Children's home run by Archways Care Limited in Wolverhampton

Inspection report children’s home: SC429918 1 SC429918 Registered provider: Archways Care Limited

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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 part of a private organisation that runs three children’s homes and a fostering agency. The home has places for up to four young people. The statement of purpose says that young people will be supported in their development, health and education. It says that they will be consulted about decisions about their future, about their care and about the running of the home.

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Information about this children’s home

The registered manager left in April 2018 and his replacement has been in post for about eight weeks. The new manager is qualified, experienced and currently going through the process of Ofsted registration.

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Overall experiences and progress of

children and young people, taking into account

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requires improvement to be good

How well children and young people are helped and protected requires improvement to be good

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requires improvement to be good

The effectiveness of leaders and managers requires improvement to be good

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requires improvement to be good

The children’s home is not yet delivering good help and care for children and young people. However, there are no serious or widespread failures that result in their welfare not being safeguarded or promoted.

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requires improvement to be good

Date of last inspection: 5 February 2018

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requires improvement to be good

Overall judgement at last inspection: good

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requires improvement to be good

Enforcement action since last inspection: none Inspection report children’s home: SC429918 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

05/02/2018 Full Good 29/03/2017 Interim Improved effectiveness 27/04/2016 Full Good 26/02/2016 Interim Sustained effectiveness Inspection report children’s home: SC429918 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 quality and purpose of care standard is that children receive care from staff who understand the children’s home’s overall aims and the outcomes it seeks to achieve for children; use this understanding to deliver care that meets children’s needs and support them to fulfil their potential.

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Requirement Due date

In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to provide personalised care that meets each child’s needs, as recorded in the child’s relevant plans, taking account of the child’s background; help each child to understand and manage the impact of any experience of abuse or neglect; help each child to develop resilience and skills that prepare the child to return home, to live in a new placement or to live independently as an adult. (Regulation 6 (1)(a)(b)(2)(b)(iv)(v)(vi)) 28/09/2018

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Requirement Due date

The enjoyment and achievement standard is that children take part in and benefit from a variety of activities that meet their needs and develop and reflect their creative, cultural, intellectual, physical and social interests and skills.

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Requirement Due date

In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to ensure that staff help each child to participate in activities that the child enjoys and which meet and expand the child’s interests and preferences. (Regulation 9 (1)(2)(a)(ii)) 28/09/2018

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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 the home’s day-to-day care is arranged and delivered so as to keep each child safe and to protect each child effectively from harm. (Regulation 12 (1)(2)(b)) 28/09/2018

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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 28/09/2018 Inspection report children’s home: SC429918 4 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 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; ensure that staff work as a team where appropriate; ensure that staff have the experience, qualifications and skills to meet the needs of each child; ensure that the home’s workforce provides continuity of care to each child. (Regulation 13 (1)(a)(b)(2)(a)(b)(c)(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 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 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. (Regulation 13 (1)(a)(b)(2)(f))

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Requirement Due date

This is with particular regard to evaluating missing incidents and behaviour incidents more effectively to identify what works and what does not, and to identify any training needs among staff. 28/09/2018

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Requirement Due date

An individual who works in the home in a care role has the appropriate qualification if, by the relevant date, the individual has attained the Level 3 Diploma for Residential Childcare (England) ("the Level 3 Diploma"); or a qualification which the registered person considers to be equivalent to the Level 3 Diploma. The relevant date is, 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 a home. (Regulation 32 (4)(a)(b)(5)(a)) 28/09/2018

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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. In order to complete a quality of care review the registered person must establish and maintain a system for monitoring, reviewing and evaluating the feedback and opinions of children about the children’s home, its facilities and the quality of care they receive in it. (Regulation 45 (1)(2)(b)) 28/09/2018 Inspection report children’s home: SC429918 5 In particular, the manager should make an effort to talk to young people regularly about their relationships with staff and how well they are helped to overcome their difficulties and make progress. The manager should use young people’s opinions to evaluate what practices work and to ascertain any gaps in the training, skills and knowledge of staff.

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Recommendations

 Just as in a family home, children should be able to access all shared areas of their home unless there are specific reasons why this would not meet a child’s needs. Limits on privacy and access may only be put in place to safeguard each child in the home (Regulation 21(c)(i)). Any decisions to limit a child’s access to any area of the home and any modifications to the environment of the home must only be made where this is intended to safeguard the child’s welfare. All decisions should be informed by a rigorous assessment of that individual child’s needs, be properly recorded and be kept under regular review. (‘Guide to the children’s homes’ regulations, including the quality standards’, page 15, paragraph 3.10) This pertains specifically to the use of bedroom door alarms and young people’s access to the downstairs toilet, clean hand towels, cleaning materials and usable bedroom furniture.  Staff should have the skills and confidence to communicate easily and understand

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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)  Children should be encouraged by staff to see the home’s records as ‘living documents’ supporting them to view and contribute to the record in a way that reflects their voice on a regular basis. (‘Guide to the children’s homes’ regulations, including the quality standards’, page 58, paragraph 11.19)

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Recommendations

This is with particular respect to writing records and collecting memorabilia alongside young people; making sure that all these are helpful, informative, understandable and reassuring to young people.  Appropriate forms of contact should be promoted and facilitated for each child, including where appropriate visits to the child in the home; visits by the child to relatives and/or friends; letters, emails and texts; use of social media and other forms of contact via the internet. (‘Guide to the children’s homes’ regulations, including the quality standards’, page 58, paragraph 11.18) This is with particular respect to doing all that a good parent would do, Inspection report children’s home: SC429918 6 particularly when young people are having free time and/or going missing, to find out whether friendships are supportive or harmful and then helping young people to develop safe relationships and improved self-awareness.

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improvement to be good

Over recent months, staff and managers have not provided young people with skilled, well-planned, nurturing or consistent good-quality care. Staff do not prioritise spending time with young people to help to build helpful and positive relationships. Consequently, young people prefer to spend as much time away from staff and the home as they can.

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improvement to be good

A few members of staff do try to make time during their shifts to play games or sports with young people. These staff recognise a link between physical health and emotional well-being. However, staff often spend too much time in the office completing records that young people do not want to read. Despite making these records, staff do not frequently read what other staff have written. They do not make or take up opportunities to have meaningful conversations with young people that advise, help and support young people to make progress.

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improvement to be good

Staff hold some individual planned discussions with young people about areas in which young people need help. However, ongoing, coordinated work is not carried out. Staff do not give young people useful information about things that they have discussed. Young people therefore do not understand or manage well the impact of their past experiences.

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improvement to be good

Staff do not make sure that planned activities and holidays happen. They do not work together or plan and enthuse young people in advance. Staff do not collect memorabilia and put memories albums together with young people to celebrate and consolidate their good times and achievements. These shortfalls hold back young people’s sense of belonging and their progress and experiences.

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improvement to be good

Staff and the organisation’s education coordinator work hard to help young people attend and achieve in education. They liaise well with young people’s schools and colleges and help them achieve a good routine of attendance, including helping with sitting exams.

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improvement to be good

Staff keep the home clean and tidy, but do not create a warm and homely atmosphere. For example, staff have not replaced one young person’s broken wardrobe in a timely way. Routines such as locking the downstairs toilet, using bedroom door alarms at night and keeping spare towels and cleaning products out of young people’s reach are not regularly reviewed by the staff. This means that staff do not know whether such routines really ensure the safety and welfare of young people. Inspection report children’s home: SC429918 7

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improvement to be good

Staff work with young people’s social workers and the police, to find young people if they go missing from the home. They try to ensure that young people receive a return home interview when they come back to the home. However, staff do not engage warmly or proactively enough with young people during periods when they are away from the home, or when they return home from being missing. Staff do not find out enough about young people’s friends and contacts to know whether they are safe. They do not talk to young people enough about their relationships to have a clear agenda of what help and support young people need to safeguard and prepare them for a safe adult life.

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improvement to be good

During a few serious incidents, young people have assaulted some staff. One of these incidents resulted in one young person being arrested by the police and then discharged from the home. Staff and managers do not intelligently review the strategies that they use to manage young people’s behaviour. They do not look far enough back at what rules or staff responses triggered incidents. This means that staff and managers are unclear whether they help or hinder young people’s progress towards good behaviour.

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improvement to be good

Staff sometimes use long-running fines when young people cause damage. They are not clear about the purpose of, or helpfulness of, various rules, for example about access to the computer, television and lighters. Staff rarely use restorative approaches. For example, when staff and/or young people are hurt during incidents, they do not talk together about it afterwards to restore and rebuild relationships and learn safer responses to difficulties.

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

The home’s new manager has not yet spent enough time with young people and staff. He has not found out young people’s views and has not tackled weak and poor care planning. He has not evaluated what behaviour management practices work.

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

Young people do not always know who will be looking after them each day. Young people have seen six members of staff leave in the six months since the last inspection. Various relief staff from other homes and six new staff provide adequate care and in sufficient numbers. However, these changes in staff make it hard for young people to form secure relationships with staff they have grown to trust and respect.

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

There are only four members of staff, including the deputy manager, who hold the level 3 diplomas in residential childcare. One member of staff leading shifts has been working for over two years and has only recently started the required residential childcare diploma. Staff do not have the experience, qualifications and skills to meet the needs of young people to a consistently good standard.

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

Staff are not working effectively as a team. They are poorly briefed about one another’s work with young people. Some staff lack the confidence and motivation to communicate Inspection report children’s home: SC429918 8 easily with young people. This means that young people do not get the help that they need to make good progress.

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

The manager is not presently ensuring that the home operates in accordance with the statement of purpose. For example, some young people do not feel they are treated as an individual and a partner in the planning of their care. Similarly, some staff members do not appear genuinely motivated to see young people make progress. The statement of purpose also outlines that there is use of therapists and an emphasis on gardening. Neither of these has been happening in the last six months.

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

The new manager is aware of the shortfalls in care practice and is committed to improving the home through establishing a well-trained staff team. Recently, he has focused on staff recruitment and improving management tools and documents. He has also been preparing the unoccupied bedrooms for new young people.

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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: SC429918 9

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Archways Care Limited

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: Hill Farm, Shawbury Lane, Shustoke, Coleshill, Birmingham B46 2RN

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Children’s home details

Responsible individual: Christopher Aristidou

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Children’s home details

Registered manager: Gary Taylor (in post, applying for registration)

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Inspector

Rachel Britten, social care inspector Inspection report children’s home: SC429918 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 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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