Children's Home run by Hampshire County Council in Hampshire

Inspection report children’s home: SC066277 1 SC066277 Registered provider: Hampshire County Council

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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 setting is owned and run jointly by a local authority children’s services department and a National Health Service foundation trust. This service offers short breaks for up to nine children and young people at any one time who have learning disabilities that may include sensory and physical disabilities, complex health needs or challenging behaviour.

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Information about this children’s home

The manager of the home has been registered in this position since November 2008. At present, she is away from her duties and interim arrangements have been put in place.

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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 requires improvement to be good

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good

The children’s home provides effective services that meet the requirements for good.

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good

Overall judgement at last inspection: good Inspection report children’s home: SC066277 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

24/05/2017 Full Good 13/12/2016 Full Good 19/05/2016 Interim Sustained effectiveness 11/11/2015 Full Outstanding Inspection report children’s home: SC066277 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 person is required to ensure: that staff help each child to achieve the child’s education and training targets, as recorded in the child’s relevant plans. (Regulation 8 (2)(a)(i)) 31/08/2018

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Requirement Due date

In order to meet the leadership and management standard, the registered person is required to: ensure that the home’s workforce provides continuity of care to each child. (Regulation 13 (2)(e)) In particular, ensure that placement plans contain information, gained from the experience of caring for the child, that all staff should follow. 31/08/2018

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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 (3)) This is to ensure that the process is followed, and how it has led to the outcome, is clear. 31/08/2018

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Recommendations

 The purpose of Ofsted’s inspection of children’s homes is to assess the quality of care being provided for children. Inspection focuses on the outcomes that children are being supported to achieve. It tests compliance with the relevant regulations, and has regard to this Guide. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 8, paragraph 1.23) To achieve this the provider must send to HMCI revised copies of the statement of purpose, notifications of serious events, the independent person’s reports and reviews of the quality of care either within the timescales stipulated in the Children’s Homes (England) Regulations (2015) or without delay. The date each document is completed should be included within them to enable this to be monitored.  Staff should have the skills and confidence to communicate easily and understand Inspection report children’s home: SC066277 4

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Recommendations

the importance of listening to, involving and responding to the children they care for. Staff should understand that they have a responsibility to observe, notice and respond to children who are expressing their views, acknowledging that it is not the sole responsibility of the child to ‘tell’. They should also understand how children might communicate their feelings through their behaviour, or non- verbally especially where the child has a disability which does not allow them to communicate as others might. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 22, paragraph 4.10) In particular, staff should be familiar with children’s preferences regarding physical contact and approach them in accordance with their wishes.  Staff should continually and actively assess the risks to each child and the arrangements in place to protect them. Where there are safeguarding concerns

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Recommendations

for a child, their placement plan, agreed between the home and their placing authority, must include details of the steps the home will take to manage any assessed risks on a day-to-day basis. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 42 paragraph 9.5) This includes ensuring that relevant staff have access to child protection conference and core group minutes.  All staff in a care role, including external agency or bank staff, must have the qualification in regulation 32(4) within the relevant timescale listed in regulation 32(5). The registered person may extend the time period if the member of staff hasn’t worked in the role for a prolonged period, such as sick leave or maternity leave, or if it is not reasonable to expect the member of staff to complete in this timescale due to the nature of the hours they work. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 53 paragraph 10.12)

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Recommendations

In particular, the registered manager should ensure that all staff are enrolled on a course and achieve the required qualification by the relevant date (as specified in the Children’s Homes (England) Regulations (2015) 32(4)).

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Parents, professionals and staff spoken with during the inspection universally believed that children and young people benefited from placements with this service and gave examples of children’s and young people’s increasing confidence, enjoyment of facilities such as the sensory room, and growing acceptance of people other than family providing their care.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff working with specific children were observed to be closely following placement plans and, through this, providing consistency of care. Nevertheless, other members of the team were not always sufficiently aware of such matters as how children like to be approached. This resulted in one young person reacting briefly but adversely to a worker. The issue of how to approach the young person was known to colleagues more experienced in working with her, but this information had not been included in her placement plan. Inspection report children’s home: SC066277 5 Targets are set for children, arising from education, health and care plans, or individual education plans. Staff ask parents and the child, when possible, for their views and make their own observations too. These targets are well written, describing precisely what is sought and how workers should help children achieve them. However, few staff working

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

with a specific child could say what the child’s targets were, and records of work being done with them were sporadic. Although summary reports describe the progress of some children, and staff and managers gave examples of significant improvement, they do not ensure that records demonstrate this. It is not possible, therefore, to show children’s progress from the point of admission to the present time. The team aspires to do more to recognise children’s achievements, but pressure of work has meant plans have been put on hold.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Managers and staff focus on the quality of children’s experiences, enabling them and their families to enjoy the short breaks they have. This is facilitated well before admission, with staff making visits to family homes to find out about the child, for example how they communicate. One professional said, ‘I would always recommend the service due to the high quality of care and their work with parents.’

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff are very attentive to children. They identify the wishes and feelings of those they are looking after, whether this is through conversation, use of signs and symbols or observation. The inspector saw workers being very attuned to the mood and non-verbal communication of children and responding appropriately. Liaison with other professionals and parents also helps to find out what children enjoy in other settings and staff will replicate this whenever possible. Children’s experiences are substantially enhanced as a result.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff are skilled at engaging with children, whether this is to provide play opportunities or to help children remain calm when feeling anxious. They make the most of the outdoor and indoor space to do this. As one parent said, ‘The facilities and the things they do are excellent.’

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Managers pay close attention to ensuring that the environment is safe and have taken steps to reduce the potential for children to cause physical damage, which could put themselves at risk or spoil other children’s appreciation of a homely setting.

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

Managers’ use of a group assessment tool, which identifies the potential impact of newly referred children on those already using the service, has been very successful in ensuring the safe transitions of children moving into the service. Managers have devised, but are yet to implement, a new risk assessment to provide a clear record of how they have considered the needs of newly referred children and any relevant risks. Together, they provide a comprehensive consideration of all aspects of non-urgent admissions.

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

A change to the service’s statement of purpose has ensured that any emergency admission is now compliant with the statement. Careful consideration has been given to how managers and staff at the home can accommodate the needs and potential risks Inspection report children’s home: SC066277 6 posed by a child needing such a placement, balancing them against the impact on existing users of the service (which may require bookings to be cancelled).

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

Staff diligently record all marks and injuries seen on children, which helps in the investigation of how children may hurt themselves, the effect of ill-fitting apparatus or harm from others. However, it is not always clear what is made of the information gathered or what has been done with it if anything.

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

Professionals spoken with during the inspection were complimentary about the contribution staff made to the multi-disciplinary safeguarding of children. This included reporting concerns, and verbal and written contributions to child protection conferences, core groups or child in need meetings. Although attendance was reported to be very high, case files rarely had minutes of those meetings. Moreover, placement plans and risk assessments give scant guidance to staff on concerns or the signs and symptoms to be aware of. Despite this, staff knew the specific risks relating to the children and young people they were working with and what they would do if a concern arose.

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

Parents and professionals alike commented favourably how staff assiduously ensure that they safely administer children’s medication and move them carefully, using appropriate equipment. This is a result of knowing both the proper procedures to follow and the individual needs of the children. One professional said, ‘I feel confident staff know what they are doing [to keep a child safe] as they show a really good understanding of him.’

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

Managers and staff work hard to have a ‘positive approach to negative behaviour’, for example responding to unwanted conduct by engaging children in something more constructive that they enjoy, and giving rewards for good behaviour rather than sanctions for that which is poor.

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

High ratios of staff, particularly for those children assessed as needing more supervision, means that physical interventions, episodes of going missing from home or risk of exploitation are very low or absent while children are using the service.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: requires improvement to be good

The home has had an interim manager from another of the provider’s homes for several months, covering the short-break service in the absence of the registered manager. The interim manager is based at the home two days a week and an acting deputy manager has been assisting her. Staff said they have been well supported over this period but there have been instances of confusion over who can make day-to-day decisions when neither are available. These have subsequently been clarified.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: requires improvement to be good

The service has found it hard to recruit over the same period, leading to existing staff members feeling ‘stretched’ and occasionally anxious as to whether there will be enough workers on shifts. Rosters show that there have been sufficient staff to meet the needs of children, which has been achieved by staff doing overtime or managers covering. Stays have sometimes been cancelled, occasionally at very short notice, which has had a detrimental, but unavoidable, impact on families. Inspection report children’s home: SC066277 7 In the period since the last inspection, two other short-break services run by the authority have closed and several affected children transferred here. This presented an enormous logistical challenge, overlaid by apprehension felt by the many families and the workers. Managers and staff never lost focus on the needs of the children involved and did their utmost to ensure that transitions were as smooth as possible, within tight

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: requires improvement to be good

deadlines. For the great majority of families, this has been a successful process.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: requires improvement to be good

The service has produced revised statements of purpose, reviews of the quality of care and notified Ofsted of serious events and has responded to reports by the independent person. However, the timeliness of sending these to Ofsted has been unsatisfactory on several occasions.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: requires improvement to be good

Managers and staff have put a great deal of thought and effort into gathering the views and feelings of children and have acted on these to enhance children’s experience of the service. A particularly good example is how a young person’s unhappiness that workers could not get play equipment to work for him was dealt with as a complaint. This resulted in staff being given guidance on how to use the equipment to avoid a recurrence, showing him that his enjoyment of short breaks was important to them. Unfortunately, the children’s complaints policy that underpins this excellent approach could not be found.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: requires improvement to be good

Complaints by adults are recorded in a log, but this does not give sufficient detail about the process followed. This meant that there was confusion, in one instance, about the circumstances leading to the complaint, whether or not a complainant was satisfied and no copy of a formal letter about an outcome was available.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: requires improvement to be good

Not all staff have obtained the level of training required for residential workers within statutory timescales. The acting deputy manager had become aware of this but has not had the opportunity to address the issue, due to other priorities. Nevertheless, the team is highly regarded by colleagues in other agencies, one of whom said, ‘It is a real bonus to have trained professionals helping these families.’ Inspection report children’s home: SC066277 8

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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: SC066277 9

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Hampshire County Council

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: The Castle, Winchester, Hampshire SO23 8UG

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Inspector

Chris Peel, social care inspector Inspection report children’s home: SC066277 10 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

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Inspector

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