Children's home run by New Horizons (Stockport) Limited in Stockport

Inspection report children’s home: SC386837 1 SC386837 Registered provider: New Horizons (Stockport) 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

This privately owned home is registered to care for up to two children who may have emotional and/or behavioural difficulties and/or learning disabilities.

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Information about this children’s home

The registered manager has been in post since 20 October 2008.

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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

Date of last inspection: 11 October 2017

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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: SC386837 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

11/10/2017 Full Good 06/01/2017 Interim Sustained effectiveness 01/08/2016 Full Good 02/02/2016 Interim Improved effectiveness Inspection report children’s home: SC386837 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 registered person must make arrangements for the handling, recording, safekeeping, safe administration and disposal of medicines received into the children’s home. (Regulation 23 (1)) This particularly refers to the registered provider ensuring that medication is handled in a hygienic manner that reduces the potential for any cross contamination. 30/09/2018

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must ensure that the requirements of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 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)). This particularly refers to ensuring that fire drills are completed within 24 hours of the arrival of new young people or staff to the home as required by the home’s fire safety risk assessment. 30/09/2018

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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; and have their performance and fitness to perform their roles appraised at least once every year. (Regulation 33 (4)(b)(c)) 30/09/2018

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Young people benefit from warm and nurturing relationships with staff. These relationships are based on mutual respect. This helps young people to feel safe and secure.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff are proactive in ensuring that young people access appropriate education provision. For those young people who are not in education, staff work closely with local authorities and education partners to plan young people’s swift re-integration back into education. Inspection report children’s home: SC386837 4 Staff have a good understanding of young people’s physical and emotional health needs. Staff take the necessary steps to ensure that these needs are met. For example, staff have successfully addressed a delay in a young person receiving required input from the health authority’s young minds service.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Young people’s voices are heard and understood by staff. This is because staff are continuously involving young people in the review of their placements. For example, each month young people complete their own placement plan reviews. This provides young people with the opportunity to say what they think has gone well and what could have gone better.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff are successful at promoting contact between young people and their families. This is because staff are sensitive and considered in their approach to promoting contact. For example, staff support young people to re-establish contact with their loved ones via text messages and phone calls. This helps those young people who are anxious about family contact to increase levels of communication in a manageable and sustainable way.

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

Staff have a comprehensive understanding of young people’s vulnerabilities. Staff use this knowledge to implement personalised strategies to keep young people safe. Staff are consistent in their approach to managing risk.

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

Staff work with young people to help keep them safe in the community. For example, picture-based flow charts map out how young people are able to increase their free time or gain access to their own mobile phones. This empowers young people and ensures that they are able to make steady progress in learning to keep safe.

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

Staff implement personalised behaviour reward charts for young people in order to successfully incentivise positive behaviour. Staff’s emphasis on praising good behaviour rather than sanctioning less desirable behaviour is effective. When young people become upset or frustrated, staff are skilled in being able to de-escalate and diffuse such situations.

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

A pattern of missing incidents has been a feature of the home since the last inspection. Notwithstanding this, the actions of staff to prevent and respond to such incidents are good. Staff learn from every missing incident, collating information about young people’s peer group and patterns of movement. This ensures that when young people do go missing staff are able to work with the police to locate young people as quickly as possible.

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

Staff do not always consider hygiene and the risk of cross contamination when handling medication. Specifically, the inspector observed that staff handle medication with their bare hands and place medication on inappropriate surfaces such as used bedding. Positively, immediate remedial action was taken during the inspection to address this shortfall. Inspection report children’s home: SC386837 5

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

The registered manager is an experienced and knowledgeable leader, who leads an experienced and well-established staff team.

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

The registered manager uses both internal and external monitoring systems well, to inform her understanding of the home’s areas of strength and weaknesses. Despite this, the registered manager’s audits of fire safety arrangements have not been sufficiently robust. Specifically, although regular fire drills are completed, these are not always completed within 24 hours of the arrival of new staff or young people in line with the home’s fire safety risk assessment. In this instance, the manager’s auditing has not enabled her to identify and address shortfalls which could have impacted on the safety of young people.

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

The registered manager has not consistently ensured that all staff receive regular supervision sessions. This is a shortfall that the manager was addressing prior to the inspection. Specifically, the home’s layout has been re-configured to provide a private designated space for the manager to undertake staff supervision sessions.

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

One staff member has not had their annual appraisal within the required 12-month timescales. This is a shortfall which was identified at the previous inspection also. This does not demonstrate effective leadership.

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

Staff are successful at developing good relationships with partner agencies. Good communication between staff and stakeholders is a key aspect of this. This ensures that staff work closely with relevant agencies to promote positive outcomes for young people.

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

The registered manager has taken appropriate steps to address the requirements raised at the last inspection. Specifically, the registered manager ensures that case records are up to date. This includes maintaining records of staff debriefs after episodes of restraint and ensuring that copies of local authority care plans are on file.

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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: SC386837 6 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: SC386837 7

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: New Horizons (Stockport) Limited

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: 5 Bramhall Park Road, Bramhall, Stockport SK7 3DQ

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Inspector

Paul Robinson, social care inspector Inspection report children’s home: SC386837 8 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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