Children's home run by Bolton Metropolitan Borough Council in Bolton

Inspection report children’s home: SC067052 1 SC067052 Registered provider: Bolton Metropolitan 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 is a local authority children’s home. It is registered to provide care and accommodation for up to four young people who may have emotional and/or behavioural and/or learning difficulties.

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Information about this children’s home

The manager was registered by Ofsted in April 2017. She is an experienced social care professional and is currently working towards the relevant management qualification.

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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 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: requires improvement to be good

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good

Enforcement action since last inspection: none Inspection report children’s home: SC067052 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

18/07/2017 Full Requires improvement to be good 02/02/2017 Interim Sustained effectiveness 01/06/2016 Full Good 05/01/2016 Interim Sustained effectiveness Inspection report children’s home: SC067052 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. 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)) This specifically relates to offering admission only to children whose needs have been carefully considered. The impact of these admissions on children living in the home must also be evaluated and carefully risk assessed. 30/11/2018

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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 revision and send HMCI a copy of the revised statement within 28 days of the revision. (Regulation 16 (3)(a)(b)) 30/11/2018

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must ensure that an independent person visits the children’s home at least once each month. When the independent person is carrying out a visit, the registered person must help the independent person, if they consent, to interview in private such of the children, their parents and relatives, as the independent person requires. The independent person must provide a copy of the independent person’s report to HMCI. (Regulation 44 (1)(2)(a)(7)) 30/11/2018

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Positive relationships between staff and children support children to engage in education and social activities and with specialist services. This enables children to make good progress from their starting points. Inspection report children’s home: SC067052 4 Children have experienced periods of change and unsettlement after children have been placed in the home inappropriately. The manager reported in her matching and impact assessment process that these placements were not suitable. However, decision-making above her, meant that these placements were made. The manager recognised that, following the admission of these children, risk-taking behaviour and unsettlement in the home increased. The manager identified that this was unacceptable and took suitable action to address this. Since then, two children have moved out, and the remaining children’s experiences and progress have improved greatly. Children are now benefiting

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

from improved relationships with each other, staff and the local community, and police involvement has reduced.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children are supported to maintain their sense of identity and a sense of community as staff encourage and support children to maintain positive links with their families and friends. Improved family relationships for some children have supported them to return home to their families.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children are supported and encouraged to maintain positive links with the local community and their friends who are welcomed into the home. Children confirmed that they enjoy a range of social activities linked to their interests and hobbies and have benefited from a number of interesting and exciting day trips out.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children are encouraged to share their views through regular key working sessions, monthly children’s meetings, ‘my views’ and ‘hope, aims and aspirations’ sessions. Children use these opportunities to share their thoughts and feelings, which makes sure that individuals remain central to care planning.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Child-focused placement plans are now in place, which children understand and work with well.

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

Safeguarding arrangements have improved since the last inspection. The manager now ensures that all allegations and complaints are recorded and investigated fully.

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

The manager is risk aware and is proactive in addressing the risk-taking behaviour of children. The work that the manager and staff have undertaken with the local police officers, community neighbourhood team, neighbours and children has been effective in managing and reducing the numbers of community incidents that the children had been involved in. The manager was proactive in seeking support from the community neighbourhood team to ensure that closed-circuit television (CCTV) was fitted to the street lamp outside the home. This action has disrupted the behaviours of the youths in the area and has acted as a deterrent to keep them away from the home. This has been successful in reducing the number of anti-social incidents near the home. Inspection report children’s home: SC067052 5 Children feel safe, supported and confident to raise any issues or concerns as and when they arise. Children are aware of the complaints procedure and use this when required.

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

Children are aware of the rules and boundaries of the home, especially with regard to smoking. Children know that this is not tolerated and agree that the sanctions imposed for this behaviour are fair and necessary to keep everyone safe.

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

Staff use restorative discussions and sessions to help children to reflect on their behaviours, to take responsibility for their actions and to make amends where their behaviours have affected others. Reports show that when restorative sessions have taken place during this period, some children have engaged in the process and have reflected on their behaviours and shown remorse for their actions. The manager accepts that this approach does not work for all children and is currently exploring alternative approaches.

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

The manager has improved the systems for monitoring, recording and addressing incidents of bullying. Staff are acutely aware of the potential for conflict between the children in the home and take suitable steps to address this with children. Staff advocate and support children in escalating their concerns with independent agencies as and when children request this.

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

When children engage in high risk-taking behaviour such as fire setting, the manager is proactive in seeking out support and services from other agencies, such as the fire service. An external fire safety service works well with children, provides staff training and thorough monitoring and review of the home’s fire risk assessments. This support and guidance help to promote the safety and well-being of children and staff in the home.

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

Staff work well together to implement and maintain consistent boundaries, which provide children with a sense of stability, routine and direction. The staff continue to promote positive behaviour, with routines and boundaries, and de-escalate incidents before they escalate to physical intervention, to ensure that everybody is safe. On the rare occasion when physical interventions are used, these are used appropriately by suitably trained staff.

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

The number of recorded missing from home incidents is extremely high. This is because the manager and staff report children as missing in line with the local authority agreed care plans. The management team is reviewing the care plans with children’s social workers with the aim of reducing the numbers of reported incidents. The work that the manager and staff had completed with children, social workers and the community police has reduced the number of missing from home incidents since July 2018.

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

The recruitment, selection, training and monitoring process for new staff is thorough and effective in keeping children safe, as safer recruitment practice is followed. Inspection report children’s home: SC067052 6

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The manager has responded quickly and appropriately to the changing and increasing risks and needs of children by addressing the behaviour with each child. The manager and staff have worked tirelessly with children, social workers, police, the emotional health worker and other agencies to ensure that risks can be managed as effectively as possible, while trying to maintain children’s placements. The manager identifies that some children’s behaviours have been difficult to manage. However, the manager is committed to providing children with placement stability, through a consistent and regular staff team. This helps children to manage their behaviours more effectively, in order that the home does not have to move children on.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Changes to the senior management team have assisted the manager in progressing the service. Communication processes in the home have improved so that the new senior management team in the organisation is quickly informed of any significant events. This enhances children’s safety as any necessary meetings or investigations are undertaken promptly, and additional support services are accessed quickly.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Recording and monitoring systems and processes have improved to ensure that the manager and senior management team have a clear understanding of what is working well for children in the home. Senior managers accept that the placements for some children have been inappropriate. They have given assurances that improved matching processes will prevent this from occurring in the future.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Staff enjoy their work and are complimentary about the support and guidance they receive. Regular staff meetings, supervision, appraisals and training opportunities ensure that staff are supported well to meet the needs of children.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The manager and staff work very well with children’s families, social workers, health and education colleagues and specialist services to ensure that they meet the needs of children. All professionals and parents spoken to during the inspection were extremely complimentary about the care and support given by staff.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The manager ensures that the home is run in line with the aims and objectives of the home’s statement of purpose. The statement of purpose and children’s guide provide good information about the home’s aims and objectives for those who use the home. While this document ensures that stakeholders are clear about what service they can expect to receive, this is not kept up to date following staff changes. Nor is it provided to HMCI as required by regulation.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The internal and external monitoring systems to support the manager in improving the services for children are, on the whole, effective. Monthly independent oversight brings additional rigor and scrutiny and supports the manager with identifying areas for ongoing development. However, the independent visitor does not routinely seek the views of parents and carers in their evaluation of the service. Furthermore, the Inspection report children’s home: SC067052 7 authority’s processes to ensure that HMCI receives a copy of this report are ineffective. Thus, the last monitoring report that HMCI received for this home was that of 30 May 2018.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The manager has suitably addressed five of the six requirements and all of the recommendations made at the last inspection. One requirement, regarding the suitable matching of children’s placement, has not been suitably met and has been re-issued.

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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: SC067052 8

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Children’s home details

Registered provider : Bolton Metropolitan Borough Council

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: Town Hall, Victoria Square, PO Box 29, Bolton BL1 1RU

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Children’s home details

Responsible individual: Bernadette Brown

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Inspectors

Janine Shortman-Thomas, social care inspector Sarah Oldham, social care inspector Inspection report children’s home: SC067052 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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Inspectors

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Inspectors

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Inspectors

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