Richmond Fostering Services

Richmond Fostering Services Inspection report for la fostering agency

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SC041835 Unique reference number 3 March 2008 Inspection date Muhammed Harunur Rashid Inspector Key Type of Inspection

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London Borough of Richmond upon Thames: Education and Childrens Services

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Address

42 York Street Twickenham Middlesex TW1 3BW 020 8891 7423 Telephone number

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Email

London Borough of Richmond upon Thames Registered person Paul Walsh Registered manager Paul Walsh Responsible individual 19 February 2007 Date of last inspection .

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Email

This document may be reproduced in whole or in part for non-commercial educational purposes, provided that the information quoted is reproduced without adaptation and the source and date of publication are stated.

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Email

You can obtain copies of The Children Act 2004, Every Child Matters and The National Minimum Standards for Children's Services from: The Stationery Office (TSO) PO Box 29, St Cripins, Duke Street, Norwich, NR3 1GN. Tel: 0870 600 5522. Online ordering: www.tso.co.uk/bookshop

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About this inspection

The purpose of this inspection is to assure children and young people, parents, the public, local authorities and government of the quality and standard of the service provided. The inspection was carried out under the Care Standards Act 2000. This report details the main strengths and any areas for improvement identified during the inspection. The judgements included in the report are made in relation to the outcome for children set out in the Children Act 2004 and relevant National Minimum Standards for the establishment.

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The inspection judgements and what they mean

this aspect of the provision is of exceptionally high quality Outstanding: this aspect of the provision is strong Good: this aspect of the provision is sound Satisfactory: this aspect of the provision is not good enough Inadequate: 3 of 9 Inspection Report: Richmond Fostering Services, 3 March 2008

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Brief description of the service

The London Borough of Richmond upon Thames Fostering Service aims to provide a range of fostering services, which comply with the National Minimum Standards and Fostering Services Regulations 2002. The primary aim of the service is to provide a range of high quality foster placements suitable for meeting the diverse needs of looked after children and young people. The service provides temporary and permanent foster carers for children and young people. The service is based in Twickenham, close to other local authority services. The types of the service offered are: Short Term Foster Care, Permanent Foster Care, Short Break Service and Kinship Care.

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Summary

At this announced full inspection all key standards were inspected. This is an outstanding service. Children's and young people's welfare is enhanced by the excellent relationship that exist between staff, foster carers, children and young people. Children's and young people's health care needs are well met. They are living in a safe environment, they are attending schools regularly and young people have opportunity to develop independent living skills for semi or independent living in preparation for leaving care. The service works closely with a wide range of agencies in order to meet the full range of children's and young people's needs. Foster carers and staff are well supported by the management team who have strong commitment and focus on improvement. The overall quality rating is outstanding. This is an overview of what the inspector found during the inspection.

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Improvements since the last inspection

The registered manager is asked to include a positive proof of identity including a recent photograph in each foster carer's file and notify the regulatory body regarding his findings and outcomes about the comments made by the Looked After Children's (LAC) Team during the previous inspection. The registered person has taken appropriate steps to improve the quality of the service provided to children and young people in foster care.

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Helping children to be healthy

The provision is outstanding. The fostering service has comprehensive policies and procedures in place to promote the health of children and young people in foster care. The service works to obtain the resources required to promote and secure best outcomes for children and young people and support foster carers in securing the best standards of health care. The service works closely with the multi-agency team and other professionals to ensure best health outcomes for children and young people. The service ensures that foster carers are given a clear, easily understandable health care plan for each child before the placement. The plan details children's and young people's specific and general health issues that are to be addressed and by whom. Foster carers are well supported and encouraged through the provision of various specialist health care training and the support provided by the service. This helps to develop their knowledge and skills to meet children's

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Helping children to be healthy

and young people's individual health care needs. Foster carers maintain good records of all medical appointments children and young people have attended or refused to attend. Foster 4 of 9 Inspection Report: Richmond Fostering Services, 3 March 2008 carers keep records of all medication administered to children's and young people. Medication is safely stored so as to promote children and young people's wellbeing.

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Protecting children from harm or neglect and helping them stay safe

The provision is outstanding. The Principal Manager and the Fostering Manager of the service are both very experienced and suitably qualified to manage the service. Both managers have several years of management experiences in fostering services and other child care settings. The fostering service's staff and foster carers spoke very positively about the management support they receive. All relevant checks on staff, foster carers, panel members and others involved with children and young people are carried out by the Human Resources department. The Human Resources department ensures that robust checks are completed on all staff prior to their appointments in order to protect children and young people in their care. The recruitment and assessment officer is responsible for processing all initial enquiries from the prospective foster carers. Then an initial visit takes place to a prospective foster carer's home to carry out a health and safety assessment

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Protecting children from harm or neglect and helping them stay safe

checks as part of the approval process. Four foster carers' home's visited are warm, comfortable, well maintained and suitable for the children and young people living there. Foster carers are issued with Carbon Monoxide alarms and they are provided with health and safety training to ensure children's and young people's safety. A through process is in place for matching children and young people to foster carers who have the skills and provision for meeting children's and young people's individual needs. The foster carer recruitment strategy clearly sets out specific targets to recruit foster carers to increase choice and improve the matching process. The percentage of placement disruptions or breakdown is very low. A comprehensive child protection policy and procedure is in place which protects children and young people. All fostering staff and foster carers are provided with safe caring and child protection training. There is a system

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Protecting children from harm or neglect and helping them stay safe

in place for reviewing and monitoring the quality and effectiveness of training on child protection and safe caring. The fostering service ensures that the foster carer has a written procedure for use if the foster child is missing from home. The fostering service makes clear to foster carers that corporal punishment is not acceptable. A positive behaviour management policy is in place for dealing with children's and young people's challenging behaviours. There is a system in place for foster carers to seek help if an allegation of abuse is made against a foster carer. The last three fostering panel meeting's minutes demonstrated the correct composition as required by regulation. There are clear decision making processes in place to support the effective functioning of the fostering panel. Panel members come from a variety of professionals and have a range of experiences and they are provided with various training. This further underpins

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Protecting children from harm or neglect and helping them stay safe

the good work of the fostering service. The current fostering panel chair's two-term service is coming to end in May 2008. A process is in place to recruit a new fostering panel chair.

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Helping children achieve well and enjoy what they do

The provision is outstanding. The service promotes the values of diversity and equality through various training for staff and foster carers, for example, equality and diversity training. Skills to foster training provides opportunities for foster carers to develop various skills in the areas of matching needs, sex and sexuality, behavioural management and health and safety. A good range of resources are available to foster carers with regard to culture and supporting children and young people from diverse backgrounds. The multi-agency team has overall responsibility for supporting children and young people and foster carers with regard to educational attainment. All Looked After 5 of 9 Inspection Report: Richmond Fostering Services, 3 March 2008 Children (LAC) have an up to date Personal Education Plan (PEP) and none of the children were permanently excluded from the school in the year 2006/07. Children's and young people's

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Helping children achieve well and enjoy what they do

school attendance have significantly improved. Currently 14% of looked after children are attending universities which is higher than national average. A separate team is responsible for providing short break service for children and young people with disabilities. Currently 23 households are providing placements for 25 children and young people. A newsletter is published to provide various information for the benefit of parents and short-term carers. The panel of short breaks is separate from the mainstream fostering and kinship carers. There are networking opportunities between the short breaks service, main fostering service and other stakeholders within the local authority such as health, education and the safeguarding board. Where possible, joint training is arranged and social events are shared. The short breaks team manager informed the inspector that three of their panel members' two consecutive term service is coming to

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Helping children achieve well and enjoy what they do

end. They are now in the process of replacing these panel members.

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Helping children make a positive contribution

The provision is outstanding. The fostering service encourages young people to maintain and develop family contacts. Foster carers understand the importance of maintaining these relationships and are positive about the arrangements made for contact. The service arranges transport facilities for children and young people to visit their family members where appropriate. There is an appropriate mechanism in place by which to consult the children and young people. This includes children and their family members being encouraged to be involved in the review process. The independent review officer meets with children and young people and ensures that they are given the opportunity to fully contribute to their review. The service is commissioning an advocacy service called VOICE for children and young people. Evidence shows that children and young people have full access to the advocacy service. The service ensures that children and young people are

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Helping children make a positive contribution

listened to and encourages them to read and be aware of their complaint policy and procedure. However, the complaint procedure did not include the contact address and telephone number of Ofsted. The service follows the complaint policy and procedure of the London Borough of Richmond. Staff keep records of all complaints received by the service and how these are investigated within the set timescale. All formal complaints are dealt with by a complaint investigation officer employed by the Borough.

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Achieving economic wellbeing

The provision is outstanding. Allowances and expenses are paid to all foster carers for enabling them to support children and young people achieving very good outcomes. Foster carers feel valued and children and young people are able to access the additional resources needed to ensure good outcomes. The Leaving Care Team is responsible for coordinating the young people's plans for moving on to semi or independent living. The service is proactive for preparing young people for adulthood. The assessment process starts at the age of 16. The Leaving Care Team Manager advised the inspector that Pathway Plans are in place for young people preparing for semi or independent living. In addition to this foster carers encourage and support young people to develop living skills, for example, looking after personal spaces, travelling, budgeting and shopping.

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Organisation

The organisation is outstanding. 6 of 9 Inspection Report: Richmond Fostering Services, 3 March 2008 Overall, excellent systems and support for staff, foster carers, children and young people are in place. The service has a clear Statement of Purpose which sets out the aims and objectives of the service. The service has developed a guide for children and young people in foster care which is appropriate to the age and ability of the children and young people using the service. However, the Children and Young People's Guide did not include the contact address and telephone number of Ofsted. The service is well managed with an effective management structure in place. There are very clear lines of accountability in place. There are effective management systems in place for monitoring referrals, completing assessments for approval or disapproval and reviews. Fostering staff are well supported through the provision of training,

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Organisation

regular supervision and annual appraisals. A quarterly joint meeting between the fostering team and the Looked After Children's Team takes place to share information and to coordinate works between them for the better outcomes for children and young people. Children and young people are supported by a good mixture of skilled and experienced foster cares and staff. Supervising social workers conduct bi-monthly supervision to foster carers. Supervision notes cover all areas of individual children's needs, for example, health, education and contacts. Social workers from the Looked After Children's Team visit children and young people at home. Social workers informed the inspector that children and young people also visit them in the office. Foster carers receive various training in order to develop their knowledge and skills to provide high standards of care and support to children and young people placed with them.

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Organisation

Appropriate out of hours support is in place for foster carers. The service arranges transport facilities where needed for foster children and young people to attend therapies, contact meetings and schools. Fostering carers' case records are well maintained. The terms of approval and foster carers' agreements are kept in the files. Foster carers are clear about what information is required to be kept of children's and young people's files, for example, significant events.

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Statutory requirements

This section sets out the actions, which must be taken so that the registered person meets the Care Standards Act 2000, The Fostering Services Regulations 2005 and the National Minimum Standards. The Registered Provider must comply with the given timescales.

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Recommendations

To improve the quality and standards of care further the registered person should take account of the following recommendation(s): • must add the contact address and telephone number of Ofsted to both the Children's Guide and the complaint procedure (NMS 1 and 11). 7 of 9 Inspection Report: Richmond Fostering Services, 3 March 2008

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The intended outcomes for these standards are:

• the fostering service promotes the health and development of children (NMS 12). Ofsted considers 12 the key standard to be inspected.

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The intended outcomes for these standards are:

• any persons carrying on or managing the service are suitable (NMS 3) • the fostering service provides suitable foster carers (NMS 6) • the service matches children to carers appropriately (NMS 8) • the fostering service protects each child or young person from abuse and neglect (NMS 9) • the people who work in or for the fostering service are suitable to work with children and young people (NMS 15) • fostering panels are organised efficiently and effectively (NMS 30) Ofsted considers 3, 6, 8, 9, 15 and 30 the key standards to be inspected.

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The intended outcomes for these standards are:

• the fostering service values diversity (NMS 7) • the fostering service promotes educational achievement (NMS 13) • when foster care is provided as a short-term break for a child, the arrangements recognise that the parents remain the main carers for the child (NMS 31) Ofsted considers 7, 13 and 31 the key standards to be inspected.

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The intended outcomes for these standards are:

• the fostering service promotes contact arrangements for the child or young person (NMS 10) • the fostering service promotes consultation (NMS 11) Ofsted considers 10 and 11 the key standards to be inspected.

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The intended outcomes for these standards are:

• the fostering service prepares young people for adulthood (NMS 14) • the fostering service pays carers an allowance and agreed expenses as specified (NMS 29) Ofsted considers none of the above to be key standards to be inspected.

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The intended outcomes for these standards are:

• there is a clear statement of the aims and objectives of the fostering service and the fostering service ensures that they meet those aims and objectives (NMS 1) • the fostering service is managed by those with the appropriate skills and experience (NMS 2) • the fostering service is monitored and controlled as specified (NMS 4) 8 of 9 Inspection Report: Richmond Fostering Services, 3 March 2008

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Annex A

• the fostering service is managed effectively and efficiently (NMS 5) • staff are organised and managed effectively (NMS 16) • the fostering service has an adequate number of sufficiently experienced and qualified staff (NMS 17) • the fostering service is a fair and competent employer (NMS 18) • there is a good quality training programme (NMS 19) • all staff are properly accountable and supported (NMS 20) • the fostering service has a clear strategy for working with and supporting carers (NMS 21) • foster carers are provided with supervision and support (NMS 22) • foster carers are appropriately trained (NMS 23) • case records for children are comprehensive (NMS 24) • the administrative records are maintained as required (NMS 25) • The premises used as offices by the fostering service are suitable for the purpose (NMS 26) • the fostering service is financially viable (NMS 27) • the fostering service has robust financial processes (NMS 28)

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Annex A

• local authority fostering services recognise the contribution made by family and friends as carers (NMS 32) Ofsted considers 1, 16, 17, 21, 24, 25 and 32 the key standards to be inspected. 9 of 9 Inspection Report: Richmond Fostering Services, 3 March 2008

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