Children's home run by Cambian Childcare Limited in Hammersmith and Fulham

Inspection report children’s home: SC068277 1 SC068277 Registered provider: Cambian Childcare Ltd

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Inspected under the social care common inspection framework

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Information about this children’s home

This children’s home is owned by a large national private provider. It is registered to provide care and accommodation for up to six children and young people who may have emotional and/or behavioural difficulties.

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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

There are serious and widespread failures that mean children and young people are not protected or their welfare is not promoted or safeguarded and the care and experiences of children and young people are poor and they are not making progress.

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inadequate

Date of last inspection: 31 January 2018

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inadequate

Overall judgement at last inspection: requires improvement to be good

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inadequate

Enforcement action since last inspection: none Inspection report children’s home: SC068277 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

31/01/2018 Full Requires improvement to be good 11/09/2017 Full Inadequate 06/06/2017 Full Inadequate 31/01/2017 Interim Declined in effectiveness Inspection report children’s home: SC068277 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

In order to meet the education standard, the registered provider must ensure that staff—

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Requirement Due date

help each child to achieve the child’s education and training targets, as recorded in the child’s relevant plans;

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Requirement Due date

understand the barriers to learning that each child may face and take appropriate action to help the child overcome such barriers. (Regulation 8(2)(a)(i)(iii)) 17/08/2018

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Requirement Due date

The positive relationships standard is that children are helped to develop, and to benefit from, relationships based on mutual respect and trust; an understanding about acceptable behaviour; and positive responses to other children and adults.

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Requirement Due date

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

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Requirement Due date

meet each child’s behavioural and emotional needs, as set out in the child’s relevant plans. (Regulation 11(1)(a)(b)(c)(2)(a)(i)) 17/08/2018

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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 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

manage relationships between children to prevent them harming each other; 17/08/2018 Inspection report children’s home: SC068277 4 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

that the effectiveness of the home’s child protection policies is monitored regularly. (Regulation 12(1)(2)(a)(i)(ii)(iv)(v)(vi)(e)) 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

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. (Regulation 13(1)(a)(b)(2)(a)(c)(f)(h)) 17/08/2018

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Requirement Due date

The care planning standard is that children receive effectively planned care in or through the children’s home.

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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 children are admitted to the home only if their needs are within the range of needs of children for whom it is intended that the home is to provide care and accommodation, as set out in the home’s statement of purpose. (Regulation 14(1)(a)(2)(a)) 17/08/2018 Inspection report children’s home: SC068277 5 The registered person must ensure that an individual who works in the home in a care role has attained the appropriate qualification, the Level 3 Diploma for Residential Childcare (England) by the relevant date. In the case of an individual who starts working in a care role in a home after 1st April 2014, the date which falls 2 years after the date on which the individual started working in a care role in the home. (Regulation 32(4)(5)) 17/08/2018

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must ensure that each permanent appointment of an employee is subject to the satisfactory completion of a period of probation.

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must ensure that all employees receive practice-related supervision by a person with appropriate experience. (Regulation 33(1)(b)(4)(b)) 17/08/2018

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must maintain records (‘case records’) for each child which 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)) 17/08/2018

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must notify HMCI and each other relevant person without delay if there is any other incident relating to a child which the registered person considers to be serious. (Regulation 40(4)(e)) 17/08/2018 Inspection report children’s home: SC068277 6

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

Children’s care and experiences in this home are poor and they do not make progress from their individual starting points. The manager has failed to consider the individual and collective needs, either of the children living in the home or the new children being admitted to the home. The group dynamics have meant that children have engaged in new risk-taking behaviours and become involved and influenced by the behaviours of the other children living in the home. For example, children with no previous history of going missing from home or alcohol and drug misuse have now engaged in these behaviours. This has had a negative effect on children’s experiences and progress and places them at risk of harm.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

For some children, there has been an increase in behaviour that has a negative effect on their health, such as alcohol and cannabis misuse. There has been an incident of an older child encouraging younger children to steal and drink alcohol. Because of the excessive amount consumed by one child he required emergency medical assistance and was admitted to hospital. This had a detrimental effect on the child’s health and well- being. Another child’s cannabis use increased while he was living at the home. Staff put in place strategies to try to address this, such as placing children on supervised monies, but these strategies are not effective in reducing this behaviour.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

Staff do not help each child understand how to keep safe. Staff spend time with children on a one-to-one basis in key-worker sessions, but this work does not focus on the areas of individual risk. For example, children in the home and staff raised concerns that older children in the home were supplying the younger children with illegal drugs and there was no direct work undertaken with the children about this. It was also alleged that a child was sexually assaulted in the community and that this was observed by other children living in the home. There was no work undertaken to explore the issues with any of the children involved.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

Not all the children in the home attend education. Staff do not provide a sufficient level of structured activity or informal learning, particularly during the day, in the absence of formal education. Some children remain in their bedrooms for most of the day and others leave the home and go missing. This lack of structure and routine does not provide an environment where children make progress and they are not provided with every opportunity to meet their potential.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

Staff register children with a general practitioner and dentist when they arrive in the home. However, staff have not supported children to access any specialist help they may need for their emotional health, for example bereavement counselling. As a result, children do not have their emotional needs met, which has a negative effect on their progress.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

Staff offer children activities in the community. Children sometimes engage with staff Inspection report children’s home: SC068277 7 and enjoy the activities. However, more recently the children are becoming more involved with each other’s negative behaviours and this has resulted in staff having little positive influence over the children and their actions.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

Staff do promote contact between children and their families in line with their care plans. This ensures that children can maintain relationships with people in their lives who are important to them.

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

Risk management arrangements in the home are inadequate and do not protect children from harm. This is because staff do not follow safeguarding procedures or risk assessments to minimise risk and keep children safe. They also fail to adequately risk- assess situations as they arise. This has had a detrimental impact on the welfare and safety of children living in the home.

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

Managers and staff have failed to safely manage the behaviour of the children living in the home. Incidents of verbal abuse, physical aggression and violence have increased, and there have been several incidents when children have caused significant harm to each other. There has also been a recorded incident of sexual assault. This has, at times, resulted in children requiring medical assistance and hospital treatment. This fails to demonstrate that managers and staff are taking appropriate action to prevent and minimise the risk of serious incidents.

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

Missing from home incidents have increased since the last inspection. Some children, who did not have a history of going missing before being placed in the home, now go missing with the other children from the home. This places them in situations of risk in the community. Staff do not take effective action when children go missing to ensure that they are found and returned to the home as soon as possible. On one occasion when a child, who was reported as missing from care to the police, contacted staff to inform them of his whereabouts, staff refused to collect him. Staff advised him to, ‘remain safe and keep in contact with the home’, and told him to, ‘find a police officer’. This response to a child who has been reported as missing from home is inadequate.

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

Staff do not consistently follow missing from home procedures when children go missing from home. This is because managers do not understand, or follow, the guidance from other agencies to ensure that children are safe. For example, during the inspection staff did not report a child missing from care during the day because managers reported that this was agreed at a recent meeting with the local authority. However, it transpired that this was not what had been agreed. Consequently, no action was taken when a child went missing from home, which does not ensure that children are kept safe.

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

The manager’s oversight of missing from home incidents is poor. She does not consistently evaluate missing episodes. This lack of management oversight means that any issues with staff practice are not identified and addressed.

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

Risk management in the home is poor. Staff do not follow actions set out in children’s Inspection report children’s home: SC068277 8 risk assessments. For example, staff allowed children in the home to go out together when one child’ s plan states that he is to be supervised at all times in the company of minors. This lack of effective risk management does not ensure that children are protected from harm.

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

Risk assessments are not updated or signed by staff. The most current copies of risk assessments are not kept on children’s case files, which does not ensure that all staff, including bank staff who work in the home, have access to the most up-to-date information.

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

Staff are unable to manage relationships between children to prevent them from harming each other. There have been several incidents of children fighting with each other in the home, resulting in them sustaining injuries and requiring medical attention. Two children’s placements in the home have ended suddenly following them assaulting other children in the home.

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

Staff lack an understanding of safeguarding processes and consequently do not always take prompt action when allegations are made. This resulted in a delay in sharing information with the police about an alleged sexual assault in the community.

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

The manager has failed to notify Ofsted of significant events. The inspector identified two significant incidents that the manager has failed to notify to Ofsted. This prevents safeguarding agencies, including Ofsted, from having the necessary oversight of safeguarding incidents in the home.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Leadership and management of the home is inadequate. During the inspection, the manager and the responsible individual did not demonstrate a thorough understanding of the needs of the children in their care or of good safeguarding practices. As a result, they have failed to lead the staff team to ensure that the safety and well-being of the children living in the home is a priority.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

The manager, the responsible individual and staff spoken with during the inspection confirmed that the outcomes for children had deteriorated since they have lived in the home. Some children are no longer engaged in education. Children who have no previous incidents of missing from care are now going missing from the home. Children with no previous involvement with alcohol and/or drugs have been found under the influence of unknown substances and children are now known to the criminal justice system after police involvement in the home.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

The manager’s own internal monitoring systems are ineffective. Consequently, until the inspection, the shortfalls in safeguarding practice had not been identified by the manager. The responsible individual was not aware of issues in the home. For example, she did not know that two members of staff had handed in their immediate notice at the most recent team meeting. This demonstrates a lack of communication within the management structure. The responsible individual reported that she had completed two Inspection report children’s home: SC068277 9 recent quality assurance visits to the home but had failed to identify the significant safeguarding failings and the lack of appropriate paperwork to manage risks. There is a lack of clarity in the senior management arrangements within the organisation. Consequently, the responsible individual has not demonstrated an effective approach in supporting the manager to effect positive and sustained change.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

The manager has failed to operate in accordance with the statement of purpose, to ensure that new children to the home are admitted seven to 10 days apart to ensure that the group dynamics are able to stabilise between admissions. The manager and responsible individual accepted that they had not followed their own processes. Furthermore, they are not providing care in line with the statement of purpose across several areas, including the provision of structure, routine and boundaries in the home, and following missing from home and safeguarding procedures.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

The manager and provider have failed to ensure that the staff team has the necessary experience, qualifications and skills to manage and meet the known needs of the children living in the home. Only two out of the nine staff hold the required childcare qualification. The manager has also failed to ensure that all staff have completed training in drug use and understand the current drug culture. This lack of training hinders the staff’s ability to identify and support children’s individual risk so that they can become increasingly safe.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Staff do not receive supervision in line with the organisation’s policy. New staff do not receive fortnightly supervision and the manager said that she had not had any supervision sessions. The manager also reported that she had not received any feedback about her probationary period or had any meetings throughout the time she has been on probation to support her in the role. This means that new staff are not supported adequately in their roles or monitored effectively to ensure that their practice is safe and appropriate.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

T he manager does not ensure that children’s case files are kept up to date. There are documents missing from children’s files, such as personal education plans and children looked after review meeting minutes. Because of this, staff do not have the required up- to-date information to support children’s needs. Recording of significant events in the home is poor and the information is not easily accessible to staff working with children. This is not safe practice for children or staff.

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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 Inspection report children’s home: SC068277 10 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: SC068277 11

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Cambian Childcare Ltd

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: Waterfront, Hammersmith Embankment, Chancellors Road, London, Middlesex W6 9RU

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Inspector

Sarah Billett, social care inspector Inspection report children’s home: SC068277 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 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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