Children's home run by Warrington Borough Council

Inspection report children’s home: SC444792 1 SC444792 Registered provider: Warrington Borough Council Full inspection Inspected under the social care common inspection framework

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Information about this children’s home

This children’s home is run by a local authority. It is registered for two young people who may have emotional and/or behavioural difficulties.

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Information about this children’s home

There is currently no registered manager in this home.

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Information about this children’s home

Inspection dates: 10 to 11 September 2018

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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

Date of last inspection: 12 December 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: SC444792 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

12/12/2017 Full Good 15/03/2017 Interim Sustained effectiveness 29/11/2016 Full Outstanding 17/03/2016 Interim Declined in effectiveness Inspection report children’s home: SC444792 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 In order to meet the quality and purpose of care standard the registered provider must ensure that staff—

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Requirement Due date

ensure that the premises used for the purposes of the home are designed and furnished so as to meet the needs of each child. (Regulation 6 (2)(c). 24/10/2018

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must ensure that an individual who works in the home in a care role has attained the appropriate qualification, the Level 3 Diploma for Residential Childcare (England), by the relevant date. 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 the home. (Regulation 32 (4)(5)). 24/10/2018

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must ensure that all employees— receive practice-based supervision by a person with appropriate experience. (Regulation 33 (4)(b)) 24/10/2018

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Recommendations

 Evaluation of missing incidents should be undertaken to identify any gaps in training, skills or knowledge for staff or to record or retain evidence of what worked well. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 46, paragraph 9.31)  Each home must have clear arrangements in place to maintain effective management when the manager is absent, off duty or on leave. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 54, paragraph 10.20)  Any individual appointed to carry out visits to the home as an independent person must make a rigorous and impartial assessment of the home’s arrangements for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 65, paragraph 15.5) Inspection report children’s home: SC444792 4  When a child returns to the home after being missing from care or away from the

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Recommendations

home without permission, the responsible local authority must provide an opportunity for the child to have an independent return interview. Homes should take account of information provided by such interviews when assessing risks and putting arrangements in place to protect each child. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 45, paragraph 9.30)  Staff should be familiar with the home’s policies on record-keeping and understand the importance of careful, objective and clear recording. Information about the child must always be recorded in a way that will be helpful to the child. With reference to missing from home recording. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 62, paragraph 14.4)

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children and young people make good progress in all areas of their development due to the well-planned care and support that they receive from staff.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff ensure that children and young people are engaged in education or further education. Staff promote children’s and young people’s engagement with education through good communication with school staff and by providing routines and boundaries in the home. As a result, the children and young people have excellent school attendance and have achieved educational qualifications.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Positive relationships were observed between staff and children and young people during the inspection. Children and young people like living in the home and spoke positively about staff. Children’s and young people’s views are integral to the running of the home and as a result they say that they feel listened to.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff encourage children and young people to engage in a wide range of activities in the local community, such as attending youth groups or the local gym. By attending these activities, children and young people are meaningfully engaged in their spare time, which helps them to develop social relationships and to grow in confidence.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff are proactive in encouraging children and young people to have friendships outside the home, which supports children’s and young people’s social development. For example, during the inspection, one child’s friend called at the home and spent time with the child and staff.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The home looks and feels like a family home. There are photos of children and young people enjoying different activities and their certificates of achievement are displayed in the home. However, when young people cause damage to the home, repairs are not always carried out in a timely manner, which does not ensure a welcoming, homely environment for children and young people. Inspection report children’s home: SC444792 5 Staff prepare children and young people well for independence. They ensure that children and young people have independence plans in place and that these are reviewed regularly to ensure that children and young people are developing the skills that they will require for adulthood.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Transitions are well planned. Staff ensure that children and young people visit the home before moving in and that staff have all the required information to ensure that they can provide well-planned care. The acting manager challenges the local authority to ensure that transitions into the home are planned and child-focused.

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

Staff understand children’s and young people’s known risks and vulnerabilities. They ensure that there are individual risk assessments in place which identify children’s and young people’s known risks and actions for staff to follow to minimise any risk. Risk assessments are regularly reviewed and discussed at team meetings to ensure that staff are working consistently and have the most up-to-date information on children and young people.

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

The home is very settled with few significant incidents and there have been no restraints since the last inspection. For some children and young people, there has been a reduction in restraint from previous placements. Staff promote positive behaviour using praise and rewards and staff work consistently as a team in this approach. Consequences are well thought out and proportionate, and the manager reviews rewards and consequences regularly for effectiveness.

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

There has been a reduction in missing from home incidents recently. When children and young people do go missing, staff take effective action by reporting them missing to the police. Staff’s recording of missing from home incidents is poor and does not always demonstrate how staff have followed individual missing from home risk assessments. The manager does not sufficiently evaluate missing from home incidents to identify patterns or any gaps in training, skills or knowledge for staff or to record or retain evidence of what worked well. It is also not clear whether independent return interviews have been carried out.

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

Staff spend time with children and young people educating them on risks associated with mobile phone use and helping them to understand how to keep themselves safe when they are out in the community. This work helps children and young people to keep safe.

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

Staff are familiar with the safeguarding process and as a result they follow the correct procedures when a young person makes an allegation. Staff work well with other professionals to ensure that children and young people are kept safe. Professionals are complimentary about the level of communication from the staff team.

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

There has been a delay in the completion of tasks in the fire risk assessment. However, the acting manager has taken action to address this and there is a plan in place for this Inspection report children’s home: SC444792 6 work to be completed.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

There has been some instability in the leadership and management arrangements in the home. The registered manager has resigned from their post after a period of being absent from work. Following this, there was a period when there was no manager in the home, which resulted in a lack of management oversight and guidance for staff. This does not demonstrate how the organisation ensured that there were clear arrangements in place to maintain effective management when the manager was absent.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Since June 2018, there has been an interim manager and a deputy manager in post. Both of whom present as child-focused and committed to ensuring that children and young people receive the best quality of care. They have a good understanding of the progress that children and young people are making and take effective action when shortfalls in staff practice are identified.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The manager has good internal monitoring systems in place. The manager and the deputy manager are currently undertaking fortnightly monitoring. As a result, they have a good understanding of the home’s strengths and areas for development and in the short time that she has been in post she has started to make some improvements to the home.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

External monitoring continues to be less robust. There is considerable variation in the quality of independent visitor reports. Some reports lack evaluation and an adequate assessment of the home arrangements for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people. Furthermore, they lack the level of scrutiny required to support the manager in identifying areas of improvement in the home.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The home is staffed by a stable, resilient and committed staff team, and it is testament to the staff team that the instability in leadership and management has not impacted on the quality of care that children and young people receive. Staff like working in the home and feel supported by the new management team. All staff are up to date with mandatory training.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Staff, including the manager, do not always receive regular supervision in line with the company’s policy. This is due to the lack of a permanent manager in the home. However, the interim manager has taken action to address this since she has been in post.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

One member of staff has not been able to complete the level 3 diploma within the required timescale. A lack of oversight of staff training has meant that this had not been identified prior to the inspection. Inspection report children’s home: SC444792 7

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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: SC444792 8

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Warrington Borough Council

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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: SC444792 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 looked after children, safeguarding and child protection.

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Inspector

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Inspector

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Inspector

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