Children's home run by Warrington Borough Council

Inspection report children‟s home: SC442778 1 SC442778 Registered provider: Warrington Borough 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

This local authority home provides care and accommodation for a maximum of two young people aged eight to 18 at any one time. The home is registered under the category of caring for young people who 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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Good

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

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Good

The effectiveness of leaders and managers good

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Good

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

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Good

Overall judgement at last inspection: good

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Good

Enforcement action since last inspection: none Inspection report children‟s home: SC442778 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

30/08/2017 Full Good 22/03/2017 Interim Improved effectiveness 13/12/2016 Full Good 10/02/2016 Interim Sustained effectiveness Inspection report children‟s home: SC442778 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 meeting the quality standards, the registered person must, and must ensure that staff—

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Requirement Due date

if the registered person considers, or staff consider, a placing authority‟s or a relevant person‟s performance or response to be inadequate in relation to their role, challenge the placing authority or the relevant person to seek to ensure that each child‟s needs are met in accordance with the child‟s relevant plans.

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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

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

The registered person may only use devices for the monitoring or surveillance of children if—

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Requirement Due date

the monitoring or surveillance is for the purpose of safeguarding and promoting the welfare of the child concerned, or other children;

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Requirement Due date

the child‟s placing authority consents in writing to the monitoring or surveillance.

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must maintain records (“case records”) 21/09/2018 Inspection report children‟s home: SC442778 4 for each child which—

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Requirement Due date

include the information and documents listed in Schedule 3 in relation to each child.

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Requirement Due date

The independent person must provide a copy of the independent person‟s report to—

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Recommendations

 The registered person should plan staffing levels to ensure that they meet the needs of children and the staff can respond flexibly to unexpected events or opportunities. („Guide to the children‟s homes regulations including the quality standards‟, page 54, paragraph 10.15) This is with regard to staff lone working and the manager ensuring that staff understand the function of the out-of-hours system, which has been developed to support them when they lone work.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children and young people receive good-quality individualised care from a stable and consistent staff team. This has resulted in some children and young people making progress from their individual starting points. For some children and young people, progress is limited despite the best efforts of staff and managers.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff work well with education professionals to try to overcome children and young people‟s barriers to learning. They do this, for example, by arranging for teachers to modulate one young person‟s exams in the home to encourage her to take these. Staff try hard to engage young people in education and use creative methods to promote young people‟s engagement. Despite staff‟s efforts, education outcomes for children and young people are limited.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff work hard to build positive relationships with children and young people. They spend time with children and young people, finding out their individual interests. They use this information to inform activity planners and to engage children and young people in activities that they enjoy. For example, staff supported one young person to participate in an organised run. Inspection report children‟s home: SC442778 5 Staff develop thorough care plans for children and young people. They review and update these regularly to ensure that they contain the most up-to-date information. This assists staff to provide well-planned care.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff help children and young people learn the skills that they will need for adulthood. They do this by ensuring that each child and young person has an independence plan in place. They encourage children and young people to engage with independence work by including this on individual rewards charts. One young person has achieved the gold life skills award for independence because of this approach.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Transitions are managed well. One young person has recently moved out of the home into semi-independent living. Staff prepared and supported the young person well for this move, which ensured a positive transition out of the home.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff help children and young people maintain contact with family and people who are important to them, in line with their care plans. They supervise and facilitate contact when necessary, which ensures that children and young people can maintain contact with family in a safe way.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children and young people are supported to participate in day-to-day decisions about their lives. They are consulted in young people‟s meetings and key-worker sessions. Children and young people are listened to and know how to complain.

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improvement to be good

Staff have a good understanding of children and young people‟s known risks and vulnerabilities. They ensure that there are risk assessments in place which include clear written guidance for staff to follow to reduce any known risks. These risk assessments are routinely shared with external professionals to ensure that there is a multi-agency approach to keeping young people safe. Good risk management has resulted in a reduction in self-harming behaviour and alcohol use for some children and young people in the home. There is, however, an increase in missing from home incidents and criminal behaviour for some children, despite the risk management strategies that are in place. When children and young people go missing from home, staff work well with agencies such as the police. They follow missing from home protocols, but it is not always clear from records how staff follow children and young people‟s individual missing from home

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improvement to be good

The organisation has put an out-of-hours system in place to support staff to manage incidents when they are lone working. This has not been fully utilised by staff and some were unclear of its function. Lone working hinders staff‟s ability to search for children and young people who are missing or collect them when they are located. Inspection report children‟s home: SC442778 6 Staff work effectively with other agencies to ensure that children and young people are safe. They attend strategy meetings when necessary and professionals were complimentary about how well staff communicate with them.

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improvement to be good

Staff spend time with children and young people, helping them to understand how to keep safe. They try to educate children and young people about the risks associated with going missing and drug and alcohol use. Staff develop creative rewards systems individualised to children and young people‟s specific needs. Children and young people are consulted about what strategies will work best in managing their behaviour. As a result, these strategies are effective in promoting positive behaviour.

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improvement to be good

Not all staff understand the process that they should follow if a child or young person makes an allegation. The manager needs to ensure that staff understand the correct process to follow if an allegation is made in her absence.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The home is currently being managed by an acting manager. This is because the registered manager has taken over the management of two other homes in the organisation. The acting manager is a very experienced member of staff who was a deputy manager prior to this position.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Managers have a clear understanding of the progress that children and young people make in the home. When children and young people do not make progress, managers inform the local authority and if necessary escalate this information within the local authority to help it make decisions about placement planning.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The home is staffed by an experienced and stable team, which is proactive and committed to achieving the best outcomes for the children and young people that it is looking after. They are creative in their approach. Staff like working in the home and feel supported in their roles.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

All staff are up to date with mandatory training and have had self-harm and ligature training since the last inspection.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The manager has good internal monitoring systems in place. There is a culture of reflective practice in the home, and managers use learning from practice and significant events to improve the quality of care that children and young people receive.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The external monitoring of the home has improved since the last inspection. However, the provider does not send these reports to Ofsted in a timely manner, which hinders Ofsted‟s monitoring of the home.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The manager does not always sufficiently challenge external agencies to ensure that children and young people‟s needs are met, for example when there has been a delay in children and young people receiving a service from the child and adolescent mental Inspection report children‟s home: SC442778 7 health services.

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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: SC442778 8

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: Children‟s Services Directorate, New Town House, Buttermarket Street, Warrington, Cheshire WA1 2NJ

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Inspector

Sarah Billett, social care inspector Inspection report children‟s home: SC442778 9 achieve excellence in the care of children and young people, and in education and skills for learners of all ages. It regulates and inspects childcare and children‟s social care, and inspects the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass), schools, colleges, initial teacher training, further education and skills, adult and community learning, and education and training in prisons and other secure establishments. It assesses council children‟s services, and inspects services for children looked after, safeguarding and child protection.

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Inspector

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Inspector

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Inspector

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