Children's home run by Tumblewood Project Limited in Wiltshire

Inspection report children’s home: SC028435 1 SC028435 Registered provider: Tumblewood Project 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

 The home can provide care for up to 15 children aged between nine and 17 years old. At the time of this inspection, five children were living at the home.  Care is currently provided in three homes, although four homes are available. The individual homes are located on the same site as the school.  The home provides an integrated systemic programme of care, therapeutic work and education to address early developmental trauma and attachment difficulties.  The registered manager has been registered since 2017.  This inspection was aligned with a full inspection of the school.

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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

Date of last inspection: 1 November 2017

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good

Overall judgement at last inspection: declined in effectiveness

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good

Enforcement action since last inspection: A monitoring visit was conducted on 24 and 25 January 2018. At the monitoring visit, four requirements and one recommendation were made. Inspection report children’s home: SC028435 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

01/11/2017 Interim Declined in effectiveness 04/07/2017 Full Requires improvement to be good 17/01/2017 Full Requires improvement 27/09/2016 Full Inadequate Inspection report children’s home: SC028435 3

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Recommendations

 As outlined in 10.1, the registered person should plan staffing levels to ensure that they meet the needs of children and can respond flexibly to unexpected events or opportunities. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 54, paragraph 10.15). In particular, ensure that the registered person demonstrates the suitability of staff to lone work with children.  The registered person is responsible for ensuring that all staff consistently follow the home’s policies and procedures for the benefit of the children in the home’s care. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 54, paragraph 10.20). In particular, take action to ensure that all approaches with children are consistently planned and executed carefully.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Significant improvements have been made since the last inspection. These include: improvements in the quality of the children’s living environment; approaches to managing children’s behaviour; the management of child protection concerns and the rigour of leaders and managers’ oversight. Children have directly benefited from these improvements.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff help children to contribute to improving the quality of their home. Children have selected their bedroom, paint colour and soft furnishings. All windows can now be opened by children and the use of door alarms has reduced. These improvements create a homelier environment for children to live in.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Most children make good progress. Children increase their attendance at school and with the support from staff, children set their own aspirational goals and targets.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children’s achievements, progress and positive experiences include:

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

 children safely have independent time away from staff  children making new friends and have sleepovers  one child has secured a job and is learning the skills to live independently  children attend clubs that help to build their self-confidence  children identify the support they need from staff to help them to reduce self- harming  children learn how to care for pets  one child really enjoyed watching their favourite band in concert Inspection report children’s home: SC028435 4  children actively participate in local charity events and are currently raising money for ‘Race for Life’.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

One child is not making the expected progress. Managers are working effectively with other agencies, the child’s family and the child to identify the support the child needs to re-engage.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Overall, care planning records provide staff with a good range of information about how to support the children. Leaders have ensured a more consistent approach that ensures that amendments are responsive to children’s needs; one omission to this relates to limited specific information in one care plan. The plan does not give clarity about where staff should be or how often to check on a child during a period of reducing staff support.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The relationships between staff and children are positive and secure. Staff regularly hold one-to-one discussions with children that focus directly on children’s individual needs. Where these discussions are planned carefully, they are helpful and beneficial to children. However, a small number of situations have occurred that were not planned carefully. In these instances, staff’s actions caused confusion to the children involved. Following these situations, the registered manager was quick to identify the practice issues and took strong and appropriate action to address them.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff undertake direct work with children as part of the children’s individual therapeutic programme. Successful examples of this work include life story sessions, safe internet use, sexual health and self-harm support. The specialist therapy staff direct, oversee and monitor this work. This work achieves positive results.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children have an increased opportunity to express their views. Staff value children’s opinions. Leaders and managers listen to children and act on their views.

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

Leaders and managers have taken effective action since the previous inspection to improve the management of child protection concerns and allegations about staff.

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

Leaders and managers refer all child protection concerns to the appropriate agency and avoid internal investigations prior to consultation. They ensure appropriate consultation with the designated officer about allegations/injuries relating to restraint. The registered manager’s actions are rigorous and protect children. The outcome of safeguarding concerns and actions taken by staff are clearly recorded in child protection records. Leaders and managers communicate these outcomes well to children and to those who made the referral. Child protection records are now consistently comprehensive. Oversight and monitoring of child protection concerns are good.

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

Approaches to supporting children to behave positively have improved. Staff are Inspection report children’s home: SC028435 5 managing difficult behaviours well and with a more consistently nurturing approach. Children devise their own reward programmes and are actively involved in achieving their goals. Staff focus on restorative approaches. The use of punitive sanctions has ceased. Incidents seen at previous inspections, where children go missing together and cause harm to one another, have decreased significantly. Leaders and managers have improved their monitoring of behaviour incidents and restraint. Monitoring and analysis are more effective and learning from previous practice is clear. As a result, the use of restraint has decreased since the last inspection. On the occasions staff restrain children, this is reasonable and to protect the children or others from harm. Leaders and managers have thoughtful and reflective conversations with

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

children and staff following any behaviour incident. These discussions also take place with children that may have been witness to the incident. Children have insightful individual risk assessments. Staff have a good understanding of risk and how best to support children. Staff implement strategies effectively to stop children from harming one another, reduce self-harm and incidents of going missing. Police involvement has reduced since the last inspection.

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

When children go missing, staff actively search for them and try to keep in touch. Staff alert the police, families and other agencies quickly. When children return home, staff welcome them in and check that they are okay. Good relationships with the local missing person’s coordinator mean that children receive their independent return home interviews swiftly. Leaders and managers receive copies of these interviews and use the information well to revise children’s support plans.

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

No new children have moved into or out of the home since the last inspection. The current group of children have greatly benefited from this period of stability. Leaders and managers identify the positive impact this stability has had on children and are keen to ensure that they maintain this level of stability as they move forwards.

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

Children’s emotional health needs are met very well. The home employs its own specialist therapy team to ensure a joined-up approach. The on-site psychotherapist leads a team of assistant psychologists and works closely with an occupational therapist, speech and language therapist, a psychiatrist and clinical psychologist. Clinical interventions are supervised properly and can include one-to-one sessions, group sessions and family support. Parents who contributed to this inspection spoke very positively about this support.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Leaders and managers understand the strengths and weaknesses of the home and have responded well to secure improvements. The home’s development plan identifies the weaknesses and has clear plans in place to address them. The effectiveness of leaders and managers’ monitoring and oversight has improved significantly. Requirements and recommendations from the previous inspections are met. A suitably qualified and experienced registered manager is in post. Leaders and Inspection report children’s home: SC028435 6 governors have appropriate succession plans in place. The directors have supported the deputy managers and senior care staff to complete a level 5 management qualification and have provided coaching to develop their roles. Leaders and managers have successfully implemented a plan to improve the quality of independent visits. All independent visits are now unannounced. Following the induction of the new independent visitor, visits are planned to take place during the evenings and

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

weekends when children are at home. Staffing levels meet the needs of the current group of children. Staff often work on their own with children. Suitable systems for staff to keep in touch with each other and managers when they work on their own are in place. However, leaders and managers do not currently rigorously assess the competence of all staff to work on their own with children.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Supervisions, appraisals, team meetings and daily handovers are used to good effect. These opportunities provide staff with reflective discussions, time to problem-solve, discuss children’s needs and agree strategies to support children. The deputy managers and registered manager lead these sessions to coach, mentor and guide staff in their role.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Leaders and managers have a good understanding of the strength of the workforce and their areas for development. The workforce development plan identifies the skills that staff have and the training necessary to develop their roles. Training is refreshed regularly and is appropriate to meet the needs of the children.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Recruitment of new staff is managed safely. Leaders and managers check the suitability of new staff through a series of carefully planned activities. Children are involved in interviewing candidates. The registered manager is a strong advocate for children. Good and established relationships with other professionals and agencies enable her to challenge poor practice or lack of support to children.

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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 Inspection report children’s home: SC028435 7 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: SC028435 8

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Children’s home details

Provision sub-type: Residential special school

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Tumblewood Project Ltd

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: 4 The Laurels, Hawkeridge Road, Heywood, Westbury, Wiltshire BA13 4LF

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Inspectors

Nicola Lownds, social care inspector Paula Lahey, social care regulatory inspection manager Inspection report children’s home: SC028435 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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Inspectors

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Inspectors

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Inspectors

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