Children's home run by Unity Residential Care Services Limited in Newcastle-under-Lyme

Inspection report children‟s home: SC470413 1 SC470413 Registered provider: Unity Residential Care Services

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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 is registered to provide care for up to two children who present complex behaviours because of their early childhood experiences. The home is operated by a private provider who currently chooses to operate it as a solo provision.

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Information about this children’s home

The home has been without a registered manager since September 2017. The current acting manager has resigned and will leave her post on 1 August 2018.

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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: 1 November 2017

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inadequate

Overall judgement at last inspection: good

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inadequate

Enforcement action since last inspection: none Inspection report children‟s home: SC470413 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

01/11/2017 Full Good 15/02/2017 Interim Improved effectiveness 21/11/2016 Full Outstanding 16/02/2016 Interim Improved effectiveness Inspection report children‟s home: SC470413 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 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 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 and 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

In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to ensure that the premises used for the purposes of the home are designed, furnished and maintained so as to protect each child from avoidable hazards to the child‟s health. (Regulation 12 (1)(2)(a)(i)((v)(d)) 31/08/2018

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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 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 ensure that staff have the experience, qualifications and skills to meet the needs of each child. (Regulation 13 (1)(2)(c)) 31/08/2018

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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 and have a positive experience of arriving at or moving on from the home.

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Requirement Due date

In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to ensure 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 31/08/2018 Inspection report children‟s home: SC470413 4 purpose. (Regulation 14 (1)(2)(a))

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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

The registered person must keep the statement of purpose under review and, where appropriate, revise it and notify HMCI of any revisions and send HMCI a copy of the revised statement within 28 days of the revision. (Regulation 16 (1)(3)(a)(b)) 31/08/2018

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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; any restriction, other than one imposed by a court or in accordance with regulation 22 (contact and access to communications), on a child‟s contact with parents, relatives or friends. (Regulation 19 (1)(2)(c)(i)) 31/08/2018

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Requirement Due date

If the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005(a) applies to the home the registered person must ensure that the requirements of that Order and any regulations made under it, except for article 23 (duties of employees), are complied with in respect of the home. (Regulation 25 (2)(b)) 31/08/2018

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Requirement Due date

The registered provider must appoint a person to manage the children‟s home if there is no registered manager in respect of the home; and the registered provider is an organisation or a partnership; does not satisfy regulation 28; or is not, or does not intend to be, in day-to-day charge of the home. If the registered provider appoints a person to manage the home, the registered provider must, without delay, give HMCI notice of— the name of the person so appointed; and the date on which the appointment takes effect. (Regulation 27 (1)(a)(b)(i)(ii)(iii)(2)(a)(b)) 31/08/2018

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must ensure that each employee completes an appropriate induction.

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must ensure that all employees undertake appropriate continuing professional development and receive practice-related supervision by a person with appropriate experience. (Regulation 33(1)(a)(4)(a)(b)) 31/08/2018 Inspection report children‟s home: SC470413 5 Subject to paragraph (6), the registered person must establish a procedure for considering complaints made by or on behalf of children.

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must ensure that a record is made of any complaint, the action taken in response, and the outcome of any investigation. (Regulation 39 (1)(3)) 31/08/2018

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must notify HMCI and each other relevant person without delay if a child is involved in or subject to, or is suspected of being involved in or subject to, sexual exploitation; an incident requiring police involvement occurs in relation to a child which the registered person considers to be serious; there is an allegation of abuse against the home or a person working there; a child protection enquiry involving a child is instigated or concludes (in which case, the notification must include the outcome of the child protection enquiry); or there is any other incident relating to a child which the registered person considers to be serious. (Regulation 40 (4)(a)(b)(c)(d)(i)(ii)(e)) 31/08/2018

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must complete a review of the quality of care provided for children (“a quality of care review”) at least once every 6 months.

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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 result of the quality of care review (“the quality of care review report”).

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must supply to HMCI a copy of the quality of care review report within 28 days of the date on which the quality of care review is completed. (Regulation 45 (1)(3)(4)(a)) 31/08/2018

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Recommendations

 Any child who has been restrained should be given the opportunity to express their feelings about their experience of the restraint as soon as is practicable, ideally within 24 hours of the restraint incident, taking the age of the child and the circumstances of the restraint into account. In some cases children may need longer to work through their feelings, so a record that the child has talked about their feelings should be made no longer than 5 days after the incident of restraint (regulation 35(3)(c)). Children should be encouraged to add their views and comments to the record of restraint. Children should be offered the opportunity to access an advocacy support to help them with this (regulation 7(2)(b)(iii)). Inspection report children‟s home: SC470413 6 („Guide to the children‟s homes regulations including the quality standards‟, page 50, paragraph 9.60)  The use of external agency staff can be a positive choice to complement the skills

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Recommendations

and experiences of the permanent workforce. Any external agency staff should meet the requirements in regulation 32(4) regarding mandatory qualifications and the registered person should consider their skills, qualifications and any induction necessary before they commence work in the home. The use of agency staff should be carefully monitored and reviewed to ensure children receive continuity of care. („Guide to the children‟s homes regulations including the quality standards‟, page 54, paragraph 10.16)  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

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

Managers have failed to demonstrate sufficient rigour in the admission of young people to the home. This has resulted in young people moving in without a clear plan as to how staff will meet their needs. It has also resulted in one young person experiencing a placement disruption.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

Staff do not monitor young people‟s progress effectively. This means that there is no clear evidence that young people‟s outcomes improve because of living at this home.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

Staff do not maintain clear and up-to-date records about young people. For example, one young person‟s record about their daily contact with their family was not updated by staff for over 10 days. Because of this delay, the records about the young person‟s family contact cannot be relied on to give accurate information.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

Staff ensure that the home is maintained to a high standard and that young people are encouraged to personalise the home. This provides a comfortable, homely environment that young people can be proud of.

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

Safeguarding practice in the home is poor and places staff and young people at risk of harm.

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

Staff have failed to report allegations made by one young person. The young person reported to the staff that he did not feel safe during an incident when he was being Inspection report children‟s home: SC470413 7 restrained. However, managers failed to act on this significant disclosure, including not reporting the matter to the designated officer or to Ofsted.

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

Risk assessments are of a very poor quality and are ineffective. Managers fail to ensure that staff complete accurate risk assessments that reflect the needs of young people. For example, one young person‟s risk assessment contains information that has been cut and pasted from another young person‟s document. This practice means that staff do not have accurate information that enables them to manage risk effectively.

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

A serious incident occurred when a member of staff was threatened by a young person with a drill. The drill had not been placed in a safe place. Further, when a young person went missing from the home on two separate occasions staff did not consider the need to update the young person‟s risk assessment.

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

Behaviour management strategies in the home are applied inconsistently and the use of some behaviour management techniques is excessive. For example, one young person was held in a physical restraint for 40 minutes. This indicates a lack of understanding by staff about the purpose of using physical intervention.

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

Managers have not ensured that all staff have up-to-date training that enables them to physically intervene safely during an incident. In addition, agency staff who work at the home are not required to complete physical intervention training. This is despite managers knowing that one young person in placement has a history of physically assaulting staff. This lack of training is unacceptable and places staff and young people at risk of injury.

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

Staff told the inspector that they do not use rewards and sanctions to support positive behaviour and that all responses are restorative. Despite this, staff do give sanctions to young people. For example, one young person had her access to a telephone removed because she refused to bring a plate out of her bedroom. This was excessive and resulted in removing her right to a telephone to enable her to maintain contact with her family.

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

Managers have not maintained oversight of fire safety in the home. No fire drills have been completed for four months despite the organisational policy indicating that drills should take place monthly. The home‟s fire risk assessment has not been updated to reflect that one young person with a history of fire setting had threatened to set fire to the home. This serious omission further demonstrates the extent to which staff and young people have not been safeguarded.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

The home has been without a registered manager since September 2017. The acting Inspection report children‟s home: SC470413 8 manager has recently resigned. A new acting manager was appointed to the home during the inspection.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Staff lack experience of working in residential childcare and recognise this shortfall themselves. Despite this, managers have failed to ensure that staff undertake training which reflects the needs of young people living in the home. For example, in a staff team of six, only two staff have completed training regarding working with young people who are at risk of going missing from care. Only three staff have completed training to enable them to support young people who are at risk of sexual exploitation. This omission to provide staff with sufficient training leaves staff without the skills and understanding needed to care for the young people.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Managers have failed to demonstrate a professional and safety-focused approach to the use of physical intervention to manage young people‟s behaviour. It is a significant deficit that agency staff are expected to use specialist behaviour management techniques that they are not specifically trained to use.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Managers do not ensure that new staff receive an induction to the home. In addition, staff do not receive regular supervision in line with organisational policy. This failure by managers to support and to develop the staff leaves the staff ill prepared to undertake the role that is expected of them.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Managers do not clearly document young people‟s complaints. This means that it is not possible to demonstrate whether these are investigated or resolved. This means that managers cannot demonstrate that they listen to young people or respect their rights to have their complaints dealt with seriously.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Management oversight of the home is unacceptably poor. The statement of purpose provided to Ofsted is a year out of date. The manager has not reviewed the quality of care since April 2017. This lack of scrutiny leaves managers without the core information required to support service improvement.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Managers have acknowledged the serious shortfalls identified during this inspection and are committed to making the necessary improvements required to ensure that young people are better safeguarded.

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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. Inspection report children‟s home: SC470413 9 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

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Information about this inspection

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: SC470413 10

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Unity Residential Care Services

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: Unity Residential Care Services Ltd, 98 Lancaster Road, Newcastle-under-Lyme ST5 1DS

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Inspector

Tracey Coglan Greig, social care inspector Inspection report children‟s home: SC470413 11 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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