Children's Home run by Channels and Choices Limited in Kent

Inspection report children’s home: SC408584 1 SC408584 Registered provider: Channels and Choices 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 children’s home is owned by a private organisation. It is registered to provide care and accommodation for three children who have emotional and behavioural needs.

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Information about this children’s home

The manager was registered with Ofsted on 23 November 2015.

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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 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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good

Overall judgement at last inspection: good Inspection report children’s home: SC408584 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

03/10/2017 Full Good 10/08/2016 Full Outstanding 22/02/2016 Interim Sustained effectiveness 02/11/2015 Full Good Inspection report children’s home: SC408584 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

12. (1) 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

(2) In particular, the standard requires the registered person to ensure—

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Requirement Due date

(i) assess whether each child is at risk of harm, taking into account information in the child’s relevant plans, and, if necessary, make arrangements to reduce the risk of any harm to the child. (Regulation 12(2)(a)(i))

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Requirement Due date

Specifically, risk assessments for children must be individualised. 14/09/2018

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Requirement Due date

The leadership and management standard is that the registered person use monitoring and review systems to make continuous improvements in the quality of care provided in the home. (Regulation 13(2)(h)) 14/09/2018

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Requirement Due date

The children’s case records standard is that the registered person must ensure the children’s records are kept up to date, signed, and dated by the author of each entry. (Regulation 36(1)(b)(c))

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Requirement Due date

Specifically, ensure that records are factual, meeting minutes include attendees, actions and who is responsible, and files are well ordered containing information about only the individual child. 14/09/2018

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Inspection report children’s home: SC408584 4 Children’s experiences at this home are predominantly good. For some, risk-taking behaviour reached unsafe levels that resulted in a child moving on. Other children, who have close relationships with staff, have developed resilience and made progress.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff encourage the children to learn new skills. Children participate in budgeting, shopping, preparing meals and helping around the home. Education is positively promoted, and there is effective communication between the children’s schools and the home.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children receive specialist help. Staff understand the home’s ethos and encourage children to accept therapeutic support. Staff use therapeutic thinking time to reflect on the care they give children.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children are held in mind by staff. Staff write notes and letters to children to demonstrate this, and, as a result, some children’s resilience has been strengthened. Staff facilitate visits with children’s families. During the inspection, one child was ‘face timing’ his mother and cooking the evening meal under her guidance. This is a good example of the staff’s emphasis on promoting family relationships. A parent commented, ‘The staff keep me informed. As a mum, I want to know how my son is doing.’

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

Some children have developed positive relationships with staff. They described feeling safe and well supported. On occasions, staff’s focus on managing crisis behaviours distracted their attention from the other children, who missed activities.

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

Risk assessments continue to be generic. Although some work has been undertaken to individualise them, they still do not clearly state specific risks or provide strategies for staff to follow.

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

Leaders and managers have failed to analyse records of missing incidents to identify patterns and trends. This reduces the opportunity to understand behaviour and implement effective strategies to manage it. Despite one child’s missing episodes escalating, a member of staff left the child unsupervised during an off-site activity, which resulted in the child going missing again. Learning from incidents and events is not evidenced in the children’s records, and opportunities to learn are missed.

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

When allegations have been made, they have been reported to the designated officer. Staff know what to report, to whom and when. However, record-keeping is inconsistent. Records sampled varied in quality and clarity. Some were not dated or signed. Records of meetings fail to evidence attendees or actions agreed.

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

The registered manager is suitably qualified and experienced. Social workers and parents commented positively on her dedication to the children and her clear communication with them. A social worker commented, ‘The manager has been responsive to changing Inspection report children’s home: SC408584 5 care plans. Nothing is too much trouble.’

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

Supervision for staff is regular, and decisions and agreed actions are clear. Where issues around staff practice have been identified, supervision records evidence that they have been addressed. Appraisals are conducted annually and provide staff with clear goals to work towards. Consequently, staff are clear about managers’ expectations.

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

Development of the home has been slow. Leaders and managers attribute this to having to focus on crisis behaviour. However, managers fail to demonstrate lessons learned. Managerial thinking and decision-making are not evidenced in records. Nor is learning from experiences. In discussions, the manager demonstrates that she has the skills for critical thinking. However, she misses the opportunity to demonstrate this clearly through the records.

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

Managerial monitoring is not fully effective. Some records, such those recording physical interventions, have improved. However, records are not sufficiently clear to allow managers to readily evaluate them. Consequently, key information is missed. In contrast, most serious incident records sampled were clear and show decision-making and evaluation.

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

Advice from a fire expert in January 2018 was not followed promptly. Remedial action to reduce the risk rating of the home from medium to low was not undertaken, despite the registered manager’s requests. However, action was taken during the inspection to rectify this.

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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: SC408584 6

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Channels and Choices Limited

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: 31 St Georges Place, Canterbury, Kent CT1 1XD

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Children’s home details

Responsible individual: Martin Scholfield

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Inspectors

Sarah Olliver, social care inspector Tracey Scott, social care inspector Inspection report children’s home: SC408584 7 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

T: 0300 123 1231 Textphone: 0161 618 8524 E: enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk W: http://www.gov.uk/ofsted

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