Some staff have not received safeguarding training or had any training on how to manage challenging behaviours. Some of the staff spoken to were not sure how to report child protection concerns, although staff did understood what to do when children go missing from home.

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improvement to be good

There is no evidence that the staff team members discuss and plan together how they will approach and manage children’s behaviour. Incidents escalate quickly, and the police have been called to support staff to manage children’s behaviour. Important decisions about levels of staffing required for children in the community are not recorded.

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improvement to be good

Sanctions are not consistently applied. The records do not clearly identify if the sanction is a one-off or an ongoing sanction, or sometimes even what the sanction is. Records are not always clearly signed off or overseen by a manager. One sanction given was in breach of regulations, fining a child for inappropriate behaviour.

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improvement to be good

Restraint is rarely used. The statement of purpose and the behaviour management policy detail that restraints will be used but do not specify what these are. The behaviour management policy itself is confusing. There are currently at least four policies that deal with behaviour management in the home. Not all staff have been trained in restraint technique, and rosters do not always allow for at least one trained member of staff to be on shift.

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improvement to be good

Regular and appropriate notifications of serious incidents or events are being sent to Ofsted. However, these do not always arrive in a timely way. Leaders and managers do not have a system in place to make prompt notifications, thus ensuring that the regulator knows what is happening at the home. Inspection report children’s home: SC022880 9 The home decoration is much improved. Rooms are well furnished and decorated. Despite this, some of the tiles along the wall in the back garden are loose and could cause injury if they fell. Furthermore, fridge temperatures are not routinely checked, and the thermometer was found to be giving inaccurate readings and did not match recorded temperatures.

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improvement to be good

Staff recruitment checks are completed when new workers come to work in the home. However, inspectors found that two recently employed staff members had not been asked to account for gaps in their employment history. Ensuring that all checks are undertaken helps to improve safety by enabling managers to understand potential staff members’ backgrounds.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

There is no registered manager at the home, and the home has been without a manager for over 26 weeks. This shortfall alone automatically makes leadership and management inadequate. The last registered manager left in August 2017 and there have been several interim managers since. The responsible individual told inspectors that there was no proposed manager and that interviews were still taking place. The provider has not informed Ofsted of the name of any proposed manager, so future management arrangements are unclear.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

The home is not run in any consistent way that can drive or sustain good quality care for children. Individual staff and managers have skills and some show good commitment; however, the senior leadership and management team does not retain staff. The responsible individual advised inspectors that senior staff are looking at these issues and how they can develop the existing staff team.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Staff receive a limited induction. They receive a lot of their training online and tend to complete lots of courses in a short space of time. Not all staff have completed safeguarding or managing challenging behaviour training, and on occasions there have been no staff on shift with appropriate training and experience. Although no children have come to any harm, this is not safe practice.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

External monitoring of the home has improved over the past few months. An independent person visits the home once a month and sends a report to Ofsted. However, the leaders and managers were unclear at this inspection about whether this independent visitor would continue in their role.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

The deputy manager was in the process of completing a review of the quality of care provided at the home. This has subsequently been received by Ofsted; however, the review covers the wrong review period. There remains a period of time from November 2017 until April 2018 when no review took place. This means that the home has failed to assess, over a significant period of time, the quality of care that it provides to young people.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

The leaders and managers are not meeting their stated aims and objectives, as set out Inspection report children’s home: SC022880 10 within their statement of purpose, on two counts. Firstly, the newly appointed staff do not receive supervision in line with the agreed levels in the statement of purpose. Secondly the statement of purpose refers to the old children’s homes regulations with respect to notifications.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Shortfalls were also identified in record-keeping. Discrepancies in the duty rosters and the staff signing-in book mean it is difficult to identify which staff were on duty and when. The children’s register contains minor errors, for example no details of parents’ second names, or children’s legal status not being updated.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Four of the eight requirements made at the last inspection have not been met. One is now a recommendation and three are completed. The lack of secure management is making the process of meeting requirements more difficult.

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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: SC022880 11

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Sherico Care Services Limited

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: Sherico Care Homes Ltd, 2-4 Balmoral Road, London E10 5ND

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Inspector(s)

Christine Kennet, social care inspector Patrick Sullivan, regulatory inspection manager Inspection report children’s home: SC022880 12 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(s)

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Inspector(s)

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Inspector(s)

T: 0300 123 1231 Textphone: 0161 618 8524 E: enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk W: http://www.gov.uk/ofsted

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